Perhaps the simplest way to explain affiliate marketing is that it is a way of making money online whereby you as a publisher are rewarded for helping a business by promoting their product, service or site.
There are a number of forms of these types of promotions but in most cases they involve you as a publisher earning a commission when someone follows a link on your blog to another site where they then buy something.
Other variations on this are where you earn an amount for referring a visitor who takes some kind of action – for example when they sign up for something and give an email address, where they complete a survey, where they leave a name and address etc.
Commissions are often a percentage of a sale but can also be a fixed amount per conversion.
Conversions are generally tracked when the publisher (you) uses a link with a code only being used by you embedded into it that enables the advertiser to track where conversions come from (usually by cookies). Other times an advertiser might give a publisher a ‘coupon code’ for their readers to use that helps to track conversions.
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1.Commission Junction
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CJ provides more features than many other affiliate marketing companies. One of its most unique features is a web-based email system that allows affiliates and advertisers to correspond with each other. This makes it easy for both parties to have a means of communication without a middleman relaying the messages. Although CJ does not classify advertisers as “Premium Advertisers” they do represent large and well known businesses that are able to create more traffic through the advertisement, raising commissions.
CJ notifies its affiliates when a link and/or advertisement has expired so they can keep their website up-to-date. For affiliates who are administrators over several websites, CJ has created a simple way for you to manage your advertisements and track stats for each site individually.
Certain advertisers will offer promotions or incentives, and CJ helps you access those advertisers easily by listing them on their Get Links page. The incentives are created by the advertisers to motivate better affiliate performance. CJ provides payment options through check or direct deposit. Payment frequency is monthly and the threshold is $50 for direct deposit and $100 for check.
2.LinkShare
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BentoBox is a feature created by LinkShare that provides users with more variety in their applications, designed to increase traffic and keep customers shopping longer, thus increasing commissions. BentoBox allows publishers to create tracking links that will take customers to a product on an advertiser’s site with just the click of a button. Cookies will still be tracked and commission will still be earned, the publisher simply makes their job easier. Another BentoBox feature is the easy creation of coupons -- publishers can offer coupons from specific advertisers to promote more traffic to those sites and again, earn more commissions.
3.one Network Direct
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One of the newest additions to the oND feature family is an update of their Transaction Report Status Selection. In the past, the transaction report feature displayed only completed orders that had earned the affiliate a commission. The new update provides affiliates with status on orders placed through their site, from the first click to the shipping of the product.
oneNetworkDirect allows affiliates to create a coupon RSS feed to their websites, designed with your website traffic in mind. This feature can be customized by countries, languages and categories. The feed columns can include: start date, expiration date, coupon code, coupon title, offer description, HTML code, link URL, product name, product description and product image URLs.
For users who focus on their affiliate accounts, a great option to take advantage of is the oND Affiliate Account Community Toolbar. The toolbar allows the newest oND information to feed into your browser, a Google- powered search, hand-picked links from the oND staff, desktop alerts and a link to the RSS reader. Users are also able to take advantage of the mobile reporting which provides campaigns, revenue and statistics to download straight to your cell.
A feature that is only applicable to larger companies is the Top Achievers Program. This feature program provides incentives for affiliates generating $10,000+ in sales monthly. Affiliates receive an extra 3% on commissions, free software and toll free VIP support. We found this is a great incentive for the large businesses that oND is encouraging; however, the incentive program will not provide drive for the personal or small accounts.
4.ShareASale
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A feature we found only on ShareASale allows affiliates the opportunity to Make-A-Video. This utility allows affiliates to convert previously recorded video into creative multimedia that they will then be able to use on their website. Make-A-Video permits users to add “Cue Points” which will promote relevant product information to their viewers.
ShareASale’s searchable Deals Database is a valuable resource for affiliates to find promotional offers and lucrative commissions. After selecting products and deals affiliates wish to promote, ShareASale builds a database that is then download to a CSV format. The database provides product information including tracking URLs, which link an affiliate to any sale that has been generated.
Among the other features that ShareASale provides for their affiliates is their Make A Page feature. This feature helps affiliates easily search for and select products that they wish to promote on their website. After selecting the products they wish to include, an HTML link will be provided, pre-coded with the affiliate’s personal link. An affiliate simply copies and pastes the link to their site and a page is created for promoting and selling products.
5.Google Affiliate Network
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Google affiliates (publishers) can find special features through the “Help” link located in the top right corner of their account pages. This section not only allows users to learn about the features that are available to them as a publisher, but also provides step-by-step tutorials guiding the users on how they can start utilizing the feature on their own account. We weren’t able to find as many standout features available through Google but we were able to find the standard features that publishers hope to find when using an affiliate marketing service.
*Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate'), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors.
