In the 2011 Affiliate Summit AffStat Report, where over fourteen-hundred affiliates were surveyed, we asked, “How do you most often find out about an affiliate program and then join?”, and 5% responded with “Affiliate network.”
Affiliate networks are companies that provide affiliate tracking and reporting for affiliate programs. When affiliates join an affiliate network, they are typically able to search the network by names of merchants, keywords, or categories of affiliate program.
An example of an affiliate network is ShareASale.
Other affiliate networks I currently use are Affiliate Window, Commission Junction, and LinkShare. There are many others out there, but these are the networks I am currently active in, as their merchants are most relevant to my affiliate sites.
In the case of ShareASale, there is an option to search with a keyword for either merchants or products; advanced search, which has a variety of parameters to choose; and dozens of categories, many of which have a number of sub-categories.
There are also options to view only those merchants with datafeeds, as well as viewing which merchants have current coupons/deals.
So, if I am looking for merchants and/or products for an affiliate site focused on gifts, I would search for gifts and see what was available to me.
When I find an affiliate program that fits my needs, I would click “Join Program”.
I prefer to promote affiliate programs within affiliate networks, so I can consolidate my logins, reporting, and payments, so this is one of the ways I like to search for affiliate programs.
I like CJ better than ShareASale. They have more sites than any other affiliate network.
I like some interfaces over others, but I work with all of the networks, because they all have different merchants I want to work with.