Finding quality merchants as a publisher or affiliate is no easy feat.
You could spend so much time between your searches that you don’t generate enough income to make affiliate marketing a worthwhile revenue stream. Fortunately, affiliate marketing networks exist for just this reason.
They’re built to offer publishers like you more opportunities to work with high-quality merchants.
Affiliate networks are a critical part of a successful digital marketing strategy. However, like any strategy, careful consideration, due diligence, and comparison of options are required to select the best one.
In this blog post, we’ll look at five of the best affiliate marketing networks, their pros and cons, and how they operate.
Let’s get started.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Affiliate marketing networks connect publishers and marketers with high-quality merchants.
- These networks simplify the process for both merchants and marketers and enhance the income potential.
- Top affiliate marketing networks include CJ Affiliate, Amazon Associates, ClickBank, and more.
What Is an Affiliate Marketing Network?
An affiliate marketing network intermediates between merchants or companies and publishers or affiliates.
The network facilitates a safe environment for affiliates to search for merchants that fit their niche. Affiliates have to do less vetting, as the merchants on the platform are high-quality and reliable.
Merchants or companies join affiliate networks because it gives them more opportunities to spread their brand and increase sales. As for affiliates, the benefits are crystal clear: commission earnings!
Affiliate networks take care of many tasks a publisher must tackle in their own time, further proving their value. Those tasks include:
- Handling commissions: No one likes to ask for an invoice, but sometimes, it’s a necessary part of doing business. Affiliate marketing networks will take care of commissions on your behalf, ensuring you get paid reliably.
- Tracking sales: There’s no need to download another third-party tool to monitor your affiliate sales. The analytics and real-time reporting data will be built into the affiliate network to track as often as you want.
- Managing promotions: Do you want to promote a product or introduce a special offer to drive more sales? Affiliate networks are designed to help you do this with marketing assets and other tools for success.
- Merchant management: Keep track of every merchant you have, whether a few or a handful, using an affiliate network. You’ll find it much easier to continue providing five-star service for every merchant you work with.
Read more: Affiliate Marketing — A Complete Guide for SaaS Businesses
5 Top Affiliate Marketing Networks of 2024
You can see how an affiliate marketing network can be a lucrative, advantageous part of your affiliate success, right?
That said, it’s all about the network you choose. I’ve narrowed it down to five of my penultimate favorites, which I’ll admit was no easy task, but I did it so you don’t have to.
I’ll divulge the commission rates, benefits, and downsides in my review of each platform.
Ready? Let’s go!
1. CJ Affiliate
As one of the better-known affiliate networks, it seemed only fair to begin with CJ Affiliate. This platform has a ginormous reach, with billions of customers worldwide. There’s a reason CJ Affiliate drives more than 14 billion interactions between publishers and merchants.
The platform facilitates partnerships for publishers, influencers, advertisers, and agencies. Publisher commissions have totaled over $1.8 billion, with 4.8 million vendor-publisher relationships through CJ Affiliate (and counting!).
And the potential relationships are anything but small potatoes. CJ Affiliate customers are some of the biggest IR500 companies, including Priceline, Office Depot, Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Barnes & Noble, J. Crew, Intuit TurboTax, and Overstock.
CJ Affiliate offers a slew of integrations designed to make the onboarding process simple, fast, and effective. You can always track down new, interesting partnership opportunities on this platform, such as launching CJ-built omnichannel marketing.
The Deep Link Generator tool is awesome for tracking your monetization. If you want to take a standard link and make it trackable, CJ Affiliate can do it.
And what about those payments, I’m sure you’re asking? The commission rate on CJ Affiliate is as low as three percent and as high as 50%. All payments occur on Payoneer and go straight into your bank account.
Pros
- The Affiliate Customer Journey feature lets you review important metrics by custom periods.
- Situational Commissioning scenarios in CJ Affiliate’s analytics make it easy to predict how much income you can generate through this platform.
- The network is easy to use, and you can get set up fast with onboarding.
- The reliable payouts through Payoneer allow you to get paid in your preferred currency.
Cons
- CJ Affiliate’s customer support is a little lacking.
- Users have experienced payment issues, such as not receiving payment, although only in select scenarios.
Read also: Affiliate Marketing 101 for eCommerce Business Owners
2. ClickBank
With over five million customers (counting), ClickBank has made a name for itself as one of the premier affiliate marketing networks in 2024. It has more than five million customers, including names like Voluum, Organifi, and TeaBurn.
Its more than 100,000 affiliates network has received $6.2+ billion across 25 years and is always on time. All products in its library meet FTC and FDA compliance, so you can rest assured that whatever you promote will be of high quality.
That’s partly how ClickBank offers a commission rate of between 75 and 90%, some of the highest around.
The analytics are incredibly in-depth, equipping you with the power to track your earnings, vendors, and clicks. I also appreciate how easy ClickBank is overall.
Pros
- ClickBank can connect you to high-quality products to increase your commission earnings.
- You can always count on ClickBank to recommend offers, software, and tools for integrations that take your affiliate marketing to the next level.
- ClickBank offers various educational courses and materials for learning the ins and outs of affiliate marketing.
Cons
- Not all of ClickBank’s affiliate marketing training is free.
- Customer support is not all it’s cracked up to be.
3. FlexOffers
With 75,000 publishers and 12,000 advertisers across 65 networks, FlexOffers houses everything under one figurative online roof. Spurring 10,000 affiliate programs, FlexOffers is one of the highest-rated affiliate networks for fast payments, situated firmly in NET 7.
FlexOffers stands out for its FlexCash referrals, which allow you to make monthly income based on how many successful referrals you provided within the last 30 days.
Beyond that, FlexOffers equips its publishers with all the tools of the trade, from its new FlexOffers WordPress plugin to agency management, web services API, deep linking, and comparison widgets.
Flexlinks are automated links that let you focus more on content than linking. Flexlinks works by inserting the code snippet, and all branded links you haven’t monetized are activated so you can begin earning.
You can also track promotional and product feeds, the latter of which has more than 650 million products, discovering which goods to focus on and which promotions to offer to make the sale. FlexOffers’ commission fee is 20%.
Pros
- FlexOffers continuously innovate, keeping it on the cutting edge in its 15 years of operation.
- Onboarding is fast and easy and is often lauded by its users.
- Customer support is friendly and ready to help so you can address all your issues before they impact your sales.
Cons
- There are far more affiliates than vendors on FlexOffers so that the competition can be steep.
- FlexOffers has a rather low commission rate than other major affiliate marketing networks.
4. Amazon Associates
Joining Amazon Associates means gaining access to one of the most robust affiliate marketing networks on the internet, led by arguably the largest name in retail. The program is simple. As the affiliate, you promote programs or products on Amazon using its linking tools. Then, you make a commission.
Amazon explains that your commission earnings are based on the qualifying purchases of programs or purchases based on the Amazon traffic you create through your content. The commission rate varies by product.
Here is a breakdown of the rates:
- Amazon Appstore – 0%
- Physical video games and grocery – 1%
- PC, gift cards, and digital videos – 2%
- Automotive, physical music, Blu-Ray, and DVD – 3.50%
- All other categories – 4%
- Amazon Kindle tools and devices – 4.50%
- Mobile electronics, home entertainment, personal care appliances, office products, major appliances, electronics, cell phones and accessories, cameras, and baby products – 5%
- Software and physical books – 5.50%
- Sports, kitchen, and industrial and business supplies – 6%
- Musical instruments – 7%
- Pet products, outdoors, lawn and garden, home improvement, home, and furniture – 9%
- Beauty, handbags, accessories, shoes, luxury beauty, luggage, jewelry, apparel, and Amazon Kindle accessories – 10%
- Amazon games – 20%
Pros
- Associates Central always has new deals, codes, and offers in the Promotions section, including daily Amazon Promo Codes.
- You can monitor your earnings on mobile through the Mobile GetLink tool and desktop through the Site Stripe tool.
- The reporting tools are easy to understand, with graphs and charts showcasing your earnings.
Cons
- You won’t receive payment for 60 days after the end of the month you earned the affiliate commissions.
- The commission rates are rather low.
5. Shopify Collabs
A heavy hitter in eCommerce, you can bet that Shopify has an affiliate marketing network called Shopify Collabs. Brands such as Popflex, Awe, Timeless Skin Care, Kyte Baby, Then I Met You, Apparis, and Barefaced by Jordan Harper are examples of brands in this network.
Of course, that’s just a small preview. The smattering of products under the Collabs Network umbrella is in the thousands, so there’s always something fresh and interesting for you to promote to your audience via affiliate links.
Shopify Collabs lets you search and discover new opportunities whenever you need them. The included analytics make tracking how much you’ll earn in commissions simple. Expect monthly payouts.
Pros
- You can customize your app page for branding.
- Product seeding is available for promotional items, samples, and gifts, letting you forge a stronger connection to the branded product and share your enthusiasm and passion with your audience.
- The dashboard is very intuitive and has all the KPIs affiliates need.
Cons
- You can’t join Shopify Collabs until you obtain 1,000 or more followers on at least one social media platform.
- Each commission is subject to a processing fee of 2.9%.
Read more: 17 Affiliate Marketing Programs That Bloggers Should Not Miss
How Affiliate Networks Operate
Are you eager to take a peek behind the scenes at the machinations of today’s affiliate marketing networks?
I figured you would be, so let me explain how they work. This transparency will help you as you explore your options.
The affiliate network accepts affiliates and companies
Most affiliate marketing networks are always open to new merchants and publishers (companies and affiliates) joining. That said, there’s still a process you have to follow.
Some networks will make you apply to join, while with others, you can sign up and start earning affiliate income. Affiliate marketing networks may have criteria that limit who can join, such as the case with Shopify Collabs, where you must have 1,000+ followers first.
You won’t instantly hear whether you got in if there’s an application process. You’ll usually have to wait several business days, sometimes up to a week.
Once accepted, you can begin using all the affiliate network features and exploring programs, partnerships, and products.
An affiliate posts a network link for a service or product
Once you find a product that suits your brand (or has one recommended by the affiliate network), the network will generate an affiliate link.
You’ll post that link in your content, whether on social media, your website, a blog, or another platform.
Customers purchase the product or service using the link
Your audience will visit your site and browse your content.
When they click the link to your product, they can add the product or service to their cart and then check out as usual.
The affiliate network counts that as one purchase
The affiliate link allows the affiliate marketing network to determine that a purchase occurred, which is how you begin generating a commission.
Affiliate networks use campaign management and tracking tools to provide real-time updates about the success of your campaign.
The affiliate receives payment
Affiliate networks pay out on varying terms, such as biweekly, monthly, or net-90. You’ll receive your affiliate commission and can continue promoting products and services.
Read also: 3 Impressive Affiliate Marketing Examples to Inspire You + Tips
Benefits of Joining an Affiliate Network
I know, I know, why even discuss benefits when there’s money involved, right?
And while joining an affiliate network presents earnings opportunities, I’d be remiss to gloss over the other advantages.
Access to a vast database of advertisers and publishers
Imagine as an affiliate finding every company you want to work with. Not only would this be incredibly time-consuming, but you’d not have access to some of the high-echelon names that affiliate marketing networks do.
Joining an affiliate network makes it easier to connect to those brands, springboarding your affiliate marketing success.
You can also link up with other publishers, perhaps collaborating or using profit sharing to increase success on both sides.
Tools for improvement
Some platforms, such as ClickBank, provide instructional training and education on affiliate marketing. Most others give you access to tools and metrics designed to help you understand where you may be underperforming and where you’re doing well.
You can use this raw data to refine your affiliate marketing approach and increase your chances of success next time.
Innovative marketing strategies
The best affiliate marketing networks always keep their figurative finger on the pulse of what’s successful in marketing.
If a strategy works, you can bet it’s only a matter of time before your affiliate network begins implementing it.
Likewise, this keeps your affiliate brand on the cutting edge of marketing and gives you an advantage over your competitors using another network (or no network at all).
Frequent product/service and promotional updates
While not all the products and services will grab you, that’s okay.
There should be enough of a selection that you can find tailored recommendations your audience will enjoy. Better yet, the offerings should be updated regularly.
The same goes for promotional updates and other deals. You can ensure timely promotions for holidays and seasons that drive more sales.
High earning potential
And yes, I have to talk about how much you can make because it’s anywhere from the thousands to tens of thousands if you’re an especially prolific affiliate marketer.
That said, it all depends on the commission rate of the affiliate network and how much you sell, but you can undoubtedly make a healthy income from affiliate marketing.
Read also: 17 Affiliate Marketing Programs That Bloggers Should Not Miss
How to Choose the Right Affiliate Network
Working with an affiliate network is a big commitment, so you must be triply sure you select the one that suits you as an affiliate. Keep these considerations at your mind as you begin researching your options.
Product types
Get a feel for the products the affiliate marketing network specializes in. Some networks are rather niche, while others, such as Amazon or Shopify, offer a broad range of products.
Likewise, certain networks are service-based, while others offer only products and still have a mix of products and services.
Payment methods
Look deeper into the network’s payment methods to pay affiliates their commissions. Ensure you’re equipped to accept that kind of payment method.
Also, read all the fine print regarding the commission structure and when payouts occur.
Support services
It’s always good to have support, as you never know when you will need a helping hand.
The ideal affiliate marketing network should offer various support, such as phone, live chat, and email, and be available around the clock.
Tips on selecting a network that aligns with your marketing goals and niche preferences
- Do your homework: Due diligence is your responsibility before joining an affiliate network. Do as much research on the network as possible, and go beyond their website. Look at third-party sites and read up. Every affiliate network will have its downsides, but the pros should outweigh the cons.
- Read reviews: Reviews and testimonials are the most accurate gauge of a publisher’s experience with an affiliate network. Don’t expect five-star reviews across the board to veer away from any networks in which the negative reviews majorly outnumber the positive comments.
- Watch videos: Explainer videos from other affiliates and the network itself will give you an inside look into how the network works before you apply. You can check social media and YouTube for helpful clips.
Read also: 5 Top High-Ticket Affiliate Programs to Maximize Your Earnings
Challenges and Considerations
Another facet of successful affiliate marketing is staying abreast of the challenges in your industry and being ready to create actionable solutions.
That’s what the information in this section is designed to help you do.
Fluctuating commission rates
Although most affiliate networks will have steady commission rates, that’s not guaranteed.
If your commission rates fluctuate, you will lose income if the rates trend lower. This can put you in an unenviable financial position.
While you can’t do anything to prevent the affiliate network from experiencing commission fluctuations, you might consider a secondary network or branching into another niche or industry to make up for these lower periods of income.
Marketing restrictions
Affiliate networks might only let you do certain types of marketing and promotions under some tiers, or perhaps there are specific regions you can’t advertise.
This is another instance where it pays to consider exploring another affiliate program or network.
Promoting products you don’t know a lot about
Affiliates can fall into this trap due to inexperience or getting their heads too clouded by money.
Advertising products you don’t use will come back to bite you. Someone who knows more than you can call you out on your inaccuracies, which will degrade audience trust and goodwill.
Only select products and services in niches you’re already knowledgeable in.
Building credibility
Generating trust and credibility can seem like an uphill battle, especially among consumers dubious of affiliate marketing. However, there are ways around it.
Publish high-authority resources related to your industry or niche, recommend genuinely helpful products, and accumulate testimonials and reviews.
Read also: ClickBank Pros and Cons for Affiliate Marketing — A Quick Guide
Conclusion
Using affiliate marketing networks to enhance online marketing strategies can lead to many potential benefits, such as higher earnings, access to companies you couldn’t reach on your own, and tools to succeed.
Be sure to carefully evaluate and select affiliate networks based on your marketing objectives and business needs.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What are the key features to look for in an affiliate marketing network?
The affiliate network should have an agreeable commission rate (and payout frequency), five-star support, a range of products and services, and tools or instructions for getting your affiliate marketing campaign underway.
2. How do affiliate networks track and pay out commissions?
Affiliate marketing networks rely on affiliate links to determine how many sales or referrals you make and pay you a commission.
You must keep links current and double-check they aren’t broken.
3. What are the differences between the major affiliate networks like CJ Affiliate and ClickBank?
ClickBank and CJ Affiliate differ in a few key ways.
ClickBank has a higher commission rate and provides educational resources and training. CJ Affiliate is more geared toward eCommerce brands, while ClickBank serves performance-based publishers.
4. Can small businesses benefit from joining affiliate networks?
Yes, affiliate marketing is an excellent way to maximize your income.
5. What are the latest trends in affiliate marketing in 2024?
This year’s biggest trends in affiliate marketing are mobile optimization, voice search, AI, data protection, personalization, mobile commerce or m-commerce, ad fraud protection, and social commerce.
