Common Questions Advertisers Have About Working with an Affiliate Marketing Network

As an advertiser, working directly with affiliates requires a lot of your time managing your affiliate campaigns, tracking each campaign’s progress, and which affiliates are owed what. Fortunately, there is an easier way: working with an affiliate marketing network.

An affiliate network acts as a middleman between you and the affiliate, working to manage your campaigns and any publishers that take part in your program. Working with an affiliate network is a great way to drive sales and increase awareness about your product, but some businesses hold back from harnessing the power of affiliate marketing because they’re unsure how it works.

To help, we’re answering 3 common questions you may have as an advertiser thinking about how to advertise with affiliate marketing through an affiliate network.

How can working with an affiliate marketing network help my business?

An affiliate marketing network ensures that you have access to professional marketers, a.k.a. publishers. These publishers allow you to reach new audiences through any promotional activities as part of your accepted publishing team. These affiliate marketers only make money when you do, so they’ve got a huge amount of motivation to figure out the best way to market your product to an audience.

This is how you drive sales with affiliate marketing – other people (your publishers) give your business the momentum it needs, without an upfront payment like you have with other marketing avenues.

Working with an affiliate marketing network saves your business time that can be focused on managing customer service and developing your products, as well as money you would have spent on your advertising and marketing campaigns. Affiliate marketing networks provide account management, appropriate technology, and complete tracking, as well as efficient payment and reporting options that gives you a good ROI.

The sales for each of your programs are tracked within the affiliate network which will also allow you to review all aspects of your program whenever you need to, and some affiliate networks will offer expert consultation and account management for each of your campaigns that will help you to grow and optimize your affiliate programs.

How do I know I’ll get quality traffic with an affiliate marketing network?

An affiliate marketing network will screen their publishers through an application process. Not all publishers are accepted; only those who are deemed by the agency to be good potential partners for advertisers. Publishers also need to comply with terms and conditions of your affiliate program as well as the terms and conditions of the network. These terms and conditions will outline what is considered to be unacceptable, immoral, unethical practices, or dishonest behavior.

All affiliate marketing networks must provide regular, real-time full reports of exactly who is promoting your product and where. This way, you always know which affiliates are promoting you across the web and whether they are following your terms and conditions. If they do not provide the relevant data set out by you, their access to your program could be suspended, and any generated revenue will be forfeited, so it’s in their best interests to promote your products honestly.

Advertising with an affiliate marketing network will ensure that your program is visible to a range of suitable publishers who will each have their own unique experiences and follower base, which you are able to benefit from.

Will working with an affiliate marketing network allow me to control where my brand is promoted?

The short answer is some networks do, and some don’t. Some affiliate marketing networks allow any publisher in their network to take part in a program (having pre approved them), which means that the advertiser will have no control over where their brand is being promoted, and so there will be some associated risk in where your product is promoted.

Since this is the case, you should make sure to only work with an affiliate marketing network that will allow you, as an advertiser, to choose exactly where your ads will be published, both in terms of platform and geographically, if this is a major concern for you or if your company only operates in certain territories.

Affiliate marketing networks provide a safe and efficient place for advertisers to find publishers to promote their products and have the best management tools. Affiliate marketing networks allow you to build relationships with trusted partners so you can grow your business and drive sales.

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