A Review of Affiliate Network sites

In this third installment of Affiliate Marketing with Digital Products, I’ve decided to share my personal experience on affiliate network sites.

1. Affiliate Scout

This is a directory of affiliate networks. Basically, you should start with this if you are new to affiliate marketing, and aren’t sure about your affiliate network options.

With Affiliatescout.com, you can easily obtain lists of affiliate networks according to various categories and product types. This is an easy way to look at all available affiliate networks and explore them from one location.

2. Clickbank

Pros

Clickbank.com is one of the most popular affiliate networks around. Personally, the thing I like most about Clickbank is the statistical information provided for each affiliate product. Although not comprehensive, this gives you some idea on how each product is doing.

In addition, sites such as CBTrends.com, and CBMall.com consolidate this information over a period of time, allowing you to track affiliate product performance. Read my post – Affiliate Marketing with Digital Products – Part 1 – on how to use these statistics to your advantage.

Cons

Clickbank does not pay through Paypal.com, which means you need to wait for a check to be sent. In addition, Clickbank also does not accept applications from some countries. If you are a Merchant, you need to pay a fee to get your product listed.

3. PayDotCom

Pros

PayDotCom.com is one of my favorites, probably because it pays through Paypal.com. Although there is room for improvement on the interface, there is ample information for you to browse through products at the marketplace. With the price neatly placed next to each affiliate product, it’s easy for you to quickly pick out items with high commissions.

Also, essential information such as the number of sales, pending and paid payments, as well as the emails of the merchants, are available on the Affiliate Member page.

Cons

There is limited statistical information from PayDotCom. The only score provided is the Affiliate Power Score (APS) derived from sales, refunds and affiliate earning values. You get an overview, but can’t drill down to the details of each of these indicators.

4. ClixGalore

I signed up for ClixGalore.com as I was interested to promote consumer products through one of my other sites. While it’s fairly easy to sign up, and get started, many of the products I’ve tried promoting at ClixGalore either doesn’t work too well, aren’t too attractive, or just do not offer attractive commissions.

5. ShareaSale

I was interested to promote a niche product, which was listed under ShareaSale.com. The interface isn’t much to shout about, but there IS a wide range of products to look at. Affiliate product descriptions are comprehensive, providing affiliates with extensive product information. However, much of the tangible products here offer meager commissions of between 10% and 25% only.

Other Affiliate Network Sites

Commission Junction – Also known as CJ.com, this is another top favorite next to Clickbank and PayDotCom. I’ve not used. The difference is that Commission Junction features big name Advertisers.

Linkshare.com – Also features big name Advertisers.

PepperjamNetwork.com – A relatively new Affiliate Network, that seems to be getting some publicity from high traffic blogs. Check out A Closer Look at Pepperjam Ads at JohnChow.com for a review.