In a two part blog feature on affiliateteacher.co.uk, this article addresses the views of affiliate marketers on affiliate networks.  Can the suited and booted big boys of affiliate marketing remain nimble and prosper within the increasingly innovative affiliate marketing arena?

Affiliate networks sit between a merchant (or retailer), and an affiliate who works hard to promote the merchants products or services.  Merchants and networks encourage their affiliates to write content rich websites that review, blog or critique a merchant’s products.  Networks exist because integrating with every merchant is a complex and bespoke technical task.  If each affiliate had to integrate with every merchant individually, the barriers for entry into affiliate marketing would be prohibitively high.  Networks technologically enable merchants to work with affiliates.

Networks also add value by allowing affiliates to track every link and campaign element they place on their site.  This allows affiliates to maximise the output from their affiliate campaigns by targetting the content that works best.  It also allows merchants to see the ROI from their affiliate campaigns.

Networks get their money by charging merchants a fee for becoming part of their network.  They also take a slice of the commission from the affiliate called the network override.  This is typically 30%.

It all sounds great.  Networks bridge the gap between merchants and affiliates allowing them to monetize their content.  So what’s wrong with this seemingly harmonious relationship?

There are several areas where the values that networks are adding to affiliate campaigns are being questioned.  The service that networks offer to their merchants is a typical bone of contention amongst merchants.  There is anecdotal evidence that there are sometimes over 30 merchants to one account manager at some of the leading networks.  With perhaps thousands of affiliates spanning these merchants, it is difficult to see how those campaigns can be managed effectively.

There is also a perception that most of the major affiliate network technology for tracking is somewhat outdated, and does not offer affiliates the transparency and capabilities they would like to see.  However, some of networks are currently refreshing their control panels: for example, Affiliate Window have recently released Darwin.

Despite these grumbles, affiliate networks are the only technological solution for affiliates wishing to interact with online retailers.  They are ever expanding the range of interactive content affiliates can use (through widgets and feeds), and their APIs are becoming increasingly open for tech-savvy affiliates to integrate into their sites.

There is also a new nimbler range of technologies that use the affiliate network as a platform to build their technology: easycontentunits allows users to drag and drop components from any affiliate network and ProfitBite aggregates all the major affiliate networks under one roof to give affiliates seamless access to any merchant on any network.  Many merchants also get around the variable level of service provided by affiliate networks by being a member of several networks.  They can then offer their affiliates different offers within different networks.

The big area that may change significantly (and alter the structure of networks in affiliate marketing) is tracking.  There are many issues around tracking that could change significantly in the not too distant future: de-duplication, and the last click wins policy are two much talked about issues.  Expect to see networks keenly developing their control panels and perhaps even some open standards emerging to target these issues.  The network’s dominance in tracking could be upset further, if a 3rd party tracking solution was to emerge.  If this could outperform current network technology this may give affiliates the transparency and enhanced functionality that they desire.  A target area for the Google affiliate network perhaps?