Affiliate network

The term affiliate network comes from online advertising . Affiliate networks provide the platform for special online marketing ( affiliate marketing ) on the Internet.

Affiliate networks are the intermediaries between registered advertisers (providers of products and services, also known as merchants ) and registered publishers (online sales partners or website operators, so-called affiliates). The latter can download special web codes for advertising campaigns, the campaign codes, the advertiser and integrate these codes on their websites.

The affiliate networks provide both parties with the necessary infrastructure. This means that affiliate networks offer you the technical prerequisites for the administration of the campaign code, for the tracking of the website visitor and for the determination of commission (remuneration models). Affiliate networks are thus service providers in online advertising.

Features and service

An affiliate network works as follows: As a technological platform, it acts as an interface for affiliates and merchants. The affiliate network provides its affiliates with advertising material (such as advertising banners ) to advertise the products / services of the merchants. The affiliates integrate this advertising material into their websites and guide users, for example. B. on the online shop or the respective product website of the advertiser. If the user buys there, the affiliate receives a purely success-oriented commission from the merchant. The network not only takes over the provision and administration of the technology, but also the financial accounting. In addition, both merchants and affiliates are supported by competent specialists in the respective network. These so-called affiliate managers (or in general account managers) establish contact between affiliates and merchants of interest to them and help to establish and expand their cooperation. They also oversee their affiliate campaigns (called “ (partner) programs ” in technical jargon ).

The most important reason to work with an affiliate network is the sheer endless mass of potential affiliate partners who are reluctant to sign up for hundreds of individual affiliate campaigns. Affiliate networks allow the bundling of many campaigns and the possibility of handling everything on one or a few platforms.

• Finding and referring to matching affiliate partners: Affiliate networks help their members, on the one hand in personal contact and through the expertise of the account manager, on the other hand through automatisms in the technical system behind, to find the most suitable affiliate partner. There are affiliates who have specialized in specific industries, products or also in certain marketing activities (e.g. search engine marketing , SEM for short). The product offered by the merchant or his branch are then decisive for finding the right affiliate. For example, if the merchant is a provider of package tours, then owners of travel comparison and booking portals come into question as suitable affiliates.
• Support and care for affiliate partners: Affiliate marketing is very complex. For this reason, the participants of affiliate networks are often looked after personally in order to work smoothly with the platform and to be able to create and carry out their campaigns quickly, as well as to overcome any technical hurdles quickly.
• Overview of and management of campaigns, promotional materials, campaigns (e.g. vouchers): The merchants can see which campaigns they have just placed and which of their advertising materials the affiliates are delivering on their websites. You can also see the success of the individual affiliates (e.g. how often the advertising material has been displayed or clicked or how many sales have been achieved so far) and how high the respective commissions have been so far. Affiliates can see which campaigns are new and with which advertising materials are being offered by the merchants and which of them would be particularly suitable for their website. You can also see the success of your current campaigns. Similarly, both parties see which promotions are currently being offered (e.g. special commissions for affiliates or discounts for merchants, vouchers), which special promotions they are currently participating in or which voucher codes are currently available to them.
• Reporting / reporting on the progress of campaigns and commissions incurred: Affiliate networks provide their members with constantly updated statistics and reports that show the progress and success of the current campaigns. Merchants receive reports on brokered transactions and affiliates are notified of the commissions they receive from “their” merchants.
• Billing : The amount of the individual commissions to be paid is precisely determined by the system, communicated to the merchant and, in most cases, billed automatically. The correctness of the commission paid is checked and the automatic system draws attention to any discrepancies. In addition, the affiliate managers are usually available to settle disagreements in payment transactions personally with the affiliate partners.
• Security against fraud : Affiliate networks B. for the fact that merchants really only pay the commissions due for a campaign to the affiliates who actually advertised this campaign on their websites and thusgenerated conversions . The same applies to the use of exclusive voucher codes (i.e. those that, as a special offer, are only allowed to be integrated into their websites by certain affiliates). All commissions that are paid out through the use of an exclusive voucher code are only ever attributed to this one, exclusive affiliate, even if, for example, the clicks on the website of another affiliate were generated who used the respective voucher code without authorization.

However, the advantage of the numerous services such as central administration and easier handling is offset by the cost factor. Merchants usually pay a setup fee, especially for larger networks, which can currently be between EUR 500 and EUR 5000. In addition, there may be monthly fixed fees and almost all affiliate networks charge a sales-related commission, which generally makes up 30 percent of the commission paid to the affiliate.

Emergence

Marketing has changed significantly over the past few years since the Internet was first created. This also applies to the forms of advertising. The use of online offers is growing even in times of the advertising crisis. For many companies, marketing products and services on the Internet has the advantage of being able to place advertising in a targeted manner without major wastage. Condition models such as "pay-per-click", in which only the click on an advertising link causes costs, but not its presentation, ensure that advertising can be tailored more closely to the respective target audience and that wastage is avoided.

Another important field developed in the context of online advertising activities: Affiliate Marketing . Here merchants (providers of products and services) work with affiliates (operate web offers, e.g. websites and incorporate the affiliates' advertising material on them) on a partnership basis on a success basis. The result: The affiliate tries to show the advertising material in relevant places / in optimally fitting environments online and to make the advertising so successful. He receives a commission from the merchant for every success in advertising (click, purchase, address data record, etc.). This, in turn, can minimize his advertising expenditure and at the same time reach his optimal target group , since he only pays for the delivery of the advertising material if it is successful.

Normally, merchants and affiliates would have to find and coordinate themselves. The affiliate marketing market has grown significantly in recent years and has become increasingly confusing.

In addition, it is very time-consuming to run an affiliate campaign, especially for the merchants. Advertising materials have to be kept up to date, commission payments and cancellations have to be made, affiliates have to be looked after, statistics have to be created and of course you have to make your campaign known to the affiliates. The effort would be far too high for medium and small companies.

Affiliate networks have emerged since the late 1990s to rectify this situation. You have created the framework in order to be able to handle campaigns for hundreds of affiliate partners at the same time (see functions and services above) and to mediate affiliate partners in order to make affiliate marketing easier for everyone involved.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Process of affiliate campaigns and function of an affiliate network ( memento of the original from December 4, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Post on gruenderszene.de, "The right affiliate network"