How many networks should a merchant use?
How many networks should a merchant use was a question asked in the “Affiliate Marketing – A Buyer Guide 2010”
Even before the economic sharp intake of breath, I said that merchants should think about joining two affiliate networks. One of reasons, I stated back in the day, has proven to be correct which was not to rely on any one affiliate network for their sales and or leads just in case an affiliate network goes bust. Id like to think I was being prophetic but its just common sense really. Merchants should be adopting “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” strategy across all their ecommerce when it comes to being dependent on third parties, paid advertising for example. I feel belonging to two networks is still appropriate today and for the reason above. Since 2000 there was evidence that if one affiliate joined one affiliate network the chances were they had joined most of them and is still true today and I can see the point made in the e-consultancy.com report “from a merchant’s perspective the benefits of belonging to more than one network may be outweighed by the extra administration, duplication of effort and the danger of being spread too thinly”. We can see that not all affiliates use all the affiliate networks that they have joined up to, affiliates therefore have clear favorites now. We know that some affiliates who joined affiliatewindow.com in 1999 joined many other affiliate networks but never promoted their merchants. We could attribute this to the same reasons why some merchants are reluctant to join a second or third affiliate network. “more than one network may be outweighed by the extra administration, duplication of effort and the danger of being spread too thinly.” Another reason why we may see this pattern in the likes of Cj.com, Tradedoubler.com, Affiliatewindow.com and other established affiliate networks is one of affiliate choice and familiarity. Choice meaning a wide range of merchants within the affiliates sectors. Familiar meaning, payment terms, linking methods and even country specific. I still feel merchants should go with two affiliate networks and start focusing on affiliate networks with international presence as it’s not impossible to sell goods abroad but more over merchants can tap into cross border affiliates. In a nutshell, merchants and affiliates should not limit themselves always have a plan B :0)
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Comments
In my experience some affiliate networks are more proactive then others depending on which network you choose and also what type of service you opt for. You would think that if a merchant is on two networks both would want to work hard for fear of losing them to the competition but if the merchant has a self managed affiliate program then the networks are hands off and the onus is on the merchant to manage their own affiliate program, all networks have some kind of written help and advice.
The buyers guide does have benchmarking in terms of services and reporting the networks provide but it is very UK centric and hope E-consultancy will start gathering data from all sides of the globe as I am seeing affiliates in US lead affiliate networks like Shareasale.com and Pepperjam.com promoting UK specific merchants to accommodate their UK traffic and UK affiliates appearing in US affiliate networks. So if a merchant can ship internationally and is based in the UK, why not consider the likes of Mediatrust.com, Shareasale,Linkshare, et al. It is really horses for courses if any merchant is unsure which network they should join just drop us a line. We are in a crunch so there is loads of haggling that can be done with regards to set up costs and merchant overrides.
Possibly also useful for benchmarking between the two networks ? + Do you feel that if one network knows that the merchant is on another network too they maybe work harder for fear of losing them ?