Affilorama is often confused as an affiliate network. While our members are mostly affiliates, and we do have our own affiliate program, we are not an affiliate network.
Like Affilorama, an affiliate network has affiliates for members. Unlike us, affiliate networks have merchants or vendors, sometimes even product creators and owners, as members. Affiliate networks help merchants and product owners find affiliates to help promote their products. They also manage each merchant’s affiliate program, tracking sales and paying out commissions to affiliates.
ClickBank is one such affiliate network. If you’ve listened to much of my training, when it comes to showing you how to find affiliate products to promote quite often I personally refer to the ClickBank Marketplace. The reason I do this is because ClickBank approves virtually everyone (unless you are from Nigeria or some other country outside their approval zones), and they have an amazing selection of products to promote with high commissions.
The other reasons are because most of the money that I make comes from ClickBank and also because they are extremely reliable with their on time payments, and I’ve built up a good relationship with them over the years.
However, in this blog post I want to share with you a list of other alternatives to ClickBank for you to consider as I don’t want my own bias to prevent you from seeing that there is a whole world of affiliate offers to promote outside of ClickBank.
I think joining all of these other affiliate networks will be overkill, but billions of dollars in transactions are being made every year through these other networks, and many have fantastic offers that are not available at ClickBank.
I have several affiliate millionaire friends who earn the majority of their income outside of ClickBank, and you may find some of these affiliate marketing platforms very useful to join.
In no particular order, here they are:
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How do I choose an affiliate network?
The product you choose to promote may decide it for you, or maybe the network’s sign up process will, but here’s a few other things to look out for.
The above networks are just 20 of the more popular affiliate networks. There are a lot more out there, and so the bigger question will always be how do you choose an affiliate network? You may not be out to look for the best affiliate network, but with so many to choose from, how do you even narrow it down to a top 3 or top 5?
When deciding on which affiliate networks to sign up with, consider the following:
Products
You usually would sign up with a specific affiliate network because they have that specific product you want to promote. Nothing wrong with that but be sure to read the fine print.
What exactly are you signing up for aside from being able to promote that product? What other brands or products does that affiliate network carry that will make signing up really worth it?
Support
If the customers who buy the products need support, so do you as the affiliate. This makes customer and affiliate support important.
That affiliate dashboard and all those affiliate links may seem straightforward or relatively easy, but knowing that there are people you can reach out to when something is not working is more than a confidence boost.
You’d want to be able to get a hold of support representative when you didn’t get your commission on time or that it is not in the right amount.
That’s how important having affiliate support is.
Reputation
Popular doesn’t mean best, but there is something to being a famous affiliate network. It can either mean the network is great to have gotten a considerably-sized following, or it’s gotten a rep so bad people are shouting warnings from the four corners of the internet.
Do the homework and read up on the reviews. Which ones are known to pay on time and which ones don’t? Which affiliate networks provide additional affiliate support? Which ones carry the best brands?
Knowledge is definitely power; the power to choose wisely.
Tools
By “tools” we mean tracking systems, affiliate dashboards, cookie duration. All that affiliate jazz.
Cookie duration is the length of time a cookie stays in a customer’s browser. The average is 30 days. If at any time within that first click on an affiliate’s link up to 30 days (or until the customer clears their browser’s cache), the customer purchases from the store, then the affiliate gets commission for that sale.
That is why cookie duration is note-worthy.
A straightforward, easy-to-navigate affiliate dashboard is something you’d want to have because you don’t want to spend a good portion of the day finding product or merchant info, when you could be spending that getting people to click on your affiliate links.
You won’t really know about these details unless you’ve already signed up with an affiliate network so reviews like this one make the work a bit easier by letting you know what to expect.
So take the time to go read up on reviews.
Forget about all that “the best affiliate network” talk because what is the right fit for you is not going to be the same for everyone else. Take note of what to look out for and see which ones match up and suit your needs.
Regardless of any recommendations or guides out there, the choice is still entirely yours.
More tips on picking out an affiliate network are on:
How to Make Your First Affiliate Marketing Sale in 7 Steps
Beginner’s Guide to Finding the Best Affiliate Marketing Programs
The “One” Myth
Depending on your individual marketing requirements, you could choose one or more of these networks to promote from.
If you’re looking for digital products, Clickbank is actually one of the best networks. It has high commission percentages and a wide variety of products to choose from, many of which are good quality.
If you haven’t found what you’re looking for with Clickbank previously, I’d try using the gravity filter to find the best niche and products for you before giving up. You can find a guide on how to get the most from Clickbank here.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for physical products, rather than the digital products of Clickbank, the best options are:
If none of the above are calling to you, or you just have more of an interest in CPA marketing, the best two networks to apply for are GlobalWide Media and PeerFly.
If you’ve got a lot of experience and traffic or a large social following, you may wish to try your hand with promoting via Amazon and/or eBay. It’s just about having the right audience for promoting products from these well-known sites.
You’re not restricted to any one network or platform, so you might as well try any that seem like they could be of use to you.
There are many other networks than the ones that I’ve listed above, but these are the ones that either I know others are being hugely successful in, or I have met personally with the networks and know of the quality of their organization and offers.
I’m interested in your comments, so let me know of your own experiences and opinions below.
Common Questions
There is no one affiliate network that is better than ClickBank. There are plenty of alternatives for sure, and it is up to the individual affiliate to decide which affiliate network to go with and which one suits them and their needs best.
No. ClickBank pays commission for each successful sale of the product.
Yes. ClickBank is recommended for beginners. Signing up and getting accepted is easy; so is promoting products.
It’s difficult to say that ClickBank is the best affiliate network as there are so many that you can choose from. It’s perfect for beginners though as registering and promoting products is easy. They have earned a good and solid reputation offering high commissions and regular payouts.
Definitely. There are no exclusivity clauses when you sign up to affiliate networks. You can promote digital products from ClickBank and mix that with physical products in ShareASale and CJ Affiliate.
