Working with affiliate networks is one of the most effective ways to increase brand awareness for your products and services, and up your conversions. Not only is affiliate marketing becoming a prime advertising concept, but marketers are taking advantage of the quick wins that affiliate networks guarantee.
Top Affiliate Networks
With the complex nature of affiliate marketing, and the various platforms and networks that can be found within the market, you want to partner with only the top affiliate marketing networks out there to grow your business quickly.
Several advertisers and merchants are jumping on the affiliate marketing wagon, so you may be wanting to find more opportunities in this field too.
This guide will help you understand the economics of affiliate networks, what makes them better than standalone platforms, and which networks you should work with to maximize your ROI.
What is an affiliate network?
An affiliate network is an established platform that connects publishers, aka the affiliate marketers or advertisers, with brands. These publishers can be any kind of content creator, from bloggers to social media influencers who are willing to promote your product and services on their channels.
The affiliate network will usually offer reporting features and a database of members, serving as the ‘middleman’, so that both parties offering programs can connect and find the most suitable publisher or brand to work with.
In essence, an affiliate network helps web and app publishers to monetize their inventory by providing a variety of options, as well as all of the necessary tools for running campaigns, such as tracking links and creatives.
For advertisers, affiliate network services and benefits include payment processing, ad tracking technology, ad campaign reporting tools, as well as access to a vast database of publishers.
Some publishers, known as ‘affiliates’ or ‘media buyers’ will create or buy traffic using advertising specifically to promote campaigns from a network, rather than just to monetize existing inventory.
There are also two characteristics that describe the concept of affiliate marketing that translate into a network, namely the types of offers and commissions. The most popular types are game offers, casino offers, app offers, dating offers and nutra offers. The most in-demand commission types are mobile CPA and CPI.
How do affiliate platforms work?
Think of affiliate platforms as a marketplace for affiliates and marketers who sign up to the site, agreeing to its terms and conditions. Brands can then partner with suitable advertisers, and publishers can choose sites or brands they want to promote.
Once the two parties agree to collaborate, the publisher receives a custom link that monitors how many users follow this link or make a purchase from their site or advert. They are then paid a commission for each click that results in a sale.
Affiliate networks allow publishers to find affiliate programs and have an overview of affiliate commission payouts, while facilitating the process of partnering with influencers and affiliates for brands.
Now, you may be asking yourself what the difference is between affiliate networks and programs, as these terms are being mentioned in similar contexts. An affiliate program is usually a single brand, with which creators can get discovered on an affiliate network. The affiliate network is therefore a database made up of several programs to choose from and join.
By signing up to an affiliate platform, publishers can access available products and begin making sales right the next minute. However, they are usually only in direct contact with the network and not with the sellers, giving networks the core purpose of streamlining and monitoring the process of the collaboration.
Why should you join an affiliate marketing network?
Before signing up to an affiliate network, you may want to know more about why affiliate marketing can be of advantage and important to the growth of your business. So, let’s talk numbers.
Recent trends show that affiliate marketing spending is expected to reach $8.2 billion by 2022, which would be up from 5.4 billion that was recorded in 2017. Moreover, 81% of advertisers and 84% of publishers have turned to affiliate marketing, driving the industry towards this evolving strategy, only to increase even further in the upcoming years.
With advertisers using affiliate networks as a serious marketing tool, over 80% of them are investing more than 10% of their budgets in affiliate platforms. And when looking into different industries, retail had the highest share of affiliate revenue of 44% in 2021, with telecommunication and media accounting for 25% in global affiliate income.
Top Affiliate Networks
What does this mean for marketers and influencers alike? More and better opportunities to secure sticky income online. But let’s dive into more concrete benefits of joining an affiliate network.
What are the benefits of working with an affiliate network?
Apart from several industries now turning to affiliate marketing and spending rates increasing rapidly by the year, there are many key benefits within the concept that can help grow your business.
The main advantage of joining an affiliate network is that it is already an established platform, so you don’t have to go on a hunt for influencers and get them to promote your mobile app. When you sign up to a network, you can locate the most suitable advertisers in the database, making it easier to collaborate with them.
Networks also only admit legitimate affiliates that need to pass certain criteria to join the platform. Therefore, you are less likely to partner with inactive publishers or those with low conversion rates.
In order to increase the chances of partnering with a suitable affiliate network, another benefit is that these platforms usually already have an existing reputation, meaning that you can research and read reviews surrounding the companies. This will make sure you find a network that aligns with the objectives of your business, ensuring long term success and steady revenue.
A final and important benefit of joining an affiliate network is that the platform will handle payments for you as well as provide insight into traffic and performance data through its many analytics and reporting tools. So, you can track your progress and adjust your campaign accordingly.
Top affiliate networks to partner with
When choosing the best affiliate network for your business, make sure to see the commission rates the platforms offer are at least around 5% of each sale. Moreover, the platform you choose to sign up to should connect you with affiliates that target the same audience as you do, or at least operate in the same field as your products and services.
Notice the approval requirements as well, as many credible networks have criteria for you to join their network, such as having an established website or a certain amount of traffic. So, make sure to carefully read through their terms and conditions before you sign up.
Keeping these points in mind, choosing to work with an affiliate network can be very beneficial to your mobile app, if you are looking to reach a wider audience and increase visibility for your services.
This list of the top affiliate networks focuses on the companies that significantly work with mobile and app related traffic and offers, be it as specialist mobile affiliate networks or as a general affiliate platform, with a sea of mobile-friendly affiliate programs.
The list of top affiliate networks
| Employees | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51-200 |
Zeydoo is a CPA-network with hand-picked profitable offers. We do what others can’t do: provide you with top converting offers from first-class direct advertisers.
Key Features
- 600+ offers
- 1 million conversions daily
- 5000+ active partners
- 8 years of experience in affiliate marketing
- Fraud prevention system
- Personal approach with dedicated managers
- Biweekly payouts via Wire, PayPal, Payoneer, Skrill, Webmoney – special terms for VIP affiliates
| Founded | Employees | Social | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 11-50 | 5k+ |
YIELDKIT enables publishers and advertisers to perform their affiliate marketing strategies in the simplest way, yielding higher revenue and traffic with less effort. Exclusive placements and unique advertiser relations enable us to achieve our clients’ goals with the help of innovative advertising solutions and machine learning technology.
Key Features
- YieldConnect- promote online brands based on pre-defined keywords.
- YieldLink converts existing links to shops and merchants into affiliated links.
- YieldShare – for publishers that create quality content to share with their audience YieldShare generates affiliate links for any product, with just one click.
- YieldSearch – lets you create and define native ads, that are targeted on your on-site search traffic.
- YieldNative – lets you create and define native ads, exactly the way, you want them.
- YieldMobile – Advertise online brands on mobile web and in-app traffic.
- YieldEditorial (sponsored posts)- customized editorial campaigns for premium brands.
| Founded | Employees | Traffic | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 10-50 | 20k |
Direct nutra advertiser and a CPA network, operating in the market for 8 years and offering end-to-end business solutions. Trusted by over 50,000 affiliates. Over 3000 COD/SS worldwide offers, including 100+ unique ones not represented by other networks.
Learn more about TerraLeads
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 10-50 |
Rakuten Marketing Affiliate is an affiliate program from Rakuten Inc. that provides integrated marketing solutions that cover affiliate, display and search. Rakuten was nominated #1 Affiliate Marketing Network for seven years in a row. The company is trusted by such established brands as ECCO, Walmart, Lacoste.
Key features:
- in 2016 100 million orders were closed via Rakuten Marketing
- Brand Quality and Regulatory Compliance Management Service to secure brand image across marketing channels
- It helps brands affiliate marketing program to be in line with federal requirements
- Rakuten serves 1,1 billion customers worldwide
- It can process payments to 202 countries/regions in 25 currencies.
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 11-50 | - | 1k | 80,000+ |
| Founded | Employees | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 10-50 |
PIN-UP Partners is an affiliate program and direct advertiser of such well-established brands as PIN-UP Casino and PIN-UP Bet. With diverse GEO coverage and presence in the CIS, Asia, and South America.
Learn more about PIN-UP Partners
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 135 | $30m+ | 19k | 4m+ |
Clickbooth, Adperio, and Ignite OPM are now unified under the global brand of Perform[cb]. Please visit our company page to learn more.
Perform[cb] empowers brands to acquire new customers through incremental digital channels on a pay for results model. Our proprietary technology and highly curated partner marketplace aligns “cost-per” pricing with customer lifetime value. Whether you’re an entrepreneur looking to drive traffic, or a fortune 500 brand in need of comprehensive performance marketing strategy, Perform[cb] is the recognized leader in online performance marketing with the #1 ranked marketplace in the world. We specialize in vertical-specific performance marketing strategy so that you reach the customers you want – and only pay for the customers you acquire.
Key Features
- Perform[cb] is a premier mobile marketing company helping advertisers acquire quality users that exceed their KPIs
- Ranked in AppsFlyer’s 2019 Performance Index as a top 10 Media Partner
- Driving mobile app installs with high levels of engagement and retention
- Protecting ad spend through proprietary fraud prevention technology
- Perform[cb] aligns quality and scale to leverage data to deliver clients targeted users that continue to engage
- Working across channels such as video, in-app, incent, influencer, pre-installs, and display
- Utilizing over 20 years of experience in the mobile marketing industry to help apps plan and execute in today’s complex mobile advertising ecosystem
PayV Affiliate network (formerly known as WapEmpire) provides solutions for converting worldwide traffic on CPA, CPS and RevShare basis. Our company was founded in 2013 and has earned a good reputation for being a reliable partner to thousands of Webmasters, Media buyers, Advertisers and Affiliate networks.
Our main verticals are: Dating, Health/Nutra, Sweepstakes, Gambling, Adult, Entertainment and Mobile.
Our Affiliates enjoy a wide choice of offers, timely payouts, in-house tracking platform with detailed statistics and 24/7 support to help you with all inquiries you might have about working with PayV.
Key features:
- Pevshare payouts
- 24/7 support
- Safe & secure
Olavivo is a boutique affiliate network, with a focus on the Cryptocurrency, Health & Beauty and Cannabis verticals.
Key features:
- Full transparency and multiple goal levels that will provide essential data for your campaign optimization procedures.
- Solid payouts.
- Trendy, top converting, worldwide CPA offers (50+ GEOS in 10 different languages).
- Net 7 weekly / bi-weekly / monthly payments.
- Multiple payment methods.
- Cutting edge tracking system.
- 30 – 90 day conversion cookie life span.
- Fully professional and well experienced account managers that will support you daily.
- Awesome referral program!
- Good Karma and unlimited positive energy.