How to Choose an Affiliate Network

2024-12-28Marketing

There are mainly three types of foreign advertising affiliate networks:

1. Advertiser-Run Affiliate Programs

The first type is the affiliate program run by the advertiser themselves.

This is when advertisers launch and operate their own customer acquisition programs to gain new clients. When you apply for such an affiliate program, you directly deal with the advertiser. The advantages are clear: it's a true first-hand source.

Since you are dealing directly with the advertiser, the payment cycle for commissions is usually shorter, with bi-weekly or the 10th of the following month being the most common. Moreover, compared to professional advertising networks, the customer acquisition teams of advertisers often lack experience in supervision and management, which creates a great opportunity for us to exploit loopholes.

Whether you are into EMU or bidding, the affiliate program run by the advertiser is definitely the top choice and the easiest to operate. However, because most advertisers are not good at managing their branches, the majority now choose to outsource their business to professional advertising networks.

Therefore, such affiliate programs are not easy to find, and applying for many of these advertisers can be troublesome, not because they are strict, but because of neglect in management. It may take a long time for your application to get a response. But once approved, you have a steady and stable resource.

2. Large Primary Networks

The second type is large networks like CJ.

Well-funded advertisers pay CJ to manage their customer acquisition business for convenience.

Others include networks like Awin, LinkShare, Impact, etc. The advantage of such networks is that since they deal with the advertiser directly, payments are generally not an issue, and the payment cycle is also acceptable, usually between the 20th and 30th of the following month.

The downside is that the review process is relatively strict, which is understandable since their greatest and sole value to advertisers is to supervise and manage their affiliates. If they didn't take the review process seriously, they would lose their purpose.

3. Secondary Affiliate Networks

The third type is the so-called secondary affiliate networks.

In the overseas internet market, top companies generally only cooperate with other top companies. Many smaller advertising networks that want to get orders from big brands usually do so by partnering with primary networks, taking orders from them and placing them in their own market.

A typical secondary network is FlexOffers. If you apply for an account with them, you'll find that even the backend of their offers is a complete copy of CJ's. Their upstream networks are basically primary networks like CI and Impact.

To determine who is a primary network and who is a secondary network, just look at the payment cycle:

  • The advertiser pays the primary network
  • The primary network reviews the secondary network's promotion data
  • The secondary network pays the promoters
  • Each step usually takes up a cycle

For example, I've always mentioned FatCow, which pays $100 on CJ, but only $80 on FlexOffers. CI's payment cycle is NET20, but FlexOffers is NET60. For the same offer, the payout from a secondary network will be lower since they need to make a profit, and the payment cycle will be longer since they have to wait for the upstream network to pay.

The advantage of secondary networks is that the review process is relatively relaxed. Many offers that can't be obtained from primary networks can be easily acquired through secondary networks.

Therefore, we need to analyze each situation specifically in actual operations.

As a side note, the team-based operation model for customer acquisition arbitrage often starts with building your own affiliate network. You can register an overseas company, create a shell, and become a secondary or tertiary network for these upstream networks.

Even if your customer acquisition arbitrage activities are discovered, you can blame it on small accounts, and you can continuously create new accounts for your own people. If you understand what I'm saying, I believe you will become an awesome affiliate.

FlexOffers started just like you and me, just by applying for an account on CJ, but over the years, it has grown and developed a deeper partnership with CJ.