Top Affiliate Networks

Today I was spending some time researching affiliate networks. I found 4 established networks that I plan to make money from. Commission Junction and LinkShare are the biggest ones with large merchants, ShareAsale is focused on mid-sized merchants and ClickBank is specialized in digital products like ebooks and pdf guides.

These networks are recommended on several forums and by Wealthy Affiliate members.

Commission Junction

Commission Junction is the largest affiliate network in North America. It was founded in 1998 in Santa Barbara, California with offices in UK, Germany, France, Spain and Sweden. It was aquired by ValueClick in 2003. Some of their advertisers are: Buy.com, Home Depot, Circuit City, Experian and Yahoo!

Commission Junction University is an affiliate marketing conference organized by CJ. This years will be held September 15-17. Maybe this year I am coming too (if I make enough money:)).

CJ was the first affiliate network I joined and the first that sent me a check. Thats when I knew affiliate marketing works! It felt so good.

• Typical commissions: 5-10%
• Benefits: Lots of products, Well known brands.
• Downsides: Not very user friendly reporting system.

LinkShare

LinkShare is another big affiliate network founded in 1996 and aquired by Rakuten in 2005. Some of their advertisers are American Express, McAffe, At&t, TigerDirect, iTunes and others.

LinkShare holds several events including LinkShare Affiliate Summit which will take place on August 9-11 in NY.

• Typical commissions: 5-10%
• Benefits: Lots of products, Well known brands.
• Downsides: ?

Join LinkShare!

ShareAsale

ShareAsale is an affiliate network targeting small and mid-sized merchants. It was founded in 2000 in Chicago, IL. It is probably the most respected and most trusted among all afffiliate networks because of their high ethical standards.

• Typical commissions: 8-15%
• Benefits: Most trusted and clean of adware.
• Downsides: Not so many merchants.

ClickBank

Clickbank is worlds largest affiliate network for digital products. It was founded in 1998 and is owned by Keynetics Inc. They provide over 10,000 informational products for every niche you can think of.

• Typical commissions: 30-50%
• Benefits: High commissions up to 75%
• Downsides: There is lots of fishy products so carefully select the products.

I joined all of them to see which one works best for me. Hopefully I will see some results soon.