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Is all Affiliate Marketing equal?

Affiliate Marketing thru an Affiliate Marketing Company or Affiliate Marketing Directly with an end Company, which is better?

Is it better to go with dependent affiliate programs or services such as Commission Junction, Linkshare and others? For the past week or so I’ve been looking more in depth at affiliate marketing. I recently heard from Mike with FreshBooks about my dilemma in choosing to go with his company as an affiliate because of the payment period. He was nice enough to respond to my problem and offer a few solutions. Most affiliates have terms that vary a good amount from company to company but with that being said are choosing an individual company instead of working with an affiliate company better, worse or the same?

I only raise this question because I’ve noticed that services like linkshare and commission junction don’t publish how much they are paying affiliates for each sale made through your referral. Going with individual product affiliates may be a much better way to attract higher turnover on your site.

On the Linkshare site that I visited I was greeted with the main page and I noticed a few things. First, there was no graphic stating how much commission one could earn and secondly as I got into the site I found it very hard to find any information about a commission structure that they offer prospective affiliates. Now because I am in “hunting” mode when it comes to affiliate marketing I’ve noticed that a number of companies fail to get the word out and considering how affiliates would look at that data as a “selling point” I would think that they’d have a page devoted to such information. Maybe I am too much of an idealist?

On Commission Junction however it was even more interesting because they want you to fill out an application before they’ll tell you what there commission structure is for affiliate marketing. CJU is an interesting idea because they are taking the time to education their publisher base on how to get the most from their affiliate efforts. This is definitely a smart idea that I really liked. But again the same problem as the first is that they don’t really talk about commissions earned off of affiliate marketing until you have signed up.

Now because both of these companies run affiliate programs for outside companies it is hard for those companies to state earning percentages on sales made via affiliation because it varies from company and product that a given publisher is affiliating with on their website. That I understand but all I am saying is give me some idea of what I am getting into.

My question to all of you is which would you go with? A large ad agency such as Commission Junction or LinkShare? Or a Company’s affiliate program built around a product that they created?

Luc

One Confused Affiliate