DirectTrack has been the powerhouse management software behind many successful affiliate networks since 1997. The software now powers over 300 ad networks and serves over 12.5 BILLION ads each month. With such a strong following and numbers crushing any competition in management software, why have some affiliates and networks moved away from the DirectTrack system. Let’s take a look at a few of the networks currently running off DirectTrack, which networks have their own platforms and other opinions of DirectTrack in the affiliate space.

First, let’s take a look at a number of well known affiliate networks currently running off the DirectTrack system.

As you can see from the list above, some of the best networks out there are currently using DirectTrack to manage their company. With such a following of networks running the DirectTrack system, it not only makes it convient for networks to swap and share offers between each other and manage their own system, but it also cuts down the learning curve for new affiliates. As affiliates join any of these networks, and learn the system, they will have a good understanding of how to run all the same reports and processes across other DirectTrack run networks.

In addition to networks running off the DirectTrack system, let’s note some big networks which took their management systems into their own hands.

A comparison between the two lists, clearly shows that running your network with DirectTrack or with your own management system, it will not “make or break” your network. In both lists we see some of the best and largest affiliate networks out there. Now let’s take a look at some of the PROS and CONS to running your network off DirectTrack vs. a custom backend.

PROS to Using DirectTrack:
- From a network standpoint, the ability to go live and setup your own network is relatively “cheap” ($10k+ area) and everything is already available to you.
- The DirectTrack affiliate interface has become somewhat of a standard among affiliates to get used to.
- Limitations on customizations for your own network.

CONS to Using DirectTrack:
- Once you login to a network using the DirectTrack system, it’s pretty obvious. While some networks have done a lot more than others to make it look custom, it’s always easy to tell which are running the DirectTrack system.
- SUBID tracking is poor and annoying. Instead of having to submit a sub id, click submit then get a new code, you should have the ability to just enter a sub id and it will go at the end of the url. Many networks not running DirectTrack (like NeverBlueAds and Hydra Network), make SUBID tracking very simple.
- Usually when a network is run off their own management system, they will have a lot more to offer. Better tracking options, reports/charts and offer layouts.
- Self reliant on the DirectTrack system, while paying their monthly hosting/management costs.
- Others have discussed their complaints around the internet on Direct Track as well.

Whether you like DirectTrack, or hate them… they are one of the prime reasons why there are so many affiliate networks today. Never before was it so easy to throw some cash together and have the ability to go live with your own affiliate network. Since their release of the software in the late 90s, the company has since teamed up Digital River and continues to power a great majority of ad networks today.

I laid out the foundation, but I want to hear your opinion. What are your thoughts and comments on the DirectTrack system and networks running it?

[This post is covering part one of the “Five Reasons Your Affiliate Program Sucks” series, and is focusing on “Networks Running Off DirectTrack“.]

Fast cars, fast internet and fast food… like everything else, we want it fast, and if your affiliate network isn’t delivering fast monthly (or weekly) payouts… they are way behind. While many affiliate networks are just starting to offer payment methods outside of the traditional checks by mail, many others have been sending faster payments through paypal, Direct Deposit and wire transfer for a while now. Like many affiliate networks, big programs like Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher Network, both offer payments by Direct Deposit. There are several advantages to receiving your earnings by direct deposit or paypal vs. waiting on your monthly check. Here are a few reasons why…

Payment by Direct Deposit / Wire Transfers
- It sounds simple enough… and it is! Provide your affiliate network with your bank account information and instead of receiving a check each month, the company will directly deposit your payment every week or month depending on the programs.
PROS: No waiting for checks and having to deposit them at the bank.
CONS: Some banks charge a fee for direct deposits and wire transfers. However, if you have a contact or a big enough account at the bank, you can usually have these fees waived.

Payment by PayPal
- Even though paypal has been around for years and used by millions, it still isn’t accepted or used by all affiliate networks. Payment through paypal is instant, but as the receiver of money, you will have to lose a percentage to use their service.
PROS: Instant money. From paypal you can send the payment directly to your bank account, or send it to another advertiser or location of choice.
CONS: If you are going to accept large earnings through paypal, you are almost better off waiting for a check looking for an alternative method for payment. Premiere Business paypal accounts are charged around 1.9% to 2.9% + $0.30 USD per transaction.

Direct Deposit and wire transfers may seem like the bets options for affiliates, but it doesn’t come with out a cost. Most affiliate networks will only pay out on a weekly/monthly basis through direct deposit, if you are pushing some nice volume through their network. Here are a few of the networks minimums for wire transfers.

What type of experience have you had with affiliate networks and making the change over from CHECKS to Direct Deposits and Wire Transfers?

[This post is covering part one of the "Five Reasons Your Affiliate Program Sucks" series, and is focusing on "Direct Deposit / Wire Transfer & Paypal".]

It’s one thing for an affiliate network to have the same offers as other networks, but for them to be one of the lower paying affiliate networks, it’s pretty sad. Fortunately, some of the best affiliate networks out there don’t just rely on “public” and “general” offers and actually start to create their own. Today’s post will focus on affiliate networks that provide their own affiliate offers and not just swap offers with all of the other networks.

Where did my Margins Go?
As more networks tend to swap and share offers, this usually means the best margins on the offers are thinning out. If the main affiliate network that brokered the offer, is getting $50 per lead (and paying affiliates $35), then brokering that same offer to another affiliate network (who then pushes it to their affiliates for $30 per lead, so they can make $5 profit per lead), you are getting the crappy deal by going with any network besides the one brokering direct. An offer can only be brokered and margined down so many times… not to mention, if the offer is available on so many networks, it may get over saturated by affiliates very quickly.

DirectTrack Makes Swapping Easy!
For those of you that don’t already know, many of the affiliate networks are run off a network called system “DirectTrack“. Years ago when I played around with idea of running my own network, I remember seeing the function to swap and share offers from one DirectTrack offer to another. While this isn’t a horrible thing, it’s just good to note that you may see the swapping or sharing of offers more often through DirectTrack run networks, just because of the simplicity of tracking and management. (If you wanted to start your own network up, essentially you could get a DirectTrack account, then just grab all the “shared” offers from other DirectTrack networks. This would drastically cut margins, but you would not have to broker any deals direct, as it would all be tracked through DirectTrack.)

Where are the Exclusive Offers?
The majority of big affiliates networks have their own “exclusive” offers available. By offering exclusives, networks are able to pull in affiliates to promote offers that aren’t available on other networks. Popular exclusive leads are usually for weight loss, debt consolidation or lead type offers. Networks usually also have a boat load of custom or unique ZIP/EMAIL submit offers. Here is a break down on a few affiliate networks with exclusive offers and their numbers.

From an affiliate stand point, the worst thing you can do as an affiliate network (besides fraud and non-payment), is to have a new affiliate login to your system and see nearly all of the offers available, listed on a bunch of other networks as well. The ONLY way that you can successfully pull this off, is by paying more than the other networks. In most cases, the networks that do the most swapping and sharing of offers, are the smaller guys that can’t compete and get the big advertiser deals themselves. While this may seem alright to the network, it won’t be when the affiliate finds another network paying a decent amount more on offers they have been promoting for months now.

[This post is covering part one of the “Five Reasons Your Affiliate Program Sucks” series, and is focusing on “Same Offers as other Networks“.]

In continuing with the “Five Reasons Why Your Affiliate Network Sucks” series, today we will focus on “Affiliate Managers“. The best way to think of an affiliate manager is like the coach of a sports team, they “should” be there to provide input when you are looking to improve your marketing (game), and most definitely there to notify you on the latest offers available and what’s hot. Lastly, but most important… they are your life line to the network and the easiest/fatest way to getting premium pay outs.

Here are a few ways you can tell if your current affiliate manager sucks, and what you can do about it.

- How about a Booost?!
In my last post on “My Affiliate Network Pays More than Yours!“, I focused on the different payment structures from all the networks. The public payout rates varied heavily, yet they were all for the same offer. You affiliate manager is your inside man to get you the best payout rates on an offer. I’ll tell you right now, my affiliate managers at MarketLeverage (Erick) and NeverblueAds (Tina) are the best. On some of these other networks, affiliate managers want to see “some volume” first, before giving you a higher payout… of they will give you an increase, but you know they still have so much more room to offer. While this makes sense for affiliates and managers that do not have any prior business, or massive lead volume… it’s really just a time waster for the affiliate and the affiliate manager, when you know you are dealing with an affiliate that can deliver.

- This is the Internet… Be Available Online!
This is soo crucial… affiliate managers NEED to be accessible online, and I’m not just talking about email. While some affiliates like to pick up the phone and chat for a while, many don’t. All affiliate managers should be available by either AIM Instant Messenger, GMail Chat, MSN Messenger or whatever… just don’t rely on email. No only will this make your affiliates happier and not have to wait for an email response, but it will also grow your personal relationships with your affiliates. I talk to my affiliate managers several times a week, whether it be about network offers, or just to see how they are doing.

- Newbie Affiliate Manager
While the majority of affiliate managers I have come across are seasoned and have a pretty good idea what internet and affiliate marketing is, I sometimes feels bad for the networks and affiliates that are using/working with newbies. Every one has to start somewhere, but when you have to explain marketing methods or how other networks run and work with higher payouts, its frustrating. Your job is to market and make money with the network, not train any new affiliate managers in the process. Networks… make sure you have well trained and knowledgeable affiliate managers!

The majority of affiliate managers out there on the well known networks are really great… from time to time you will come across a newbie or someone that just isn’t as good as they could be. In a situation like this, you can ask who your friends or other business contacts that are working with at the company, if they like their manager. If you end up with a nice recommended affiliate manager, simply contact the network and ask nicely to be changed. In most cases you shouldn’t have any problems.

[This post is covering part one of the “Five Reasons Your Affiliate Program Sucks” series, and is focusing on “Bad Affiliate Managers“.]

When you first join a new affiliate network, one of the first things you probably look at are their cpa rates and payouts. If you are a member of many affiliate networks, you are already too aware that different networks offer different rates… why might this be? In most cases, the difference in commission payouts to users are one of the following:

1.) Profit Share for the Network
Depending on the network, they may just be taking a bigger profit margin for themselves and passing less commission off to their affiliates.

2.) Volume & Poor Sales Team
Another major factor in pricing, is how much volume the affiliate network can deliver. Usually, the more volume an affiliate or affiliate network can deliver, the better payouts they receive. Nearly as important as volume, is how well the affiliate network’s sales team works. I’ve talked with many affiliate networks over the years that weren’t aware other networks were paying more, their usual response is that they will contact sales to re-negotiate a better rate. (Shouldn’t this have been done in the first place?)

3.) Offer Type
Some affiliate networks are able to negotiate their own deals based on landing pages or processes for accepting leads. In most cases, a network accepting “incentived” leads, will pay less than an offer accepting “non-incentived” leads. Some networks also have the leway to create their own landing pages or be the only ones to offer “search” marketing.

Different Affiliate Networks, Different Payouts
Nothing speaks volumes like real life examples. The best way to do this is by giving you an actual case study on many well known networks and an offer all of them share. BlockBuster has one of the largest advertising campaigns around, and they have the ad dollars to back them up… no wonder their offer is on nearly every affiliate network out there. If you head over to BlockBuster.com, you can join their affiliate program directly through CJ.com and earn $33 per signup, or you can earn more or less with the affiliate networks below.

From the chart above, you can see there is quite a difference in cpa payouts among the networks. It is also important to note that many of the affiliate networks have different guidelines as to how you can promote the Blockbuster affiliate program. Rextopia for example has their standard Blockbuster offer available at $41.50 cpa, then another (email only) free trial version for $19.20. AzoogleAds has the lowest payout on the chart, but they also have a different landing page from the other networks. CPAEmpire only allows you to promote the program through banner placement. The rest of the networks have their own guidelines as well, whether it be if search is allowed or if they accept incentives leads. All of these guidelines will affect your bottom line as to how you promote an affiliate offer.

As an affiliate, it is YOUR job to find the best affiliate network and offer that performs best with your marketing strategies and efforts. As you may have already noticed from past advertising, going with the highest payouts isn’t the best solution. Make sure you test your advertising across all networks and compare your numbers.

The Power of Negotiation
I can tell you right now… if you are running the Blockbuster offer on RocketProfit or Hydra Network (or any network) and you are getting a lower payout than the $41.50 that Rextopia and NeverBlueAds are paying… the network will likely do everything they can to boost your payment up and at the least MATCH their rate. If in the worst case scenario, you can leave your current network and start testing (or split test) the offer else where.

EPC – Network Earnings Per Click
A feature available on many of the many of the affiliate networks, is the ability to search all offers by their EPC. While this may seem like a great idea for some, many successful affiliates already know it’s best to not judge an offer by it’s EPC ranking on affiliate networks. When you look at EPC averages from a network wide average, you are getting very general numbers, and usually very wrong. Imagine how many people on the network are running the offer to targeted traffic, but at the same time, how many are also promoting the offer to general traffic. Another way to look at is, if it’s a new offer and the person bringing in the most volume is a very targeted pay per click affiliate. If you only have basic traffic, your numbers aren’t going to be anywhere near what the network epc is showing. You must test your own affiliate offers and numbers and not rely on network wide epc charts.

Now that you understand the important of being an affiliate with as many networks as possible (to view all offers and payout rates), make sure you take advantage of your ability to split test your campaigns across other networks, negotiate better payout rates, and don’t rely too heavily on network epc averages.

[This post is covering part one of the "Five Reasons Your Affiliate Program Sucks" series, and is focusing on "Low Public Payout Rates".]