Top Affiliate Networks Compared

Written by Zac Johnson
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Finding the best affiliate network for your web site or ad campaigns is always a challenge, there are just so many to choose from. Fortunately, we can thank the competition between all of the networks to do the dirty work for us, of recruiting new advertisers, handling payments and everything else we really don’t want to deal with.

While there are thousands of ad networks out there, we will focus this topic on three of the larger networks out there; Shareasale, LinkShare, Commission Junction and Google Adsense. One of the best ways to compare these affiliate networks against each other, is through the use of an infographic. (view full size here)

Top Affiliate Networks Compared

The infographic for this topic is pretty large, so I’ve highlighted a few of the key notes shown in the image.

  • Shareasale pays $150 for each new referred merchant
  • Linkshare has 10 million partners
  • 62% of the Top 500 retailers are using CJ.com
  • Top Linkshare Clients: GoDaddy, JC Penny, American Express, 1800Flowers & Avon
  • Top CJ Clients: Zappos, Dell, Yahoo, Overstock, Buy.com and Home Depot
  • Google Adsense pays out 68% to their publishers
  • 28% of Google’s revenue in Q1 of 2011 came from Adsense
  • 75 out of 100 of “Hot 100 Retail Web Sites” have an affiliate program
  • 41% of affiliates promote health, sport and fitness related offers

Thanks to our friend Dona Collins, for creating this amazing affiliate marketing infographic. Dona Collins can be found doing infographics or writing financial articles for CreditLoan.Com, if you want to find out more about her visit CreditLoan Blog.

– Did any of the affiliate marketing stats surprise you?

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25 Replies to “Top Affiliate Networks Compared”

  1. interesting stats, even though i think that earning with adsense is harder today, there are still some who are banking it with it.
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  2. Not really surprising I use commission junction and adsense. Out of the three affiliate programs you mentioned I myself lean towards Commission Junction but the other two are very reputable as well. Commission junction is killing it 38% of major retailers using them. They must be doing something right. Good post like usual Zac.
    My recent post Course To Make Real Money Online No BS

  3. Great infograph Zac.
    Any suggestions on which of these would be a good choice for somebody just starting in affiliate marketing?

  7. Hey Zak great blog! What's Commission Junction doing that Adsense cannot provide apart from more revenue, I mean is it as easy to implement or receive payment or is it like Clickbank where you have to check every two weeks that everything is ok?

  9. Love them or hate them, you still cannot be Google and Adsense. It is just so easy to use and can be incorporated into most any site or content with ease. You will always get some clicks if you have real visitors.

  10. I have just started affiliate marketing on CJ. I haven’t made my first sale yet but am looking forward to that day. Still a lot of learning going on, on my end. My website is new as well but we are recruiting new women golfers every day.

  11. Nice graphic, I know someone who is really making it great with Adsense now. Although I myself know that it is really difficult nowadays with Adsense. 🙂

  12. brilliant information shared i am curious about affiliate marketing sharing thats a big percentage like 55 percentage for publishers although there is alot of competition but still there is something for every one 🙂

  13. Hey Zac, very nice Inforgraph…

    Must say a good design by Dona 🙂

    Well I am sharing this with my readers of “HopeToEarn” With proper credit 🙂 I hope you dont mind!

  15. How many of you have hit counters on websites monitoring every page and if so have you compared the number of hits recorded on you hit counter vs the number of hits/impressions recorded by your affiliate network. Do they match?

  17. Hi Zak,
    Do you have any insight into which network might be best for app developers to make their product available to promote?

    We've developed a popular business app for iOS that could benefit from an affiliate strategy and I'm curious if one network is stronger in this area over another.

    Best,
    Jay

  18. Hey ZAC,
    I got great info from your post.Its a great article to read.This post is really interesting, this is something new for me.You have written such a nice post.Thanks for sharing it.
    My recent post HTC Incredible S Now Receiving Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

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