Costs of affiliate networks

How much!

[hidesmith]

I was wondering if anyone has up-to-date figures on what the various affiliate schemes cost to join for the merchants?

Affiliate Window quoted £1,600 setup, £100 a month and 30% on top of the commission paid to the affiliate.

Affiliate Future is £0 setup, £75 a month and 20% on top.

Anyone got others?

[chiefmonkey]

I personally wouldn't go through any of these Affiliate Schemes.

Affiliate programs should be absolutely free and the company should be paying you a bare minimum of 15% of the sale, some as high as 50%.

There should be no monthly fee either.

Both the sites you've mentioned handle the affiliate schemes on behalf of the stores that you sell for so after you sell a product for xyz ltd and get a 15% commission, the programs you mentioned previously take 20% (or whatever they're charging you) of that before you get your share.

BIG TIP:

Skip the middle man.

Go straight to the company whose goods you most want to sell or that are suited to your website and sign up to deal directly with them.

Network marketing is increasing in popularity with many of the bigger companies e.g. amazon

If you want to know more check my profile.

Take it easy and best of luck ;0)

Duncan

[Nick_W]

I think hidesmiths point is that he is the merchant?

Nick

[chiefmonkey]

Seriously big apologies Hidesmith,

Why don't you set up your own affiliate network program?

ClickBank.com
Paypal.com

Both provide services far far cheaper than those middle men.

Clickbank also will allow you a listing in their directory where you can advertise youself to affiliates and build up your affiliate force form there.

Apologies again I totally missed out an essential part of your post

;0)

[firstmark]

Clixgalore has no setup fees and a $75 opening balance used to pay affiliates to start.
Perhaps consider something like them or shareasale or fineclicks to test out your program before using a larger higher setup fee network like CJ.

[Catalyst]

DarkBlue is free - no set-up charges. And they don't charge any monthly fees or take a % of commission. They have a very unique way of doing things that lets them offer their service at no charge to merchants. They are based in the UK but have a large US audience. Kind of complicated to explain their unique business model so best you get the info from Gerard or Jen.

One of my big clients who has a program on CJ, BeFree and almost every other network, does not do that well with DB, but that's mainly because we focus all our promotional efforts on getting affiliates for CJ and BeFree. It's just easier to recruit for programs that are in the bigger well known networks. But I know some merchants that do pretty well with DarkBlue.

Hope this helps!

.