Finding the Right Affiliate Publisher

- from Commission Junction

Finding Your Match – The Right Publisher

Finding the right publishers is crucial to your affiliate program success. It is important to understand the types of publishers that are in our network. Below, we have listed some of the most popular business models used by our publishers. Don’t be intimidated by some of the jargon – just look at the models and decide on which one best fit your needs now.

• Content Sites – Content site publishers work with advertisers to deliver promotions to users to help sell products or subscriptions. This is our most popular business model for new publishers. Many publishers have or can create specialized Web sites that tailor to a certain niche of consumers. One type of content site is a specialty site with information specific to a group of people. For example, a publisher might run a Web site on surfing in his home state of Hawaii. Information he provides is the primary draw for the site but he wants to help monetize the users that visit by putting up appropriate advertisements or promotions such as surf boards, wet suits, tour groups to Hawaii or books on surfing.
• Coupon and Deal Sites – Coupon and Deal sites collect coupon offers from advertisers and organize them into lists for easy browsing. Some of these sites are directly linked to comparison shopping sites, where an end user can search through product categories to find a particular item and see available discounts offered by retailers. Other Coupon sites can also feature actual coupons that a user can print out and redeem in stores.
• Incentive sites – These sites use incentives to compel visitors to fill out leads or purchase items. A popular incentive site model is the well-known “free iPod” type Web site – fill out a credit card application and you get a free iPod Shuffle or something similar. Incentive sites are often used by direct marketing companies offering advertisers placement in emails, banner ads, pop-ups and pop-unders, opt-in offers, lead generation, and trademark or keyword bidding. Incentives may come in the form of rebates, cash, products, points, and more. While incentivized clicks or traffic is the most notable incentive-based action, other forms, such as incentivized registrations exist.
• Loyalty/Rewards – Like incentive sites, loyalty sites reward members with points, cash or miles for shopping through their sites or reading emails. This is similar to an online shopping mall. A loyalty site is another level to the content site and requires a higher commitment both in time, resources and skills than a traditional content site.
• Comparison Shopping Sites – These are like portals where people can shop a number of other sites and products all in one place. They include a variety of data from advertisers that allow users to compare deals and prices for the same product. Like a loyalty sites, shopping comparison sites are not for the novice publisher, as they require daily attention and a sophisticated skill set to keep the program running and relevant. If you choose to work with a shopping or comparison site, make sure you are comfortable with their level of experience and expertise.
• Paid Search – Paid Search is exactly as it sounds – publishers pay search engines to rank their Web site at a premium spot on a search result to drive traffic to the site. Most search engines call these “sponsored” links and can set the price of the sponsorship depending on demand. While more time consuming and more sophisticated than natural search, paid search can be very cost-effective and profitable for experienced publishers. Paid search also requires some additional up front costs to purchase the rankings. Continuing with our example, our surfing expert would pay Google, AOL or Yahoo! to rank his Hawaiian Surfing Web site when someone types it as a search term. He is guaranteed coverage, but it will cost him for the placement.

In some cases, a publisher’s business model might not be immediately clear. We strongly recommend you understand how each of your publishers will promote your products and make money. You can (and should) contact every publisher if you are unsure of his or her business model through a provided email or the message center.