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According to the recent reports the penetration of the Internet is 20 per cent for the total world population. That puts over 1.3 billion people participating in one or more activities related to the Internet. The figures suggest the immense popularity and consumption trends for the new media. Powered by Internet, the World Wide Web offers countless business solutions. Talking about online businesses, one of the rapidly growing web businesses in recent times is the affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing applies to the practise wherein a website or blog publishers conduct marketing exercises for a client. The former is called an affiliate and the client or advertiser is called a merchant. Affiliates use their websites to disperse the promotional and publicity material as provided by the merchant or advertiser. Often it happens that the publisher has to make up the publicity material himself. Affiliate networks are those agencies which help in linking the affiliates with the merchants.

Affiliate Network Services:

Affiliate networks act like an interface between the merchants and affiliates. The network services is a common platform where both affiliates and the merchants meet. It is done with the registering of two parties with the networks. The networks have a strong client base, that is, they enjoy business relations with numerous merchants and affiliates. By joining the network the affiliate does not have to spend any time finding for a merchant and the same applies to the merchants.

Why join an affiliate network?

The answer to the above question has two dimensions one related to the affiliates and the other related to the merchants. The two can be dealt separately.

A website publisher or owner has little time to devote to the Internet marketing industry. In most cases publishers primarily focus on development and maintenance of their own web resources, which are the websites. Their business models are not that refined and last but not the least, they do not have enough contacts with the online merchants. In any case the publisher is required to join a network and get the work from the merchants.

Most of the website publishers work independently or as a small group. There is not enough workforces to manage the affiliate business. Keeping track of the daily activities, the sales and advertisement impacts, records of the due payments, communicating with the merchants, etc are some of the hurdles that these small enterprises face. To get rid of them, the affiliate may hire the services of an in-house affiliate manager or register for a network.

Further the affiliate networks provide their program for a number of industry verticals. This gives an affiliate a choice to select the merchant based upon the industry segment he caters to.

Affiliate networks are equally important to the merchants. The network helps in delegating the work to the affiliates. A merchant may find it very difficult to manage accounts of all the affiliates and the assignments which are supposed to be undertaken by the affiliates. Further, paying the affiliates is a very tedious job. A merchant may be having hundreds of affiliates working for them and imagine how difficult it would be to track the payments that they have to pay and then sending the individual payments. By registering with a network they are required to pay a single amount at regular intervals.

Also, affiliate networks have a good exposure of the industry and know where the best resources in the industry are. To get the maximum out of an affiliate business the right merchant should be associated with the right affiliate. There are chances that some publishers might find appropriate merchants on their own, but the chances are very few while they have just stepped in the industry.

To conclude one can say that affiliate networks provide complete affiliate marketing solution to the publishers and advertisers.