The Best Affiliate Networks for your Blog | Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Mummy bloggers can earn good money from affiliate advertising.

But as discussed in a previous post it takes some initial work to make sure you are marketing affiliates effectively. You can get no return if you get it wrong.

It also takes some effort to find the best affiliate networks for you.

There are hundreds you could sign up for, so you need to find out which have the products most relevant to your audience, that you are happy to recommend.

This list covers a range networks which have very different offerings but which have all been successful for other mommy bloggers.

Mums Make Lists

1. Google Affiliates

**UPDATE 17 APR 2013 - Google announced today closure of Google Affiliates**
Google Affiliates is very easy to get started with and has lots of big name affiliates with lots of latest offers available. The link management and reporting features are the best I've come across.

On the downside, you may find that the names are just too big and that too many other bloggers are marketing the same brands. I've had most success with links to specific products I really love and can recommend at big retailers such as Target.

2. Commission Junction

Commission Junction has some of the same big brands as Google but also a good range of mid level brands and retailers who have something a bit different. I run a weekly link party - The Friday Baby Shower - for pregnancy and new baby posts and Commission Junction has provided a range of more targeted baby retailers.

3. Share A Sale

Share A Sale has some great small merchants, including targeted training providers, that can be very attractive to your niche audience and lucrative for you. You will need to invest a bit more time in selecting merchants and working out what's right for your audience but some bloggers make much more money from the smaller merchants on Share A Sale than they do from the big networks.

4. Click Bank

Click Bank focuses on digital products including some targeted specifically at bloggers, such as Word Press and Blogger plug ins. If you select products that will be really useful for your niche and which your readers may not otherwise have heard of, Click Bank like Share A Sale can deliver a really good return.

If you're just getting started with affiliate marking check out the videos in the Knowledge Base on Click Bank which I found really helpful.

5. Amazon

The great advantages of Amazon are the range of products and the quality of product reviews and the fact that you get credit for anything your readers buy after they've clicked your link.

The cons are that:

the referral period is ONLY 24 hours, so if your reader buys something just 2 days after clicking your link, you won't get any credit for it
it doesn't by default track which links your readers actually clicked on - you need to manually set up Tracking IDs and associate your links with these Tracking IDs

But you can exploit the fact lots of people buy lots of stuff on Amazon, and just try and get them there from your blog as often as possible with lots of links that exploit for example, the usefulness of Amazon reviews.

That way you increase the probability readers will have clicked one of your links within 24 hours of them buying anything on Amazon, regardless of whether you referred it.

6. Escalate Network

Escalate Network is focused on ads relevant to women and particularly targets women bloggers as publishers. It has a range of campaigns that pay out not just for sales but for example for a social media response such as a Facebook like.

7. Logical Media

Logical Media is similar to Google Affiliates and Commission Junction but is focused on "family" brands, so can work particularly well for mommy bloggers.

8. Link Share

Link Share is similar to Google Affiliates and Commission Junction with a range of big name advertisers.

9. Panthera Network

Panthera Network is similar to Google Affiliates and Commission Junction with a range of big name advertisers.

10. Coupons.com

Coupons.com lets you run affiliate units similarly to other networks, but also lets you easily set up a "Savings Center" for coupons relevant to your readers on your blog.

Coupons can obviously be very successful if you focus on thrift and money saving within your blog but can also work well if you tie the coupons to your niche e.g. food, cleaning, babies.

11. Red Plum

Red Plum runs a similar coupon based affiliate program to Coupons.com

12. Smart Source

Smart Source runs a similar coupon based affiliate program to Coupons.com.

13. Coupon Network

Coupon Network runs a similar coupon based affiliate program to Coupons.com.

14. Affiliate Window

Affiliate Window is a big affiliate network in the UK which has some of the major UK retailers such as John Lewis as members.

15. Web Gains

Web Gains is another affiliate network which is strong in the UK and has some popular mummy brands such as Jojo Maman Bebe.

16. E-Junkie

E-Junkie provides a platform in which you can sell your own products such as e-books through your own site and set up an affiliate program for others to sell your products through their blog. You can sign up with E-Junkie as an affiliate for other bloggers e.g. Six Sisters' Stuff.

Another way to find the best networks for you is to check out the sites of your absolute favourite brands that you could easily write about and recommend on a regular basis to see whether they have an affiliate program and which networks they are using.

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