Affiliate Networks

Will fraud kill affiliate marketing?

It is up to you. You choose.

But here’s a clue: the BP oil spill probably just killed the Louisiana wetlands. I think we should take that as a warning of just what can happen.

The affiliate marketing industry is an ecosystem. It consists of a web of interdependent species: affiliates, merchants, networks, merchant processors, etc. Sometimes they compete, sometimes they are symbiotic. But they all rely on each other for survival.

The CPA network space is in tumult. If your favorite CPA network isn’t dead already, it’s probably refinancing, merging or crouching in a defensive posture.

Give me “affiliate managers who aren't idiots,”  was the demand of one publisher when we asked what they looked for when choosing a network, while another said, "what i care most about is that they don't shave or scrub my business. I've seen that happen way too often." 

The survey we recently carried out for the BLUE BOOK Top 20 ranking of leading performance marketing networks gave us some great insights into what's bothering people right now.

mThink ranks the Top 20 in new edition of BLUE BOOK

SAN FRANCISCO, CA; April 20, 2010 - Revenue Performance, the leading magazine and website devoted to performance advertising, has announced their new ranking of the BLUE BOOK Top 20 Performance Marketing Networks and Exchanges. The new Top 20 list is the result of aggregating expert views, traffic data, measures of industry influence, and a survey that went out to over 1000 publishers, advertisers, agencies and networks. 

Hydra Networks has announced that with immediate effect it has terminated the accounts of over 15,000 publishers. The news comes as part of a new push by Hydra to attract mainstream brand advertisers and set themselves apart from “ad networks peddling nutraceutical diet remedies, cash grant opportunities, tooth whiteners and other non-branded campaigns of low consumer value.”