“I once had a network pass on details of my campaign to another affiliate who happened to be a friend of mine. I’ve never known that to happen with Clickbooth. I trust them as much as you can trust someone in this business.” – Carl J, super-affiliate.

It is hard enough to make money as an affiliate without having to worry about whether your network partner is honest or not. That’s why, when you ask affiliates about how they achieve and maintain success, trust is almost near the top of the list.

The performance marketing industry is well-stocked with supposed gurus selling training courses, some good, some terrible. Yet what most of them get right is that they advise newbie publishers to go to trade shows, meet people and form face-to-face relationships with fellow publishers and with network affiliate managers. Without those face-to-face meetings, it’s impossible for a new affiliate to evaluate a network effectively. Every network has an attractive website, they each make similar claims – the only way to choose is to meet their representatives, look them in the eye and decide, “is this a person I want to do business with?”

Following on from our recent advertiser interviews, we decided to speak more on this topic to a couple of super-affiliates working with Clickbooth, the mThink Blue Book #1 ranked CPA network for 2017.

Carl J focuses on the dating vertical and told us, “I’ve been a publisher for over 10 years. The industry has cleaned up a lot since the early days. There were a lot of shady networks seven or eight years ago and I got burned several times.”

Carl is passionate about the need for a solid affiliate/network relationship. “Affiliates are typically very secretive but my success really started when I felt I could trust my affiliate manager and share information with them. Trust in the network is very important if you want to make real money,” he said. “I once had a network pass on details of my campaign to another affiliate who happened to be a friend of mine. I’ve never known that to happen with Clickbooth. I trust them as much as you can trust someone in this business.”

Joe Barreca agrees with this view of the centrality of the publisher’s relationship with their network. Joe is a 10-year veteran of the industry and runs multiple verticals at a time. He focuses on metrics to make his point, “A lot of publishers worry about networks shaving commissions or throttling their deals. The bottom line for me is EPC. EPC tells the truth about who might be doing that kind of thing or not. There’s a reason why we do most of our business with Clickbooth.”

As with Carl, Joe feels that working towards a point where it is possible to be open with your affiliate manager is key to accelerating results. He likes to be able to discuss opportunities, and what is working and what isn’t: “Over the last two years Clickbooth has become our biggest partner. The relationship improved on both sides over time, then we started discussing a more strategic partnership. I had a good feeling and so was open to trying it out. Having a trusted relationship makes all the difference.”

Naturally, trust and a great relationship isn’t everything. There needs to be a solid network structure, with good technology and a broad range of offers. Carl again, “I’ve worked with 15-20 other networks at different times, but I like Clickbooth the best. There’s a lot of diversity in the offers available and money is always paid on time – no issues, no discrepancies. And if a network does things the right way then they will have longevity. Even their advertisers stick with them long-term too.”

One aspect of Clickbooth’s recent upsurge that we picked up on in the Blue Book survey last year was the enthusiasm for their platform, in particular the optimization and offer-rotation technologies that it includes. For Carl, it has made a big difference in how he runs his day, “Up until two years ago most of the networks were on Cake. Clickbooth invested in their own platform at that time and it is awesome. It takes out a lot of the grunt work. They have technology that allows one link to rotate different offers. It’s really easy and uses a smart algorithm to optimize which offer is shown. I was skeptical at first, but now I trust it and my ROI has increased as a result.”

Joe Barreca concurred with this positive view of Clickbooth’s platform, “It is a game-changer for us. They have been smart enough to build proprietary tech that others don’t have. Only one other network has anything like Clickbooth’s link rotator script, and Clickbooth’s works better. We use all of their tech that we can. It makes no sense to build it ourselves when I can suggest a new feature and get it delivered within a month.”

The Blue Book has always been about promoting excellence in the performance marketing industry. Over the years we have seen the leading networks become ever more professional as major brands buy into the lower-risk marketing model that affiliate marketing represents. That increasing professionalism has in turn led to greater financial stability and to staff that stay with a given network for years, building expertise that can be shared with publishers and advertisers alike.

In essence this is a new network model for the CPA industry, supported by an influx of VC and private equity funding. Trustworthiness, stability and cutting-edge technology lie at the heart of what an affiliate should look for in a network partner for 2018. These are the reasons that Clickbooth was voted our #1-ranked CPA network.

As Carl J told us, “I started working with Clickbooth in 2010 and have always had a great relationship with them. They’re quality people. For anyone coming into the industry, they’re definitely one of the best there is.”

Vote for Clickbooth for the 2018 Best CPA Network.

About Clickbooth

Ranked The #1 CPA Network worldwide, Clickbooth connects Advertisers with a product or service with Affiliates who are experts in all forms of digital marketing and capable of driving high quality traffic on a Cost-Per-Action (CPA) basis through native, social, mobile, display, email, search and contextual channels. When you work with Clickbooth as an Advertiser, you only pay for real results – new customers or users. As an Affiliate Partner, you can rely on us for the best offers, guaranteed on-time payments and cutting edge technology. We value our partners and only work with companies who maintain stellar reputations or those looking to build stellar reputations. Pioneering Performance Marketing since 2002