Affiliates are generally website owners who are prepared to divert their targeted traffic, via banners, buttons or text links, to one or more merchants' websites. They would consider doing this on the basis that any sales accruing from that diverted traffic would earn them a commission.

For merchants, affiliate marketing widens the scope of their internet presence by encouraging other websites to become advocates for their services, increasing online exposure and improving the efficiency of advertising spend. For publishers, affiliate marketing can provide a lucrative revenue stream for popular websites.

Affiliate sites are often categorised by merchants (advertisers) and affiliate networks as follows:

• Search affiliates that make use of pay per click campaigns to promote the advertisers' offers
• Comparison shopping sites and directories, such as Kelkoo, Pricerunner and Shopping.com
• Loyalty sites, such as iPoints, Rewards Online, Dynamic Rewards, which provide rewards for purchases in the form of points back, cash back or charitable donations
• Coupon and rebate sites that focus on sales promotions
• Content and niche sites, including product review sites
• Blogs and RSS feeds
• Email list affiliates

Affiliate Networks

An affiliate network acts as an intermediary between publishers (affiliates) and merchants (affiliate programs). It allows publishers to find affiliate programs, which are suitable for their website and it helps websites offering affiliate programs to reach their target audience.

We have extensive experience with all the major UK affiliate networks such as AffiliateFuture, Affiliate Window, Buy.at, Commission Junction, Paid on Results and TradeDoubler, putting us in the ideal position to run effective affiliate marketing campaigns on your behalf.