Why affiliate networks win against direct advertisers?

In the last few weeks our colleagues from affiliate marketing mentioned that there were less and less reliable advertisers in the finance niche. We’ve found out about some of these cases and the present material is to explain why it is safer and more lucrative to work with affiliate networks than with direct advertisers.

Affiliate network offers higher rates
Affiliate networks offer higher rates to webmasters for two reasons:

1. Advertisers raise the rates for affiliate networks due to large volumes of traffic.
2. Affiliate networks appreciate traffic from any single webmaster.

Affiliate network has its own analysis sector that assesses the quality of traffic from any particular webmaster/team and offers fair rates. If affiliate networks do not resell traffic, their rates may be even higher compared to direct advertisers.

Affiliate network always pays you, while advertiser may not
Some partners don’t even have the licence for activities they are involved in – this leads to illegal payments. Consequently, their accounts are being blocked and it becomes physically impossible for these advertisers to pay for the traffic.
Reliable affiliate networks work on a prepay model – first, advertisers pay, then webmasters start running traffic. This is why you always get paid.

Affiliate network takes care of all your problems
For a webmaster, the most unfortunate situations happen when the advertiser he works with is unregulated and there is no possible way to verify information about the company. Eventually, a webmaster is being scammed – the finance niche is full of such cases.

A liable affiliate network checks the reputation of every advertiser and screens out the most shady ones. Before the offer becomes public, it gets tested by the inner media buying team – this step helps to eliminate bad-quality offers. As a result, only external, which means unaffiliated and independent, and time-tested advertisers remain within the affiliate network.
Besides, the advertiser may have issues with the call centre:

• Technical difficulties;
• No staff in the call centre;
• It takes a much longer time for staff to call after the order checkout.

These issues lead to lower approval for a webmaster – in this case affiliate networks transfer traffic to a liable advertiser.

Affiliate network knows what gives you the best conversion
Affiliate networks distribute traffic between advertisers in multiple GEOs and choose the best advertiser for a particular traffic source. As a consequence, an affiliate drives traffic to the most converting offers.
Moreover, a decent affiliate network works on making the most out of available traffic. If the advertiser processes traffic badly, the affiliate network redirects it to other advertisers.

Affiliate network helps techically and informationally
In the affiliate network ecosystem, each webmaster is granted the option to interact with a personal affiliate manager, who:

• Helps to set up an advertising campaign if something goes wrong;
• Advises relevant GEOs;
• Picks relevant offers.

In some cases, affiliate networks prepare creative ads and share converting pre-landing pages for free. Affiliate manager is a friend to any webmaster, be it experienced specialist or newby. Advertisers don’t offer such help and webmasters stay all by themselves.

Generally, advertisers look for senior affiliates, while most affiliate networks accept beginners and help them achieve high results.