Step-by-Step Guide: How to Create Your Own Affiliate Network - Affiliate Software Online

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Create Your Own Affiliate Network

Do you want to make ever-increasing money from affiliate marketing?

We suggest taking into account the possibility of establishing your own affiliate network. We are launching the ultimate guide that will illustrate how to create a successful affiliate network from scratch. But first, let us answer some of the basic questions about affiliate networks in general:

1 – Why launch your Affiliate Network?

2 – What’s the Affiliate Network?

3 – How are Affiliate Networks working?

Why do you need to start an affiliate network?

The key reason behind the general aim to set up your own affiliate network is to increase your income even further in your affiliate marketing business.

You may be a profitable merchant or affiliate marketer with strong and stable earnings. Still, sooner or later, working hard in this industry will give you the ability to extend your business structure. One such move forward is the formation of an affiliate network.

The ownership of an affiliate network helps you to have a legion of affiliates behind you. Only imagine how much money you will make with it!

You might think right now it’s too late to start an affiliate network. There are thousands of them out there. Yeah, there are several alliance networks, but according to Rakuten’s survey (one of the largest affiliate networks), 94 percent of publishers use more than one CPA network. You just need to find the right niche to get started.

There’s another explanation why you would want to start your affiliate network. Didn’t you ever feel that you should do something better from the point of view of your own affiliate network? All affiliate networks are about offering, introducing new customers to online companies, and treating the affiliates right, and helping them thrive. You may know the right formula for a good affiliate network.

So there are plenty of reasons to set up an affiliate network and plenty of room to take the spot in the industry.

What’s the Affiliate Network?

Affiliate networks are described as intermediaries between publishers and advertisers. This relationship provides a win-win situation for all parties involved.

CPA networks allow affiliates to easily identify and participate in the best affiliate programs. On the other hand, affiliate networks have a wide variety of advertising platforms for brands and marketers. In addition, you don’t have to advertise your affiliate program directly. Brands would have connections to affiliates involved in the network.

How are Affiliate networks working?

Here’s a little history. Affiliate networks began in 1998 when Commission Junction was set up. After that, the CJ affiliate network & ClickBank launched the first major affiliate network together. Since then, several new affiliate networks have been created, the largest of which are: 

  • CJ, 
  • Rakuten; 
  • Awin; 
  • Amazon; 
  • ShareASale; 
  • eBay.

Step by Step Guide to How to Build an Affiliate Network

The first thing needed for an affiliate network’s existence and basic operation is to have developed ties with brands or advertisers and publishers ready to become affiliates. 

Sign up with Scaleo affiliate marketing network software (14 free trial) to start using an affiliate marketing software as a core of your business.

When all of them sign up for the network, advertisers can add their affiliate programs, and their affiliates can access them.

In exchange, networks administer affiliate schemes, monitor the success of affiliates, and participate in small commissions and other fees for publishers. Affiliate networks make a profit from the difference between the income from advertisers and the charge to affiliates.

In any case, the main aim of good networks is not just to sit down and earn profits; they need to handle their accounts expertly in order to build new alliances and help establish optimized and long-term affiliate programs. That is why partner networks’ efficient operation depends primarily on the software solution that they decide to use. We’re going to get there more in this report. For now, let’s get to the steps you need to take to create a good affiliate network.

7-step Scratch Affiliate Network Launch Guide

These measures will make your journey in the affiliate network ecosystem substantially easier:

1. Consider the best advertisers accessible

2. Choose the right software solution

3. Get Secured by Anti-Fraud Logic

4. Attract Trusted and Experienced Affiliates

5. Build a scheme of attractive incentives

6. Results of track results

7. Get Sustainable Benefit

Let’s hop in, shall we?

Step 1. Consider the best advertisers accessible

Before you start searching for convincing affiliate deals, you must select the best niche for your affiliate network!

Big brands and marketers are likely to have long-term contracts for their affiliate networks. It is extremely doubtful that they would choose to turn existing partners into unknown startups. Therefore, it is important at the beginning of your journey to choosing the most appropriate vertical digital marketing for you.

Step by Step Guide to How to Build an Affiliate Network

You should also note that if you take too many paths at once, you’re unlikely to succeed somewhere in the end. Choose a maximum of the few niches you need to deal with.

After you settle on a vertical affiliate of your choosing, you must find advertisers for the first relationship. At the same time, it is very important to attract a collection of high-quality affiliates. It’s very unlikely that publishers with enormous expertise will be joining you right from the start for offerings from small advertisers. That’s why it’s so important to find your niche and improve your place in it.

Phase 2. Choose the Best App Affiliate Solution

One important aspect of how affiliate marketing operates will help you understand what’s hidden on the surface under simple guidelines. Affiliates are primarily involved only in satisfying the terms of the contract and in obtaining higher commissions for that reason. To achieve this aim, all available strategies and marketing platforms will be ready to be used. However, it is also a big demand for online businesses to monitor the positioning of their advertisements and how their goods are advertised.

This is where the affiliate network comes into play with its management of accounts, technology, and control of affiliate behavior and outcomes. The network is responsible for good ties between advertisers and publishers and the defense of the image of brands. Therefore, it is important to have a reliable tool, such as free affiliate software solution, for this work.

Your choice platform must concentrate on performance & finance management, automation, and do more than just click tracking. There are various criteria to consider when selecting an affiliate marketing software solution. The platform should be easy for both the brand and the affiliates, and it should have space for customization.

Even there is a critical issue. How much does that cost? Answering this would fall into two main categories: the SaaS platform or the in-house solution. The first choice, SaaS, is faster and cheaper. The benefits of the in-house platform in terms of accountability and security.

We have to conclude that the second alternative points are no longer valid due to the new rules on security and privacy. There is no way that tech providers can survive unless they completely fall within the scope of data protection and privacy standards. So, we suggest thinking about the SaaS platform to create an affiliate network from scratch.

Step 3. Get an Affiliate Network Protected from Scaleo’s Anti-Fraud Logic™

Another crucial move ahead of the introduction of an affiliate network is to provide marketers with real-time protection against advertising fraud. You must guarantee the protection of your clients and warrant their support.

In no case can the value of ad fraud be understated. Digital marketers lost about $560 billion in online fraud in 2018.

Knowing the most popular forms of fraud and preventative measures is a must-have to set up your affiliate network. But that’s not going to be enough. This is where the automation and collection of tools of your chosen software solution come in handy. For example, Scaleo provides affiliate managers with reliable resources to automate fraud prevention and protection.

Step 4. Attract Trusted and Experienced Affiliates

First of all, you have to prove yourself to be an outstanding promoter. You have to prove that you have enough experience, and you know how to sell to advertisers. For example, you can host webinars and provide case studies to get the community’s attention. Only then will you be able to switch to the next step, which is to find affiliates.

Much to attract partner promoters will rely, again, on the platform you use. Provide informative, easy-to-understand statistics. Neat – the convenience of your affiliates. Set the category for each bid of the affiliate. Work on a decent description of each physical product or service.

The affiliate program landing page should also include the key points that will mainly be of interest to affiliates. Don’t forget to verify the presence of this knowledge in the details of the affiliate programs:

  • Rewards from the selling of each affiliate (commission);
  • Duration of cookies (days, months);
  • The first the last or any of the referring affiliates shall have the commission;
  • Prohibited traffic origins, infringements, and terminations;
  • A flexible form of payment;

Guidelines for labels (creatives).

You can learn more about how to identify and retain trustworthy affiliates in our recent blog post.

Step 5. Build a scheme of attractive incentives

One of the main myths that affiliate marketing has to do with the affiliate commission. Payouts are great, but they’re not enough to hold partners on the network for a long time to come. And you want your affiliates to stay with you for years.

A long-term reward scheme is the best way to obtain the loyalty of affiliates. For example, your partners will be eligible for more money every month after a certain number of new accounts have been added to your network via a special ID. That way, they’ll see how much closer they’re every month to winning the grand prize, which might be a dream vehicle.

In addition to the advertisement program’s commission rates and the payment methods that are also very relevant, such an incentive scheme would enable you to establish a good relationship with the affiliates for years to come.

Step 6. Quality track & Results

The start of affiliate marketing programs is a critical step as you keep track of their outcomes and overall performance. It is a natural desire for any marketer to receive detailed statistics and to be able to obtain the necessary data easily. The network must have the best monitoring and reporting features and tools in its arsenal.

Affiliate networks such as Adstart Media provide you with a configurable and easy dashboard for use. You can track which publishers are showing higher conversion rates as well as which campaigns are performing better. You will also need access to rich analytics for data-driven decision-making.

Step 7. Get sustainable revenues from your network of affiliates

Before you can sit back and watch your affiliate network carry your passive revenue, you also need to make sure certain things happen. Advertising campaigns produce sustainable income when they are correctly optimized and automated. It all comes with an all-in-one management tool like Scaleo. This helps you quickly refine your affiliate marketing plan rather than combine and review multiple reports, saving you precious time.

Automate your campaign monitoring, KPI settings, data transfer. Get access to proper targeting, smart caps, smart ties, BI analytics, and even more predictive and optimizing plugins. Through using Scaleo, you will have a secure affiliate software solution for your network and an ability to stand out from your rivals.