First, if you’re new to affiliate marketing, some preliminary information helpful in your search prove increasingly a part-time or full-time affiliate marketer.

preliminary statements may prove useful in your quest for becoming a part-time or full-time affiliate marketer.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is very simple to explain: you promote and market a product or business in exchange for a commission if a sale or lead is made of your marketing efforts. With online affiliate marketing you simply affiliate ID embedded links on your web pages and when a customer clicks
your link and proceeds to the designated site of the company and make a purchase or sign up for a service, you earn a commission.

Affiliate marketing, if done properly, can prove to be a very profitable business to be. Commissions can run anywhere from a few cents to thousands of dollars for just one click or sale.Professional marketers develop affiliate relationships with hundreds of companies and build websites of these companies and products to promote.

Needless to say, the advent of the internet is a golden opportunity for affiliate marketers to really expand their promotions and marketing. As more as more customers opt for online advertising and purchases keep increasing at a maddening pace.

To accommodate all this online ecommerce we have seen the birth of major affiliate networks, by large companies. Make no mistake, affiliate marketing is big business, accounting for billions in sales and commissions.

What is an affiliate network?

An affiliate network is third party facilitator affiliates and companies together. It connects advertisers (companies with products or services to sell), along with publishers (who display and promote these products or services) so they can do business. The affiliate network does all the tracking, accounting and payment of commissions.

The following Top 10 list of the best Affiliate Networks is composed by a real full-time affiliate marketer who has worked these programs for more than five years. This list is subjective and based on first hand experience. It must be seen in this light and every marketer probably will have a different list or have it in a different picking order depending on the type and nature of their marketing.

But this list of the 10 Best Affiliate Networks will give you a general overview of these affiliate networks and how they work.

1. Commission Junction

Now owned by Store, Commission Junction was one of the first affiliate networks. It is also one of the most important with many of the top Fortune 500 companies are listed.

CJ is an international network with excellent stats and tracking (some of the best you’ll find), along with regular monthly payments makes this the obvious first choice for anyone wishing to try affiliate marketing.
For those who are new or old affiliate marketing, CJ also holds regular seminars and trainings.

Most merchants offer pay-per-lead or pay-per-sale, one of the best features is the performance bonuses and incentives. As most experienced marketers will know, the selling 50k to 100k per month for traders to bring in the big incentives or bonuses.

Commissions run as high as 50%, but most are within 3% to 15% range. You have the option of direct deposit for your payments. A major plus, CJ will tell you which merchants
and ads are earning the most revenue for affiliates so you can easily choose which merchants are worth promoting.

2. ClickBank

ClickBank is another professional affiliate network with
excellent stats and tracking. Easy to use and pays every two weeks.

ClickBank is slightly different from the others in that it mainly deals with digital download products. The assignments of ClickBank are usually much higher than other networks, about 40% to 50% or more.

ClickBank has over 10,000 products but keep in mind, info-marketing products will have stiff competition from the clever and well established Internet marketers promoting the same products.Consider yourself warned!

The most successful marketing tactic here is to first dominate your targeted niche with your blogs and sites, then find affiliate products to match your content or niche subject, whether it be gardening, gaming laptops or Mediterranean cruises!.

3. LinkShare

LinkShare is an excellent affiliate network. It is one of the oldest affiliate networks on the Internet. LinkShare was recently acquired by the Japanese Portal Rakuten, with a price tag of $ 425,000,000.

Very good stats and reporting with their Synergy Analytics system.Many top Fortune 500 companies are presented here, so no problems finding products and services to romote.
LinkShare pays orders they receive from merchants – monthly checks.

4. Affiliate Window

Affiliate Window is a UK affiliate network top brand companies and good commission rates has. Pays once a month and has excellent stats.

Savvy affiliate marketers know promoting in other countries much easier than promoting the U.S. market. Especially because these other countries did not become saturated with online marketers, little competition means more sales.

5. Amazon

Amazon is an excellent affiliate network to join if you want products from your website or blog to sell. Amazon has excellent stats and the links are very easy to make your webpages.

You also have the option of creating your own store with Amazon aStores. Amazon now has context link ads and widgets!

Commission rates are slightly lower than the other networks but making sales through Amazon is much, much easier. You make more sales mainly because Amazon is a known and trusted online company. Amazon now pays monthly.

6. ShareASale (www.shareasale.com)

ShareASale is yet another easy system to work with good stats and simple to create links. With 1,700 + merchants to choose from, ShareASale affiliate network is a good promotion.

The control panel is easy to use and the reporting is very good.Usually pays the month following your sales.

7. Google (www.google.com/adsense/)

Many will not think of Google as an affiliate network, but it does run affiliate products through its AdSense program. Very few products but like everything Google is professionally run and top caliber all.

Please note, top marketers know affiliate links / products on the content pages will return 10 times what Google Adsense will give.However, these marketers will also know using Google Adsense on less targeted pages throughout your sites or blogs you will get a healthy return.

Besides receiving the monthly checks from a multi-billion dollar company like Google will put a smile on your face every time.

8. link connector (www.linkconnector.com)

link connector is a relatively new affiliate network which launched in 2004. It is Pay Per Click, Pay Per Sale and Pay Per Lead. Good stats and reporting. Worth for their different types of new affiliate technology such as direct coupling pagerank passing along to the merchant’s site.

9. CPA Empire (www.cpaempire.com)

Large CPA (Cost Per Action) network especially if you have many e-mail marketing and promotions do. Focused on acquiring leads and sign-ups but does offer other traders too. Good stats and reporting.

10. Independents

Individual affiliate deals with different companies that may or may not be listed with the major networks above. Your independent affiliate deals will be some of your most lucrative because sometimes the work of individual private commission rates and bonuses. Aim for residual income here. Not ignore this aspect of affiliate marketing such as paying the highest dividends.

Keep in mind, all the above affiliate networks are iddlemen,
They come between you and the merchant you’re promoting. For affiliates with a proven track record, who have proven themselves, customers and sales, a private deal cutting out the middleman / fees can prove very beneficial for both parties to deliver. If you are lucky known as a super affiliate, private offers will increasingly and more profitable.