In order to promote products online you need to use your own “tracking links”. For example when you logged into your Powerhouse Affiliate members account you would have seen your "general tracking link" which is your own affiliate link for Powerhouse Affiliate. These are specific links that are assigned only to you. You can only get these links either from an affiliate network or directly from the product owner or advertiser.
For example, let’s say you wanted to promote Powerhouse Affiliate membership to people online. You would take that affiliate link and share it online. You could share it in an email, or on Facebook, or even on your own websites or advertising campaigns. Any time someone joined Powerhouse Affiliate by clicking your link we would pay you a commission - and we would pay you every single month recurring for as long as your referral remains a member.
This would be an example of working “directly” with a merchant. The benefit of working directly with merchants is you cut out any “middlemen” and often times you get a higher payout, and more accurate tracking.
Working with an affiliate network also has its advantages. Instead of working directly with the advertiser, the network is working as the middleman between you and the merchants. Here you have a wider selection of offers and more advertisers to choose from, all within the same network. (since they do all of the work finding advertisers and putting them into their network)
Without searching too hard, you can find hundreds of different affiliate networks on the Web with new ones popping up daily. CPA (cost-per-acquisition), CPL (cost-per-lead), CPS (cost-per-sale), CPC (cost-per-click), CPM (cost-per-1k impressions) — it all can become very confusing quite quickly. We also own a CPA network where you can get more selection in offers.
At the end of the day, you just want to know:
- What affiliate network is best for my business or niche?
- What types of affiliates are most successful in the affiliate network?
- Which affiliate network will help me acquire the most new customers?
- Do they pay on time?
- Are they well known and have a solid reputation of keeping affiliates happy?
