Affiliate networks are the primary service providers in the affiliate marketing industry. They provide marketing solutions to the advertisers and merchants and at the same time help web site publishers to earn from their resources and services.

Online affiliate networks have appeared on the scene quite recently. Their evolution runs parallel to the online advertising agencies. The mode of operation for these agencies is more or less similar. The affiliate networks do online promotions and marketing by advertising, content publishing whereas the ad agency focuses on the advertising only.

Affiliate networks have their expertise in online marketing, search marketing, online advertising and publisher resources. Many of the practices of online advertising are also used in affiliate marketing. The primary difference between the two is the channel of distribution. In affiliate marketing it is the web sites that serve as primary channels where as in online advertising it is the popular media platforms.

The main concern for both online advertisers and affiliate marketers is the tracking of the advertisements or any content that is placed on the web sites. The same is taken care with the help of advanced web tracking tools and technologies.

Affiliate networks also have in their bag some efficient marketing managers. From the moment a publisher or advertiser joins the network till their accounts are terminated; there is a lot of account maintenance and managerial work required. A substitute for it is the affiliate manager which is often hired by the advertisers.

The statistics revealed by Nielsen’s show the spending on online advertising as growing slowly. Of the total budget on various media, over 7 per cent is being spent on Internet advertising. The amount received by affiliate marketing is even less. However, the results from affiliate marketing are satisfactory and better than offline media.

Affiliate marketing is based on the performance and is more like an investment. The advertisers are investing for promotion and sales and they do get returns. The returns and the results are monitored and tracked till the last moment. The same is not true for many offline campaigns. They may be helping but their impact cannot be ascertained or precisely determined. Online affiliate networks are promoting such systems as would help in generating maximum returns and impact based marketing. Such efforts must be endorsed and accredited in the industry.