How to Choose an Affiliate Network: A Brand Checklist

To choose an affiliate network, start with your goals, budget and markets. Then compare networks on partner reach, tracking accuracy, brand protection, commission flexibility, reporting, support and pricing terms. Ask each network for real examples in your sector, and check the contract length and notice period before you sign. 

The network you choose tracks your sales, pays your partners and shapes which publishers you can reach. This guide is for brands setting up or moving an affiliate programme. Publishers looking for programmes to join can visit our page for affiliate partners. 

Below are the nine questions to ask any network. Each section explains what to look for, with Awin’s approach as an example. 

Start with what your programme needs 

Before you book a demo, get clear on what you want the programme to do. Your answers to the points below will help you judge each network’s pitch against your own needs. 

• The action you want to pay for. Sales, leads, app installs and sign ups each suit different partners. A network with deep supply in fashion may have very little in finance, so check how it performs in categories like yours. 
• What a new customer is worth. Your average order value and margin set the commission you can afford. That figure also tells you how much room is left for network fees. 
• The time your team can give it. Some brands want to run the programme day to day themselves. Others prefer a team of experts to handle recruitment and optimisation for them. 
• Where you sell now, and where you plan to sell. If new countries are on the roadmap, look for publishers and local support in those markets from the start, so the network can grow with you. 
• Where your competitors run their programmes. Brands in the same sector tend to cluster on the networks that work for them. You can search Awin’s advertiser directory to see which brands in your space already run programmes. 

Keep these answers to hand when you speak to each network, and use them to compare what you hear. 

Affiliate network or affiliate platform: what’s the difference? 

An affiliate platform is software for running a programme. It handles tracking, commissions and reporting, and you find, invite and manage every partner yourself. 

An affiliate network gives you the same kind of software plus an established community of publishers already looking for brands to work with. It also takes on jobs such as vetting partners, paying commissions and monitoring compliance. Our guide to what an affiliate network is covers this in more detail. 

A platform suits brands with a dedicated team ready to recruit, vet and pay every partner themselves. For most brands, a network is the quicker route to results, with partners ready from day one and much of the running shared with the network. Our article on why brands use an affiliate network covers the main benefits. 

 Awin is an affiliate network with platform tools included, so you get the software and the publisher community in one place. You also keep control of your programme, with your own commission rules, brand guidelines and partner approvals. 

According to Awin’s About page, Awin has: 

• 30,000 advertisers and 1 million publishers 
• £18 billion ($19 billion) in revenue generated for advertisers and £1.2 billion ($1.4 billion) for publishers in the last financial year 
• More than 25 years in affiliate marketing 
• 1,400+ people across 17 locations 

If you’d like to see what that network could do for your brand, you can get started with Awin and talk to the team about your goals.

How big is the network, and can you find the right partners in it? 

Most networks share a total publisher count. For your programme, the more useful figures are how many partners are active in your sector and markets, and how easily you can find them. 

Questions worth asking each network: 

• How many partners promote brands like yours today? 
• What mix of partner types is available, such as content sites, cashback, voucher, comparison sites and creators? 
• Which tools help you find and assess new partners? 

Awin created 2M+ partnerships in the last year, and its partner discovery tools are available on every plan: 

• Smart Partner Search lets you describe the partners you want in plain language, then returns matches with a match score. 
• AI partner recommendations suggest partners with estimated revenue, refreshed daily. 
• Partner profile cards show an estimated revenue range for the first three months of a partnership. 

Once you’ve chosen a network, our guide to finding profitable affiliates walks through how to build your partner list. 

How reliable is the tracking, and will it fit your setup? 

Tracking decides whether partners are credited for the sales they drive. As browsers restrict cookies, tracking that relies on the browser alone can miss conversions, and partners soon notice when commissions go missing. 

Ask each network: 

• Does it track sales through your server as well as the browser? 
• Can you see every partner touchpoint in a customer’s journey before they buy? 
• Is there a ready made plugin for your ecommerce platform, or will your developers build the integration? 

Awin’s Conversion API supports server to server tracking, sending sale data from your systems directly to Awin so conversions are recorded even when browser tracking is limited. 

To see the bigger picture, Journey Path shows which partners were involved across a customer’s path to purchase, depending on your plan. 

Setup is straightforward on the most common ecommerce platforms. Awin has plugins for Shopify and WooCommerce, plus an extension for Shopware, which install its tracking without custom development. 

How does the network protect your brand and budget? 

Affiliate marketing pays on results, so protecting where your commission goes is a big part of what a network offers. The right checks stop money going to partners who misuse your brand name, leak your promo codes or send sales that never should have counted. 

Things to check with each network: 

• Who checks partners before they join, and how are they monitored afterwards? 
• How is your brand protected in paid search? 
• Can promo codes be tied to the partners you give them to? 
• How do you approve or decline sales before commission is paid? 
   

Partner checks and monitoring 

Partners are checked before joining and monitored on an ongoing basis. Awin’s in house compliance team scans the network using internally developed tools, supported by third party tools including AdPolice, IP Quality Score and SimilarWeb. 

Compliance tracking reports help flag anomalies before they affect advertisers. You can read more about Awin’s fraud prevention measures in the help centre. 

Search and promo code protection 

Every Awin advertiser gets ad hijacking monitoring in search, which spots partners running ads that impersonate your brand. 

Promo codes need protecting too. On selected plans, Voucher Attribution locks each code to a specific partner, so commission goes to the partner you gave it to. 

Validating sales before you pay 

Each programme has its own validation period, when you approve or decline sales before commission is paid. You give a reason for each decline, such as a returned order, which keeps things clear for your partners. 

You can validate in bulk, sync approvals automatically through Shopify and WooCommerce, or use the Transaction Validation API, depending on your plan. The validating transactions guide covers each option. 

Awin publishes its compliance guidelines openly. 

Its work in this area won gold for Excellence in Transparency and Compliance at the 2025 Global Performance Marketing Awards. 

Can you reward partners the way you want? 

Partners bring different kinds of value. A content site that introduces new customers may deserve a higher rate than one that reaches shoppers just before checkout, and your margins will vary by product too. 

Questions to raise on commission: 

• Can you set different commission rates by product, category or partner? 
• Can you pay more for new customers than returning ones? 
• How quickly are partners paid once sales are approved? 

Awin’s commission rules let you reward partners based on what matters to your business, such as product category, new or existing customers, coupon codes or individual publishers. 

Commission can also be paid per lead. Many brands in finance and telecoms reward partners for actions such as a completed application or a sign up, and Awin offers alternative rates for businesses without transaction values. Our guide to affiliate payment methods explains the main models. 

Payment speed matters as well. Publishers tend to favour programmes that pay reliably, so a network that pays quickly helps you attract the partners you want. Through its accelerated payments system, Awin pays publishers twice a month, on the 1st and the 15th, which helps build trust in your programme. 

What reporting and data will you get? 

Reporting shows you which partners drive results and where extra budget will pay off. Before you sign, ask to see the dashboard in action and check how easily your data moves into the tools your team already uses. 

Find out from each network: 

• Can you see performance by partner, product and date in real time? 
• Can you compare your results with others in your sector? 
• Can you pull your data into your own reporting tools, and keep it if you ever move? 

Awin’s dashboard gives you real time reporting on performance, partners and revenue. Industry benchmarks show how your programme compares with similar brands, and you can add direct competitor benchmarks and custom reports, depending on your plan. 

Your data is also easy to use outside Awin. APIs let you pull it into your own reporting tools, such as Power BI, and Awin’s MCP server lets you ask questions about your live programme data inside AI assistants such as ChatGPT and Claude. 

As more shoppers research purchases through AI assistants, it helps to see that traffic too. Awin’s Journey Path report shows how visits from AI platforms contribute to conversions, as covered in our guide to AI traffic on Awin. 

How much support is included? 

Some brands want to run their programme hands on, and others want experts to handle the day to day. Many land somewhere in between, and those needs often change as a programme grows. 

Questions worth asking each network: 

• Can you run the programme yourself, with expert help available later? 
• How is a new campaign set up, and how long does it take? 
• How quickly can you get answers when something goes wrong? 

Awin lets you choose between managing your programme yourself or having Awin’s experts run it for you. 

If you’re running it yourself, setup is the first hurdle. Campaign Builder guides you through partners, commissions and promotion in one flow, and configures a new campaign in minutes. 

Here’s where to turn for help: 

 Most everyday questions start with Ava, you can ask about anything from tracking setup to finding a report, and get a direct answer with a link to the right place in the platform. 

To see which level of support fits your programme, compare Awin’s plans. 

Is the pricing clear and flexible? 

Networks price their services in different ways, so ask for the full cost in writing before you compare. Contract terms matter as much as the fees, especially if you’re trying the channel for the first time. 

Questions worth asking each network: 

• Is pricing published, or only shared after a sales call? 
• How long is the minimum contract, and how much notice do you need to give? 
• Can you move to a different plan as your programme grows? 

Awin publishes its advertiser plans openly. Access and Accelerate each have a monthly platform fee and a tracking fee per transaction, and Advanced is priced to fit larger programmes. 

 Every plan includes unlimited team members, so your whole team can work in the programme at no extra cost. 

As your programme grows, you may want to work with more than classic affiliates. Awin supports creator partnerships, with tools to find creators who suit your brand and track the sales they drive. 

It also offers brand partnerships through BrandSwap and referral programmes through Soreto. 

Not sure which plan fits? The pricing page has a three minute quiz that points you to the right one. 

Questions to ask before you sign 

Take this list into every sales call, and compare each network’s answers side by side: 

1. What does our programme need from a network, and does this one fit? 
2. Do we need an established publisher community, or only the software? 
3. How many partners are active with brands in our sector? 
4. Does tracking run through our server as well as the browser? 
5. Who checks partners, and how are brand search and promo codes protected? 
6. Can we set commission rules by product, customer type or partner? 
7. What reporting is included, and can we export our data? 
8. What support is included, and how quickly can we get answers? 
9. What’s the full cost, the minimum contract and the notice period? 

Be wary if a network struggles to give a clear total cost, can’t say how many partners are active in your sector, or stays vague about when partners are paid. Any one of these is worth a follow up question before you commit. 

Awin was named Affiliate Network or SaaS of the Year at the UK Performance Marketing Awards three years running, from 2023 to 2025. In 2026, it won the Partnership Ecosystem Award at the Global Performance Marketing Awards and was named a G2 Leader for Summer 2026. 

If Awin sounds like the right fit, talk to the team about your programme.

 

FAQs about choosing an affiliate network 

What’s the difference between an affiliate programme and an affiliate network? 

An affiliate programme is one brand’s offer to partners, setting out what it pays and its rules. An affiliate network hosts thousands of these programmes in one place, handling tracking, payments and compliance, so brands reach publishers already signed up and publishers can join many programmes through one account. 

How much does an affiliate network cost? 

Affiliate network costs usually combine a platform fee with a tracking fee on each sale, on top of the commission you pay partners. Totals vary by network and volume, so ask for a worked example at your expected sales. Awin publishes its plans openly on its pricing page. 

Can you use more than one affiliate network? 

Yes, some brands run programmes on more than one network to reach partners who work with a particular network, or to cover different countries. It adds cost and admin, and you’ll need to check sales so each order is only paid once. Many brands start with one network and add another later. 

How do affiliate networks protect brands from fraud? 

Affiliate networks protect brands by vetting partners before they join, monitoring traffic for suspicious activity and letting brands decline invalid sales before commission is paid. On Awin, an in house compliance team uses internal and third party tools, alongside search monitoring for ad hijacking and promo code protection.