Why Use an Affiliate Network? 10 Reasons to Choose Awin Over Managing It Yourself
Written by Emma Sharp on 6 minute read
According to the Internet Advertising Bureau and PwC’s Affiliate Marketing Study, spend in the UK on affiliate marketing grew by 15.1 percent in 2017.
What are affiliate networks?
An affiliate network sits between advertisers and publishers, giving both sides a single platform to manage programmes, find partners and track performance. With access to thousands of active publishers across every sector, it removes the legwork of building those relationships yourself. Find out more about how affiliate marketing works.
How do affiliate networks work?
Advertisers list their programmes on the network, publishers apply to promote them, and every click and sale is tracked back to the publisher responsible. Commissions are calculated and paid automatically, with full reporting available to both sides at any time. Here's a closer look at how affiliate tracking works.
An affiliate network deals with many factors involved in running an affiliate programme, leaving you more time to run the other aspects of your business.
Why advertisers choose an affiliate network
1. Everything is managed in one place
Running an affiliate programme is a demanding process, it involves account management, tracking, payments and reporting, and other challenging setup. However, affiliate networks like Awin handles all of it.
Commission payments are managed on your behalf, with Awin's accelerated payments system ensuring publishers are paid quickly, which builds trust in your programme from the start. There are no hidden extras, licensing fees or additional integrations required, everything you need is included.
2. You only pay for results
Affiliate marketing operates on a performance model, commission is paid when a sale is made, meaning your budget is tied directly to results. If you compare that to paid search or display advertising where you pay per click or impression regardless of whether a sale follows, affiliate is much easier to track.
Then calculating the cost per sale is simple, set your own commission rate upfront then deduct that from your profit, giving you predictable budget spend moving forward. Awin's reporting tools give you full visibility over spend throughout the month, so you can monitor and optimise as you go.
3. Access a vetted network of publishers
Publishers must apply to join Awin and go through an approval process for each advertiser programme individually. Our dedicated compliance team checks each affiliate before they can join, so your products are only promoted by partners who meet our quality standards.
Running a programme yourself means finding and approaching suitable publishers one by one. On Awin, your programme is immediately visible to over 1 million active publishers across every sector, saving you significant time in sourcing and recruiting potential publishers for your business.
4. Full visibility over every click, conversion and sale
Awin's dashboard gives you a single view of impressions, clicks, conversions and revenue, then generate reports based on this data. You can see exactly which publishers are driving performance and which campaigns are working. That level of transparency is difficult to replicate when managing a programme yourself, where reporting often means stitching together data from different tools.
It makes it much easier to identify what's working, take action, then allocate more budget to scale it, all in one dashboard. The more you understand your programme, the better decisions and results you can make for it.
5. Compliance and brand safety are built in
Publishers on Awin must comply with both your programme's terms and conditions and the network's own code of conduct. Our dedicated compliance team vets every affiliate before they can join. This prevents your brand being promoted in ways that breaks your policies or company code.
A capable affiliate network like Awin can also detect suspicious activity and swiftly act on it, before it becomes a bigger problem. In a bid for transparency, Awin’s compliance guidelines are published openly.
6. Influencer partnerships are part of the network
Influencer marketing has grown into a large part of affiliate marketing, and a network gives you direct access to content creators without having to source and negotiate with them individually. Through Awin, advertisers can connect with influencers across every niche, from nano-creators with highly engaged pinpoint audiences to established names with much larger and broader followings.
Awin has a dedicated influencer partnerships team, in the US and Europe, who work directly with advertisers to identify the right creators for their brand, manage communication and support campaign execution. This specialist expertise that would take considerable time and resource to build in-house.
7. One of the highest-returning channels in digital marketing
UK brands generated a 15:1 return on every pound invested in affiliate marketing in 2025, according to the APMA. Not many marketing channels can demonstrate that level of measurable, consistent performance.
In comparison to building your own programme, it is much faster to see return on investment with a network, as they already have an infrastructure in place and ready to go, managing tracking, payments, relationships and reporting.
There's no long, overdrawn setup period eating into your results.
8. Reduce pressure on internal teams
Running an affiliate programme through Awin means your developers aren't pulled in every time an integration needs updating, and your wider teams aren't caught in approval queues or competing priorities.
Awin's account managers oversee your programme day to day, with technical support on hand when needed,. so the work gets done without depending on internal resource to move it forward.
9. Reach audiences you wouldn't find yourself
Every publisher that promotes your products introduces your brand to their audience, people who may never have discovered you through your own channels. Awin operates across 17 markets globally, giving advertisers access to publisher networks at a scale that would take years to build independently.
Your brand is advertised consistently, with you being able to upload your own logos, messaging, creatives and brand guidelines that publishers will adhere to, ensuring your brand is represented accurately wherever it's being promoted.
10. A channel with over 25 years of proven results
Affiliate marketing has been a core part of the digital marketing mix for over two decades, and the data continues to support it. UK brands generated £20.7 billion in revenue through the channel in 2025 alone, and with investment growing year on year, more advertisers are committing to it.
For a deeper look at the numbers, our affiliate marketing statistics page covers the key data points worth knowing. That longevity matters.
When you join a network like Awin, you're plugged into its systems that have been thriving for over 20 years, from publisher relationships to its infrastructure, everything is refined to help you progress.
Conclusion
Running an affiliate programme well takes time and industry knowledge. Recruiting the right publishers, managing compliance, tracking performance and handling payments, each of those is a complex task in its own right.
Most advertisers find that a network like Awin removes those barriers and lets them focus on what actually matters, growing the brand and their income. Awin has been supporting advertisers of all sizes for over 20 years, across 17 markets globally, and with the infrastructure already in place to get new advertisers off to a quick start.
If you're ready to start and scale your affiliate programme, explore Awin's pricing plans to find the right fit for your business.
