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Low-Fuss Networks
Affiliate Marketing Networks which we think are especially Affiliate-Friendly!

Out of all of the affiliate marketing networks at Zyra's site, there are some which Zyra regards as Low Fuss Networks. There are things which distinguish an affiliate marketing company as "low fuss", and not all affiliate marketing companies qualify on these criteria, even though some of them are in other ways quite good companies. To be a low-fuss network, an affiliate marketing company has to make it easy for affiliates to sign up to merchant programs. The idea is, if you're an affiliate, you should be able to log-on and sign up to a few programs, be auto-accepted for most of them, and then grab the link code and put it on your affiliate website, right away, without fuss, ready for the next issue's publication of your site!

The following places are known to be low-fuss networks:

Affiliate Future
Now with three phases: Affiliate Future America (payments in dollars),
Affiliate Future Europe (payments in euros), and the original Affiliate Future UK (payments in GB pounds Sterling). This is a classic low-fuss network, and you can join, sign up to affiliate programs, put the links on your website, and after a while hopefully you'll be making money.

Paid On Results
There's no messing about at the Scottish company Paid on Results. You join affiliate programs, put your links up, and after a while, "Many a mickle maks a muckle", or to put it another way "Many small amounts add up to make a large amount". The company started out small and has since expanded gradually and become quite big, but they've never lost the low-fuss approach, and the links have also remained reliable no-messing-about hrefs.

WebGains
including Webgains USA
A while ago, Webgains was an offshoot from Affiliate Window, but quite quickly developed a unique identity. The approach at Webgains has always been low-fuss, and although not all merchants are auto-accept, you can see which ones are by the status being displayed "acceptance: automatic" in a box.

The History of Low-Fuss Networks: In the early days of affiliate marketing, Affiliate Window used to be a low-fuss network, but it's almost as if they've won so many awards since then that they've floated up the ceiling and lost their "low fuss" status. They're still a good network, but when you're an affiliate, you seem to spend a lot of time in "pending" mode, and some merchants even decline an affiliate, often for seemingly no good reason at all! Also, the early DGM Pro (then UK Affiliates), was originally a low-fuss network, but after the "upgrade" of software it has become almost impossible to track which merchants' affiliate programs are alive or dead, and there are also delays in approvals. So, although we like them, they are not "low fuss" anymore.

TradeDoubler has never been a low-fuss network, but it's worth joining as there are many good merchants there, many big names in business. However, the level of "fuss" is notable, and it's especially difficult for affiliates who have just started. Commission Junction is also a good network, but has never been low-fuss, but at least CJ has the excuse of being in the USA where affiliate marketing has always been more awkward somehow than in the UK. This may go back to an old idea that Britain is a small island with international trade, and there is a tendency to think about "The Rest of the World" as being real. In contrast, the United States has been dogged with a "we are the world" type of notion, almost like China, and so there are sometimes regionality discrimination ideas, ignoring the fact that The Internet is The International Net and is global. Hence, the truth is that an affiliate can live anywhere and sell anything, to anyone, anywhere else. Note that both CJ and LinkShare improved markedly after they each set up a UK office! Maybe it's like the jocular thing I have been known to say to Canadians living in Panama: "I speak British", (there's many a true word spoken in jest).

So, to sum it up: A Low-Fuss Network is an affiliate marketing company where the affiliate can get on with business without much fuss. Not all networks are "low fuss", and some of them have far too much fuss! There are some networks that have so much fuss, with their hidebound rules or their pandering to the merchants, that it is very difficult for the affiliate to get on well at all. Sometimes it's that they don't understand affiliates, and sometimes it's that they've got a funny market-model, still stuck with the old PPC and Spam, Capped Budget, and Voucher Code ways of doing things, that they're missing out on where the real market is, in real content based websites, like this!

If you're reading this page from inside an affiliate marketing company wondering "Why isn't our affiliate network on here? We're a Low Fuss network!", well, you're welcome to get in touch and I'll explain. I'm quite happy to discuss good and bad in affiliate marketing, and who knows, you could end up on this glorious list of Low Fuss Networks at some future time!

It's an interesting fact that the Low Fuss Networks which I have identified on this page happen to have affiliate recruiter programs. Well, you might fancy thinking that somehow I am biased, but in fact there is a more rational explanation: Low Fuss Networks tend to be affiliate marketing companies with good sense generally, so they also have the good sense to have an affiliate program with themselves, ie an affiliate recruiter program, which is good for business generally.