Best Affiliate Networks: South Africa

If you are looking for a list of affiliate networks in South Africa, you have come to the right place.

Affiliate Marketing is a way where you make money by promoting the product of companies and sending them leads (people who want to buy their products). The great thing about affiliate marketing is that you all you have to do is refer people and you get paid for it.
Affiliate marketing has not taken hold in South Africa yet. A very small number of companies have affiliate programs. The big companies do their marketing through companies known as Affiliate Networks. Affiliate networks work with a collection of big companies to manage their marketing. So if a company like Shoprite is running a marketing campaign, they do it through an affiliate network who then work with influencers and content creators.

Below is a list of the Affiliate Networks In South Africa that I have vetted and recommend.

OfferForge

OfferForge is a good affiliate network for South African traffic. OfferForge is the veteran of performance marketing in South Africa and has been around the longest of companies that I know. Their user interface is one of the better ones. They have ample information about the company itself and provide helpful information to get you started. I really liked their tutorial video which shows beginners how to get going. Information is king so that is one thing they have over the competition. The website also has a good selection of information that will help you to get set up as a publisher. They have a range of well-known companies that they have partnered with and you can apply for their campaigns.

They claim to have the highest rate for commissions. There have been some complaints about feedback/support, with some publishers saying that they have had to wait several days or even a week to get feedback. I have not experienced any of that yet, however.

AdMarula

AdMarula is one of the first affiliate in South Africa along with Offerforge. The company was founded in 2011 and they have a growing list of partnerships with some of the biggest companies in South Africa. To join AdMarula you have to sign up through target circle. The offers that are available on AdMarula are aimed at a South African market so your audience should be from South Africa.

As far as partner companies go, I think AdMarula has the best network. They have worked with big companies in South Africa like Shell, Vodacom, Mr Price and Microsoft. Approval for ad campaigns is manual, meaning that someone has to assess before it is approved. The downside to this is that there can be a time delay for getting approved for campaigns and that you can be rejected for some of the campaigns that you apply for. On the other hand, they are partnered with well-known brands so you can get better conversion rates and even get a higher rate. If you are not getting feedback from them, just give them a call and they will send you the list of campaigns that you can apply for.

A challenge that I experienced was figuring out the application process. I was not sure if my application had gone through when I applied and there is no notification email to let you know what the status of your application is. I did call them after some time and the help I received was prompt and very good considering I was a first time caller. You will probably have to call them if you don’t have feedback. Once you have made it on though, you will have access to a good list of advertisers that you can market for.

 

AffiliateNetwork.co.za

AffiliateNetwork.co.za is an affiliate company which gets the function part of marketing right. Their user interface is not as sleek as all of the other listed options but they have one major thing that I think is brilliant as a marketer. They take care of the basics and get to the point. On the front page of Affiliate Network you can see a lot of their offers, the type of cost method and how much yo make in commissions. This is a very different model to the rest of the companies. I also like the fact that they have a lot of cost per lead offers. This is my personal favourite model because it converts very well. One thing I liked a lot about Affilaite Network is the 10 Secrets To Increase Affiliate Earnings blog. The tips there are spot-on and definitely help to increase conversions. Information is king and Affiliate Network gets that right. Their strategy is centered around sales and the potential for high conversions rates is highest with this network. You can sigh up with them directly on their website.

Conclusion

And there you have the Affiliate Companies that you can join in South Africa. These are the companies that have a track record, have been around for long enough, and have a network of partners that include well-known products that will convert well. The industry is still new in South Africa and this list will certainly grow. The future for affiliate marketing looks bright and more affiliate companies will enter the market as more business companies get on board the performance marketing boat.

The One To Avoid

Affiliate.co.za

Affiliate.co.za is another affiliate network that you will find on the first page of google. If you want to join them, you can sign upon their website. The company has been around since 2013. The challenging thing about Affiliate.co.za is that they do not have much information available about them. The only way you can find out more, currently is to sign up to them. Outside of that, the only way that I can currently judge them is by the companies that they have listed as their clients, which initially looked pretty good but after doing some further research, the information uncovered showed that this is a very bad affiliate network to join. The support there is very bad, the reject applications without good reason, and there are several reports of them not point publishers. You can read my full review on my attempt with the network here.