ABSTRACT

This article is an affiliate management software primer for senior marketing managers. After describing the maturation of affiliate management software, both basic and advanced functions offered by vendors of that software, and the five categories into which various software programs can be placed, the article then presents the results of a survey of 209 online retailers with respect to the affiliate software they use to manage their programs. The greatest percentage of survey respondents (44%) indicates that they use some type of ASP-hosted program. The survey reveals that smaller e-tailers prefer the categories of affiliate management software that limit up-front costs, as opposed to those categories that require an initial outlay to be installed on the merchant's web server. The primer concludes with a brief tabular summary of the advantages and disadvantages of each of the five software categories and provides examples of each category.