Advantages of being on more than one network - for merchants
Getting access to more affiliates
Many affiliates are wary of joining in-house programs and you will almost certainly get additional affiliates if you join a network as well. However, as most affiliates use the range of networks, unless there is a reason that affiliates shun the network you are on, being on multiple networks may not get additional affiliates
Spreading the risk
Those of us who were around when Cyberaffiliates pulled out of Australia will remember the chaos when everyone had to look for an alternative. Australia is now served by more than one local, and many international, networks. While the value of being on more than one may be questionable, it is worth being aware of the alternate networks and their services.
Comparing services
If you have two distinct websites, it could be worth putting them on different networks so that you can compare the two. Otherwise ask around - ask other merchants and affiliates which networks they prefer, and why.
Disadvantages of being on more than one network
Duplicate tracking is the one major disadvantage of being on more than one network, or even combining an in-house program with a network program.
If the customer has followed Network N1's link from Affiliate A's website, that will lay a cookie. If the next day they follow a Network N2's link from Affiliate B's website, that will lay a cookie for the second network and second affiliate. When the customer buys, both networks will register a sale. The merchant then has to pay both sets of commission or find a justifiable way of deciding which network/affiliate gets paid.
When merchants transfer from one network to another, a lot of the duplicate tracking is for the same affiliate on both networks. When we see this on our reports, we alert the merchant so they can reject the older network's transaction. However, we can only see this when we are the affiliate in both cases.
Some merchants have floated the idea of adding special code to their site so that a network's tracking code only appears on their "thank you" page if their internal tracking says the lead was from that affiliate. This is a very complex thing to do and I doubt that many merchants have the technical capability or understanding of affiliate tracking to do this.
The easiest thing to do is choose one network and stick with it provided it gives adequate service. If you have a second site, by all means use a different network so that you can compare the capabilities and services provided.
If you want to be on more than one network, you need to think about the time it takes to check for duplicate tracking and that clear and justifiable policy on how you determine which duplicates (if any) to reject.
