While most of the affiliate marketing industry is scrambling around launching new types of offers (trying to recover some of the revenue lost after many rebill offers were shut down) and squeezing deadbeat advertisers for their payments, some smaller networks are beginning to shine.

Over the past several month’s we’ve noticed most of the highest margin/quality offers are coming from smaller shops. The close relationships smaller networks have with their advertisers and trusted publishers is giving them an edge. Dealing with 30-50 primary advertisers they can keep track of seems to provide them a level of safety and comfort not enjoyed by networks dealing with 500-600 advertisers (the lack of redundant revenue streams may keep these guys up at night though).

Advertisers see benefits
Do smaller networks now have the advantage? As advertisers begin to focus on quality to stay afloat, strong alliances with smaller networks may be the best way to go. Inevitably this process will grow some of these smaller networks into mega networks down the road.

Scale your growth with the network and keep an eye on your ROI. Choosing the right partners now is important (one that is growing and not dieing).

Publishers make more money
Most people understand that it’s more difficult to run profitable ad campaigns if 600 other people are also promoting the same product. Despite the risks associated with dealing with lesser known networks, the margins are generally much higher.

Smaller networks will offer you more options on exclusivity, landing page customizations, and payment terms/time frames.

At the end of the day, it comes down to the quality of the individuals running the network and the priority level they give you. Testing and measuring this across a few small networks is cheap and fast.

The happy ending
One network we’ve watched grow continously over the past year is Media Magnetic out of Seattle. Tim Wisner and his partners maintain one on one relationships with both advertisers and publishers. Their business seems to be the perfect size, where each person has complete visibility into all sections of their operations. They develop custom offers for vendors of all sizes (including some I’d consider Mom & Pop) and typically have a higher payout for common network offers.