We are trying to decide whether we should do it in house or go with someone that already has a large network like CJ. We have the revenue to qualify for cj.
I would say it depends. CJ has plenty of affiliates that are ready to sale your products, right out of the gates, although there are rules and fees that come along with it. If you are going in house, I would hire someone full time to be your affiliate manager. There are definite advantages to having it in house. In the end it comes down to how well you can train your affiliates. Russell Brunson has a great example of a well run in house affiliate program: The Second Tier My opinion could be biased though, I work with for the guy. BJ
You use a big network to reach more affiliates. If you can manage to get enough affiliates yoursel then you don't need others.
Too much depends on what kind of affiliate program you want to run. Can you give a little info about your website?
It really depends on what you sell and how good of an offer you can make to affiliates. How popular the product is matters as well. It is easy to sell well known brands. iPod program will do well anywhere. If you have a niche product, CJ would not necessarily give you a big boost in terms of affiliates. There are a lot of programs on CJ that do not drive sales -- because being on CJ is no guarantee to success. CJ is expensive even though they do have good service offerings. In the end you would need to go and find your own affiliates who can push the product. I'd be happy to help if you provide more info--you can contact me privately.
we are one of the top sellers of lingerie on the internet. I was thinking another good reason to join with CJ is just the fact that so many webmasters themselves will see us in CJ. I know I found out about a lot of sites because I was doing their affiliate program back in the day. What is the benifit of having it in house other then you may be able to offer your affilliates a higher percentage because you are saving some costs?