Costs do vary on networks, as a consultant the biggest issue we have from merchants is their limited knowledge of this area and complete believability of the networks. I heard recently some networks have been claiming that leading affiliates will only work with their network, if they sign an exclusive 12 month deal with them as a network they will get the costs lowered for set up and admin costs - all in an attempt to stop them getting on another network
I guess from a merchant perspective 2 networks are beneficial if the costs are set right and the reasoning is clear. The key is that an affiliate only works with one of those two networks so their sales data isn't spread over 2 networks for reporting and management purposes! When I worked on a retail account some affiliates would have links from both programs which took more time to understand their performance and allocate the right commission tiers etc
helen
