An affiliate network is a third-party platform that connects advertisers with publishers, providing the tracking technology, reporting, and payment infrastructure that makes affiliate programs work at scale. Networks typically charge advertisers a fee or percentage of commission in exchange for handling attribution, invoicing, and publisher relationship management centrally.
An advertiser lists their program on a network such as Commission Factory or Impact, and the network provides tracking links, handles commission payouts to publishers, and gives the advertiser a dashboard to monitor performance across hundreds of publishers at once.
A network is the technology and infrastructure layer – tracking, reporting, and payments. An agency is a services provider that manages a program's strategy, publisher recruitment, and day-to-day optimisation, often operating on top of one or more networks rather than replacing the need for one.
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