Mobile Internet Affiliate Marketing

update: you can check out mobyaffiliates.com for in-depth info about mobile affiliate networks and listings of mobile affiliate programs

If the big story in the mobile web in 2008 was the growth of CPC and CPM based mobile advertising through platforms like admob the NEXT BIG THING for 2009 is looking likely to be the emergence of critical mass in mobile internet affiliate marketing or CPA (cost per action) based advertising. 

Affiliate marketing is well established on the PC web with a number of big networks like Xanox, Trade Doubler, Affiliate Window and Buy.at linking publishers to thousands of merchant programmes across sectors including Travel, Electronics, Finance and so on. 

Believe it or not the mobile web has had affiliate programmes since the early days of wap and mobile internet.  For example, there were several adult services and personalisation content providers who developed affiliate programmes in the early 2000's.  

However, with the growth in usage of the mobile internet, mobile affiliate marketing is now really beginning to develop.  As the mobile payments and services company Bango have noted, mobile web is now becoming the key sales channel for mobile content and services, whereas previously a lot of transactions and customer acquisitions were driven off PC web-based channels. 

Also the emergence of new types of mobile content and services such as mobile casino games is also driving new growth. 

Here are some examples of mobile affiliate marketing programmes currently available. 

Mobile affiliate platforms

A  couple of companies have started to emerge to provide mobile focused affiliate aggregators similar to Trade Doubler and others on the PC web.

Mobpartner is probably the most advanced mobile web affiliate platform out there with links into a range of merchants including Jamster, Wild Jack Mobile Casino and Nexva (mobile games).  Mobpartner provide all the mobile web XHTML store-fronts and links and tracking and manage payment settlments with the various merchants.  If you are looking to start off in mobile affiliate marketing then signing up to mobpartner is the first place you should start.

Ringtones, games and personalisation content

Playfon - http://www.playfon.com/ have a fantastic affiliate programme for ringtones, games, video and screensaver content - they pay out monthly via paypal - recommended - sign up here.

Belboon is a German affiliate platform that mainly serves the PC web but it is now moving into mobile web affiliate marketing services.  At the moment they have a couple of mobile web services available including Jamster but unfortunately only in the German language and market at the moment. 

Media Plazza also run a massivemobile store-front programme with thousands of affiliates.  You can apparently plug into the system via mobile web, although they have historically focused on a PC-web front-end.

Mpex is a relatively new platform which looks really excellent.  Whilst their initial focus in on adult merchants and content providers they do have a range of offers in other areas such as casino,  personalisation (ringtones etc) and content (games, video).  The technical platform behind Mpex is really amazing - you can easily create your own microsites and landing pages and add different banners to them to create a network of sites and retain users within them.  Really good payout rates and tools - you can create an account for free here. 

Casino

The emergence of mobile casino applications is a major driver of the current wave of growth in mobile affiliate marketing.  The mobile marketing agency Welovemobile have written an excellent blog post about this which is worth a read.  Here are some of the casino mobile affiliate services currently available:

Ladyluck's is run by the mobile games specialist Probablity Plc and they have an affiliate programme which looks to be one of the best of the bunch as it is backed by a really solid company. 

Others include:

Euro partners Casino Max - http://adv.europartners.com/index.php?Casinomax

Gold mobile casino -  http://www.incomeaccess.com/registration.asp?mid=32

Wild Jack/ Brightshare -  http://www.brightshare.com/index.php?bTag=bsaff3118_6

Gobetya -  http://www.gobetya.com/

Adult

There are a number of adult affiliate programmes out there.  It is worth noting that you need to be careful adding this sort of content to your mobile site even as a link as it risks getting caught in content filters.  Also mobile ad networks like admob often state in the terms and conditions that you can't run them alongside adult content or adult links.  However, if you are interested in running this kind of affiliate service then here are a couple of examples of available programmes - warning some of these links are not worksafe:

Sex Goes Mobile - https://www.sexgoesmobile.com/

Xobile - Not Work Safe - http://www.xobile.com/pc/webmaster.cfm?

Sexobile - Not Work Safe - http://www.sexobile.com/web/?__redir=1

The major aggregators like Jamster, Celldorado and co. all run web based affiliate services through the likes of Xanox and there are no doubt a few of them moving to offer mobile web extensions of these.  This is something we are currently investigating - if you know any that do offer mobile web affiliate services let us know in the comments!

So that's the current state of play.  What will really help to grow this market is when new sectors like retail, travel and finance start to open up on the mobile web.  There are already some signs of this with companies like Digby emerging (provides mobile commerce stores on Blackberry).  

If you know any other mobile web affiliate programmes please let us know in the comments - we will be updating this list on an ongoing basis. 

You can find all of these services and more at the mobyaffiliates.com directory.

Comments

[Antoine Aarts]

Look at www.mobidoki.com that will be the next big thing.. the comming period there are lot of tools AND!!! direct ONLINE building of content.

[Havey]

Look at http://bustbox.com at the bottom of their site there is a webmaster link by joining that affiliate program you can also promote http://bustbox.mobi

[Pay Per affiliate]

How can I qualify to become a pay per affiliate host? You do not need any special skills other than a rudimentary understanding of how to use the internet and how search engines work. You can find out everything you need to know through reading information on the subject or reviewing an online tutorial.

[Affiliate Promotion]

Affiliate promotion basically works on the principle of paying commission for the referred business.

[sshirdi]

wow...really! Glad to hear, I was finding mobile affiliate programs since 2 months. Now, i will try those.

[sshirdi]

I am currently making list of good affiliate programs and soon will add all other mobile affiliate programs to my site http://www.okus.in

[Adult Mobile Affiliate Marketing Program]

Hi James,
Please add MobileRevs.com to your adult mobile affiliate marketing list.

Some General info:

MobileRevs.com is a International mobile adult / glamour affiliate programme delivering lisenced quality content via payforit style browse and buy or payforit compliant subscriptions Worldwide via PSMS, Wap Billing, Credit Card and Paypal.

Payouts are upto a staggering 90% to high quality mobile traffic generators, full real-time stats and monthly payouts on-time, every-time, it really speaks $£££$ for it self!

If you have mobile traffic, and you want to make money, you know who to contact, the MobileRevs Team!

Thanks

Mobile Revs
http://www/MobileRevs.com