Did the title of this blog catch your eye? You’re probably used to seeing studies delve into an industry… but it’s less common to see one that focuses on the people behind it instead.

Well, we’re interested in the industry too. But by asking you these 20 (mostly multiple choice) questions, what we really want to know is how affiliate marketers themselves – just like you – really feel about their jobs.

As you may know, the affiliate marketing industry has four basic pillars: the advertisers, the networks, the publishers and the customers. Although it sounds quite obvious at first glance, the truth is, sometimes in can be confusing over who is who, so let’s break it down.

If you work with affiliates you will be used to the fact that there are hundreds and thousands of networks out there and if you want to be offering a wide range of products or services, it’s unavoidable that you will end up working with many of them! Tracking sales, keeping on top of performance, these tasks all become much more complex when you are dealing with lots and lots of different affiliate networks.

You might decide to compromise and solve this by keeping the number of networks you work with to a minimum – after all, logging into AWIN, Commission Junction, Amazon and Tradedoubler as a minimum every day just to keep track of your income is already taking enough of your time as it is. Or, you might have the assistance of a fancy spreadsheet that does at least some of the work for you – however, none of these solutions are ideal.