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(Note: This is a paid review. If you have a problem with that, please stop reading now. Otherwise, read on - I’ll provide an inside look into this new affiliate network.)

You may have seen the press releases about the new affiliate network launched yesterday by Kris Jones‘ Pepperjam. The name for this network is (surprise!) pepperjamNETWORK.

I applied to join the network and was approved so I can give an insider’s look to the member’s area. This is from the viewpoint of an publisher not an advertiser (since most of the readers here will be more interested in becoming affiliates rather than advertising on the network).

Here’s an overview of the main account area. I just joined, so I haven’t had a chance to promote anything yet.

See the transparency rating up on the top right-hand corner? I’m not sure what that’s all about at this point. Maybe someone can explain that to me.

Some of the pages are AJAX driven which is pretty cool for interactivity. For example, in the account profile section, you can click on a button to add more websites that you own and an accordian style expanding section will appear on the page.

As for the number of merchants available at this point, there may be over 200? That’s just a guess. Read more below why I had to guess at a number. You can also search for merchants by keyword and category.

The available categories are accessories, art/photo/music, automotive, books/media, business, careers, clothing/apparel, commerce, computers/electronics, education, entertainment, family, financial services, food/drink, games/toys, gifts/flowers, health/beauty, home/garden, insurance, legal, marketing, medical, phone cards, recreation/leisure, shop/malls, sports/fitness, travel & web services.

There are plenty of categories to choose from but some of them are sparsely populated at this point. However, I expect that the number will increase as the network grows.

Take a look at the merchant selection interface:

The one drawback that I found is that there is no easy way to view ALL the available merchants. You can view up to a maximum of 50 on a page but I couldn’t find a way to move on to the next page. Also, there isn’t a way to sort the list of merchants based on commissions on leads or sales. You also can’t sort the list by commissions.

Once you get approved for a merchant’s program, you’ll be able to generate links or product feeds if available. As with most affiliate networks, some merchants automatically approve you while others do it manually.

There is also a chat feature that allows you to directly communicate in real time with affiliate managers who are online. This is a nice feature to be integrated into an affiliate network site but I’m not exactly sure how practical this is going to be. After all, there is only one affiliate manager for so many affiliates.

I’ve blacked out the names and emails for privacy reasons. This screen shot shows you the Pepperjam Chat section.

When I need to talk to my affiliate managers in other programs, I normally use IM or email. So communication isn’t really a problem for me.

There is also a “Resource Center” section which is supposedly for educating affiliates. This is divided into super affiliate resources and educational resources.

Take a look.

Unfortunately, I felt that the so-called resources seem more like JVs. Some of the resources are blogs (the usual suspects) and others are products or membership sites you have to pay for. In the future, I hope to see more educational resources that affiliates don’t have to pay for in this section.

PepperJam Ads

This is an innovation from PepperJam - Adsense style ads that you can customize according to the merchant programs that you are a part of. You can pick and choose from available pre-written ads and display them in the various Adsense formats. They call it contextual but you are the one who has to pick the ads based on the context of your site. It’s not something that automatically picks the ads based on the content of your webpage if that’s what you’re thinking.

Affiliate Payment

You can choose to be paid either by check or by direct deposit (nice!). Affiliates get paid twice a month (even better!). This is good for cash flow from the point of view of affiliates.

Summary

This is still a young network so I’m sure that we’ll see improvements based on affiliate and merchant feedback. I’m a bit surprised that some of the things lacking that I mentioned above were not caught and fixed during the beta testing. Maybe they need to have me give it a spin and feed them comments before the launch next time (j/k!).

Overall, I see a lot of potential for the Pepperjam Network. Kris has a lot of experience in search engine marketing and affiliate marketing, so I’m looking forward to more usability features in the future.

If you are into promoting affiliate offers through PPC, search, web or email marketing, you might want to apply to join.

Technorati Tags: pepperjam network, affiliate network, affiliate marketing, kris jones

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