Performance Marketing Insider is delighted to announce the results of our Top 10 Survey of CPA Affiliate Performance Networks for Summer 2012. Six months have passed since our last survey and it’s been a weird, crazy six months with several well known, major companies either going bankrupt or disappearing completely from the industry.
Therefore the map of affiliate networks has changed enormously, making this survey harder than ever to conduct. In some cases the differences between the networks were just a few votes and there are many networks that could have been in the top 10 easily, with just a few extra votes from their supporters.
We had a bit of an issue with fraud this year, with some companies utilizing proxies to try to put in fake votes: most of those networks were then removed when the majority of the votes came from known fraud proxies. The fine folks at Scrubkit verified the data independently, removed fraudulent votes in order to make sure that this was the most fair survey ever done. They also counted the data, which was exported from Survey Monkey to ensure that the ranking were accurate and unbiased.
Almost 10,000 people voted this year bringing in a much wider base of affiliates to show their support of many different new networks. Because of that  some networks are making their first appearance into the top 10, and some completely dropping out of the rankings. More affiliates have entered the industry and are making their preferences known — and that if you don’t keep up with the times, make the changes necessary, you’ll quickly lose support in this fast moving industry.
So here are the rankings of the top 10 affiliate networks for Summer 2012:
 10) CPAWAY is down from #5 last year, and they are still considered one of the best networks. They have been become the king of parties, and this has helped grow their base. They have also launched Incentivize.com a new incent-based network that is sure to grow their revenue even more.
 9) W4 didn’t even make the survey last year, as it was still a new growing company. However, the three founders have made clear that W4 is not only a network that is going to stay in the industry, but is one that is going to make a showing for a long time moving forward.
 8) Adknowledge Affiliate Network is another company that wasn’t even ranked. However, since Adknowledge is one of the largest, most trusted companies in the industry, it seemed certain they would eventually be on the list. This year they rebooted their affiliate program, bringing some of the top email affiliates into the fold through their industry-famous email API.
 7) Convert2Media almost made it last year in the top 10 but with the strong industry leadership of their founder Steve Howe, and his legendary fraud-catching videos the company has made 2012 a banner year. Expect a lot more from this company in the next year.
 6) ClickBooth is down from #2, but still remains one of the top revenue generating networks in the world. They have been focusing on their new CPC platform, providing publishers with a great new revenue stream.
 5) CPAlead is a new entry into the list, and is one of the large incent and content locking companies. Based in Las Vegas, they are known for their ability to take almost any offer and make millions overnight with their huge base of incent affiliates. With the new CEO Peter Tarr, the company has grown in huge leaps and bounds.
4) Adscend Media is down from #3 this year, but it doesn’t mean that things aren’t going great for them. Fehzan Ali and his team become the heroes of the industry, beating Facebook and the Washington AG in a legal battle. Focused on content locking, they are definitely making a name for themselves.
3)  Affiliate Venture Group became a name in the industry based on ethics and networking in 2012 and quickly became a favorite of affiliates and advertisers. Ricky Ahuja and Chris Kautz-Scanavy charmed the industry this year bring new found attention to their company.
2) Â MaxBounty made 2012 their biggest year ever and has celebrated their success with numerous giveaways and launching perhaps the biggest affiliate rewards program ever seen in the industry at AffiliateRewards.com
1) PeerFly is once again at the top of the list, partially because of its enormous base of loyal affiliates. People just really love Peerfly. They have managed to perfect the art of the offer, getting whatever product or customer necessary to make their affiliates happy. Last year Luke Kling, one of their affiliate managers won the prize of top affiliate manager. If anyone is looking for an offer, they’ll probably have it.
We have also made this handy infographic, which you can click on for a full version.
This infographic was sponsored by Cake Marketing, a fast growing and very popular affiliate marketing software system and the networks that use their platform are marked on the infographic for your pleasure.
