Awin vs Adtraction: How to Choose an Affiliate Network as a Finnish E-commerce Brand
5 November 2026 · Leopold Landsdorff
Awin or Adtraction? If you sell from Finland to other countries, choose the network based on where your buyers are, and decide at the same time who will run the programme.
This comparison is written by Brachion’s founder, so let me say up front where I’m coming from. Brachion is the only Finnish Awin agency, and we build programmes through Awin. I am not neutral. That is also why I won’t claim anything about Adtraction that I can’t back up. I’ll go through the criteria you can use to choose a network, and leave the sums to you.
Most Finnish-language comparisons are written for publishers, meaning the people who earn commission through their links. Those comparisons often contain the author’s own affiliate links. The advertiser’s question is a different one: where will my sales come from, and who does the work?
The short answer: how to choose a network when you sell from Finland abroad
Three questions are enough to start with.
- Which markets do you plan to sell in two years from now? If the answer is Finland only, the number of domestic publishers decides it. If the answer includes Germany or the UK, you need a network whose publishers genuinely operate there.
- Who recruits the publishers? The network gives you a platform. It won’t bring your programme any sales if nobody invites publishers to join.
- What does it cost in total? The network fee, whoever does the work, and the commission paid to publishers are three separate things.
If you sell only in Finland and nobody in the company has time to run a programme, the name of the network is secondary. What matters more is who does the work. If you are aiming abroad, look at reach first.
What an affiliate network actually is, and what it won’t do for you
An affiliate network is a platform that connects advertisers and publishers. It handles tracking, reporting and commission payments. A publisher can be a content creator, a comparison site, a voucher code site or a cashback service. The advertiser pays only when a sale happens.
What the network doesn’t do for you surprises many people. The platform doesn’t make your programme attractive. It doesn’t write the offer for publishers, set commission levels, monitor quality or say no to a poor publisher. An empty programme produces nothing, even if the platform is the biggest in the world.
That is why I don’t describe affiliate as a free or risk-free channel. It is a sales team that you pay for results. You still have to recruit, onboard and manage that team. This work is easily forgotten when networks are compared in a spreadsheet.
Reach: the Nordics vs Germany and the UK
This is where you should do the comparison yourself rather than trust anyone’s general claims, including mine. A network’s marketing promise rarely tells you whether there are publishers in your product category in your target country.
Here is how to do it:
- Pick three target countries, for example Finland, Germany and the UK.
- Find five publishers in each country that you would like to sell your products. They could be comparison sites, blogs or the affiliate arms of magazines that already have your customers.
- Ask both networks whether those publishers are on board and on what terms.
That tells you more than any general figure. If most of them are in the Nordics, a Nordic network is enough. If they are elsewhere, you need an international network.
Localisation matters a great deal here. Publishers favour shops that are built for their language and their readers. A German publisher won’t happily send a reader to a shop where product descriptions are in English and delivery times are unclear. The network won’t fix that. It is your shop’s job.
There is one figure I can give you about Awin. Awin states on its own website that it has more than a million publishers worldwide and that it has been operating since 2000. The figure is global. It doesn’t tell you how many of them are active in Finland or how many suit your category.
Awin vs Adtraction: publishers and advertisers in numbers
If you see a table that sets Awin’s million publishers next to a figure for Adtraction, always ask whether the numbers were collected in the same way and over the same period. Networks count their publishers differently: who has registered, who is active and who has generated sales. These are three different figures.
A more useful comparison is this: ask both networks for specific publisher candidates for your own category and your own target countries. Those who answer precisely know their field.
The strength of a network focused on the Nordics may be close service and a local publisher base. The strength of a global network is a broader shared platform if you plan to grow into several markets. Either can be the right choice. It depends on what you plan to sell and where.
Do it yourself or managed: who recruits publishers and oversees the programme
This is the point where network comparisons often miss the mark. The real decision is often this: do you build the programme yourself, or buy it as a service?
Done in-house, a programme requires at least the following:
- designing the programme structure and commission levels
- finding and screening publishers
- contracts and checking that tracking works
- ongoing optimisation and reporting
Done well, it is part-time work, and full-time work if the programme grows. In a small online shop, few people have the time. The programme then stays running but doesn’t grow.
In a managed model, an agency does this for you. With Brachion’s service, the shop doesn’t need its own affiliate expertise. We describe it in more detail on the how it works page.
Awin in Finland: what is visible and what isn’t
Very little of Awin’s Finnish scene is visible from the outside. When a publisher or advertiser looks for an explanation in Finnish, written from the advertiser’s point of view, it is hard to find. That was one reason I wrote this piece.
What Awin in Finland actually means only becomes clear from inside a programme: which publishers are active, which categories work and what a shop can expect. I won’t list figures here that I haven’t been able to verify. If you want to see what your own market looks like, do a market check.
How to choose: questions before you decide
Go through these before you sign anything:
- Target countries. Which countries should orders come from in 12 to 24 months?
- Publishers by name. Can the network or agency name the publishers that would suit your category? A general promise isn’t enough.
- Who does the work. Does someone recruit, monitor and optimise on an ongoing basis, or is it left to you?
- Total cost. What do you pay per month as a fixed fee, what on sales, and what to publishers?
- Localisation. Is your shop ready for the language and market you want?
- Metric. What will you track after three months, and how will you know the programme is working?
On costs: Brachion’s prices are public. The Kasvu (Growth) package costs €500/month plus a 5% service commission on realised sales. The Kiinteä (Fixed) package costs €1,500/month with no service commission. The commission paid to publishers comes on top of these and is agreed programme by programme. You’ll find more detail on the pricing page.
If you want a sounding board rather than to buy anything, tell us your situation and I’ll say plainly whether Awin is right for you. You can write to us via the contact form.
Next step
Don’t start with the network. Start with the market. First look at where your buyers are and which publishers already guide them, and choose the network after that. You can do that with a market check, or first calculate what a programme could cost with the calculator.
Sources
What could affiliate bring you?