This is an interesting question. An affiliate program owner recently wondered whether she should host graphics for her own affiliate program on her own web site or an image host like PhotoBucket.

I host my affiliate graphics at my affiliate center at TechBasedAffiliates.com. I can understand managers getting worried about bandwidth issues. So far this is not an issue at all. Actually, it could help you figure out how often your graphics are displayed too. If you are really concerned, get your graphic artist to optimize it so it is small, loads fast and yet looks nice.

Also, keep in mind that not all of your affiliates will pull the graphics from your site although a big percentage of them will because it is easy. The more seasoned affiliates may prefer to host the graphics themselves so they can quickly and easily re-use them using their own codes.

Finally, and this is just personal opinion. I feel using a service like PhotoBucket for affiliate graphics is a little… unprofessional. It is much like hosting your web site on a free web host. Makes me wonder, if you can’t afford to host your own affiliate graphics, maybe you aren’t doing that well and your product is not converting either.