Do You Trust Your Affiliate Manager?
- 23 Comments
- By Zac Johnson on June 16th, 2008
As an affiliate, we are our own companies. If you had a book full of your business plans and details on how to run your day to day operations, would you let your friends… or even your competition look at it? In most cases, probably not. There are only a handful of people that I have built relationships over the years, that I feel completely comfortable with and can pretty much tell them anything and not have to worry about it. These are your true business friends, and people that can really help you succeed online.
What about the affiliate networks? We all with them and if you’ve been in this industry for more than a year, you may have noticed that people at one company, may not be at that same company a year later. I’d say it’s a safe bet that this is the most active industry for people to jump back and forth between companies, so fast and so easily.
Your affiliate manager is your contact and access into the affiliate network and offers world. They want you to make money with them, almost as much as you want to make money for themselves.
The bottom line is… can you trust your affiliate manager? There is no easy answer… but the safest answer is “No!“… but you want to be in the position to say “Yes!” In any business relationship, trust is a major factor you need to work on building that trust and that relationship. Affiliate networks I work with, know I am loyal to them because of the work we have done over the years, and I know they are loyal to me, by providing private campaigns, always being there when I need something, and making sure I get premium payouts… even if that means they aren’t making a problem on my volume.
To show examples and my appreciation to those along the way… Kris Jones of PepperJam, Jordan and Tina at NeverBlueAds and Erick and Deborah from MarketLeverage are all awesome people and understand what it takes to build up these type of trustworthy relationships. Because of their business ethics, personalities and dedication, I’m able to succeed that much more with their companies and networks, while feeling completely comfortable in the process.
If you are working with a network where you have affiliate manager constantly wanting to look at your landing pages, or asking what type of keywords you are using… something might be fishy. I’ve never had a network or anyone ask these type of questions, especially if I wasn’t the one who started the topic. When I have a new campaign, or really excited about a new idea, I usually show a couple people my idea or landing page, but that’s for you to decide… not the other way around. Remember… just because you were assigned a certain affiliate manager, it doesn’t mean you are stuck with them. Contact the company or your “desired” affiliate manager directly and I’m sure they can make all of the necessary changes.
So my question to you is… “Do You Trust Your Affiliate Managers?“
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- Posted in Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Make Money, Marketing
"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of.
Well, i have to say No. I don’t trust them. basically because i do not have a regular interaction with them. And in some companies, my managers are replaced frequently. I don’t think that contributes to stability, unless the change was made due to “incompetence”
ReplyUnfortunately some of the networks aren’t fully staffed enough to handle the amount of affiliates within the network. I kind of touched on this topic in a post I wrote over a year ago, called “Why Do Affiliate Networks Let Super Affiliates Leave?“, about how some networks can just let their top affiliates just leave and have their earnings go to nothing. Even today, I still find if I don’t have contact with an affiliate manager at a new or existing network, I tend to use them a lot less.
ReplyYes, I trust mine. I have never had one ask to see anything of mine, so the trust goes both ways. I’ve never been one to worry about them stealing my ideas or anything.
ReplyI have another question, Do the Aff.Networks promote some scam offers? I mean that offers of only S&H that charge the customer for the whole product and sometimes twice, with nobody at the phone or replying emails.
ReplyAwww Thanks Zac! Erick and I really enjoy working with you.
ReplyGenerally I’d say I do trust my affiliate managers mainly because I’ve never had anyone ask me any of those fishy questions.
ReplyWouldn’t you be more worried if they don’t ask? That implies that they don’t need too :-p
ReplyI’d say about half and half. Some I trust but others I just don’t know enough and those people don’t seem to make any effort to get to know me or my plans. I know I’m not nearly as important to them as the bigger affiliates but it definitely doesn’t make me want to invest anything in their offers when I can’t even get replies to basic emails and such. Others send out the usual “top offers of the week” type emails and if I reply back to those with questions or just to say “Hi” they will get back in minutes.
I think that is what separates the good managers from the ones that just don’t care, or maybe just have too much on their plate to do things the right way.
Of course beyond just knowing and trusting the affiliate managers there is still the issue of trusting the whole networks…you know with the seemingly missing leads and “shaving” rumors and such.
ReplyI have a question: you say a manager should NOT ask you about your landing pages, but my question is how do you keep it from them. Can’t they find your landing pages via the referrer of your leads? Is there a way to hide this from them?
ReplyI also trust Tina of never blue. She is an amazing affiliate manager
ReplyI never hear from mine. I think us little blogs have a snow balls chance in ……. of hearing from them. It is the small blogs that have the unknown growth potential though!
ReplyI don’t think they intend to promote “scammy” offers. I’m sure most if not all of them, have fine print which says what the person is ordering. Unfortunately some of them are just not clear on that.
ReplyIf you are pushing massive heavy volume they may ask how… but it’s usually just a question of “are you doing search ppc?”
ReplyThere has always been the trust factor with networks and possible “shaving” of leads. I trust the guys I’m working with… but I’m sure there are some shady networks out there.
If you are promoting an offer that is spread across a bunch of networks, you can rotate links and see if any of them vary in conversions. I did this recently and tried it with four different networks and all were consistently converting at the same rate.
ReplyI’m sure there are some methods of back tracking that they can use. Though I’m not sure on them, so I won’t recommend any.
ReplyI don’t say aff.networks do it on purpose, I only say that sometimes they don’t check at all the offers they have. I ran a campaign about a product and later I found in Google lots of complaints of customers and some of them really annoyed.
I’m totally newbie as a marketer but I like it very much and I’ll run more campaigns with this affiliate network because it is highly recommended by many marketers, but I’ll be more selective with the products I promote
Cheers!
ReplyThe point is also the fact that there is a lot of attrition of Managers!
Replythe only time i have heard from them was a t the register process. Probably the philosophy they use is to wait until a publisher contacts them…
ReplyAll I can say that trustworthy can be built buy the time…The longer you work with them you’ll be able to see their value and character which in turn become your consideration to continue trusting them or not.
ReplyI actually rarely contact my AM
Replywhen you get down to the nitty gritty there is not much choice but to trust them, or else you can’t work with them.
ReplyI trust no one when it comes to business.
ReplyI don’t trust my affiliate manager one bit. They will take the information you give them and supply it to their other affiliates in hopes of getting some extra $$.
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