Help! My Affiliate Manager Sucks!
In continuing with the “Five Reasons Why Your Affiliate Network Sucks” series, today we will focus on “Affiliate Managers“. The best way to think of an affiliate manager is like the coach of a sports team, they “should” be there to provide input when you are looking to improve your marketing (game), and most definitely there to notify you on the latest offers available and what’s hot. Lastly, but most important… they are your life line to the network and the easiest/fatest way to getting premium pay outs.
Here are a few ways you can tell if your current affiliate manager sucks, and what you can do about it.
– How about a Booost?!
In my last post on “My Affiliate Network Pays More than Yours!“, I focused on the different payment structures from all the networks. The public payout rates varied heavily, yet they were all for the same offer. You affiliate manager is your inside man to get you the best payout rates on an offer. I’ll tell you right now, my affiliate managers at MarketLeverage (Erick) and NeverBlueAds (Tina) are the best. On some of these other networks, affiliate managers want to see “some volume” first, before giving you a higher payout… of they will give you an increase, but you know they still have so much more room to offer. While this makes sense for affiliates and managers that do not have any prior business, or massive lead volume… it’s really just a time waster for the affiliate and the affiliate manager, when you know you are dealing with an affiliate that can deliver.
– This is the Internet… Be Available Online!
This is soo crucial… affiliate managers NEED to be accessible online, and I’m not just talking about email. While some affiliates like to pick up the phone and chat for a while, many don’t. All affiliate managers should be available by either AIM Instant Messenger, GMail Chat, MSN Messenger or whatever… just don’t rely on email. No only will this make your affiliates happier and not have to wait for an email response, but it will also grow your personal relationships with your affiliates. I talk to my affiliate managers several times a week, whether it be about network offers, or just to see how they are doing.
– Newbie Affiliate Manager
While the majority of affiliate managers I have come across are seasoned and have a pretty good idea what internet and affiliate marketing is, I sometimes feels bad for the networks and affiliates that are using/working with newbies. Every one has to start somewhere, but when you have to explain marketing methods or how other networks run and work with higher payouts, its frustrating. Your job is to market and make money with the network, not train any new affiliate managers in the process. Networks… make sure you have well trained and knowledgeable affiliate managers!
The majority of affiliate managers out there on the well known networks are really great… from time to time you will come across a newbie or someone that just isn’t as good as they could be. In a situation like this, you can ask who your friends or other business contacts that are working with at the company, if they like their manager. If you end up with a nice recommended affiliate manager, simply contact the network and ask nicely to be changed. In most cases you shouldn’t have any problems.
[This post is covering part one of the “Five Reasons Your Affiliate Program Sucks†series, and is focusing on “Bad Affiliate Managers“.]
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great point. Some AM's are just invisible even when you are sending volume and conversions. poor game plan for keeping me happy.
You hit on some great points. The networks where the AM is on IM are the ones I typically use the most. I think it is because they are much more accessible.
Very nice Points.
See my experience is the affiliate manager is either communicates too much or is totally missing from the picture. Go figure. They seem to be following a very strange script.
Great points, especially about being available at all times. And it really is simple enough to do too.
Zac, Excellent post! I'm just getting started with ML, CJ, ClickBank, Copeac, Kontera, ContentLink and looking into NeverBlueAds today. So far my AM's have been responsive and very helpful for a newbie like myself. I'm just building a few blogs, specific to each ad niche, and then slowly populating with ads. Eventually I will roll out full websites with rich content, on appropriate domains, as I get closer to implementing adsense.
Trying to get indexed this week on Search Engines, by cautious submission of my sites to directories… just a couple per day…I do so appreciate your dedication and keen marketing insight. Respectfully, Nicholas Chase http://www.donotreadthisblogunless.blogspot.com
Zac – Great post ! At The Motive Interactive Network we are always looking to improve how our A.M work and interact with affiliates and have constant meetings to improve communications with our affiliates. We use AIM / Gmail / Yahoo on our trillion and send regular emails out with our top offers as do most Networks – we also continuously ask our affiliates what they are looking for and how we can better help them. So for us it's also good to hear back what they want in an offer,caps,volume, ect.
-Luke Smith
Network Manager
Motive Interactive
A good affiliate manager is hard to find, thanks for the post.
Good post Zac. I personally work with quite a few affiliates on a daily basis (some Supers), and can back-up each of the points you've listed above. In fact, we have many affiliates that were promoting our competitors' products–now primarily promoting ours, tell me that it's nice to be able to call or email me knowing I will get back to them quickly. They also say it is a big factor in why they continue to promote our products more aggressively than our competitors even if commissions are relatively the same. It's all about the relationship (and conversion, of course). (:
One item I do want to shed additional light on, however, is merchant margins. Not all merchants have "so much more room to offer." However, there is no question that an AM has to know when he/she is dealing with a Super, and should immediately refrain from the standard pitch/protocol. Super's generally deserve more, and as you say, making them start at the standard commission rate is just not a smart business decision.
Sorry, Forgot to post my name!
– Eric Itzkowitz
Very good post and I agree affiliate accounts managers can make a big difference!
Its true the person you are dealing with can make such a huge difference to your attitude and approach.
My #1 biggest pet peeve with affiliate managers is when you ask them outright "what are 2 offers that are really doing well right now that we should test" and they reply
"Let me take a look and get back to you"…………OMG,is'nt that the 1 thing they should know…right off the top of their head.
Well maybe the reason for this is that for each niche and delivery method there are different top offers that an A.M can suggest. So maybe asking the question diffrently might result in a different answer: I.E " What are your top search offers in men's health and fitness." Thats a bit defensive of me – but I do hear what your saying A.Ms need to be ready to respond better.
-Luke