Posted by Mitch Sanders in
Online Marketing on 12 30th, 2011 |
no responses
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Before I get started I want to warn you that this post is high cholesterol; it’s packed with a copious amount of cheesy metaphors. Please don’t judge me.
Now, leggo!
Affiliate managers are key figures in this industry. They bridge the gap between advertisers and affiliates. They are extremely useful, especially when starting out. I’ve made some great friends over the years with some of them (some have even visited NZ to challenge me to a dance battle). Over a year ago I wrote a post on
href="http://www.mrgreen.am/affiliate-marketing/inside-scoop-what-affiliate-managers-want/" target="_blank">what affiliate managers want from affiliates. It’s time to flip it around.
I’ve worked with more than 30 affiliate managers over the years. I’ve broken them down into five groups based on their approach to affiliate management.
1. The Drill Salesman
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class="wp-caption-text">I got the best offer for you!
This is a hybrid of a drill sargent and a used car salesmen. They hit you up about all the new offers you should be trying, even if you mention that you are not looking for new offers. It seems like every offer they have is the new hottest thing. They have the highest payouts. The best everything…unfortunately not the best affiliate managers. They drill you with offers until you crumble like a piece of racid feta cheese.
2. The Ghost
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class="wp-caption-text">brb.
Never around. Takes ages to respond. They are there to collect your commission without anything in return. Contact is as scarce as a unicorn with 17 legs.
3. The Tech Support
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class="wp-caption-text">How may I help you sir?
Pulls your links, places your pixels. Reliable and predicatable. You come to them, they wont come to you. Great for experience affiliates, might be a bit tough to work with when you are starting out.
4. The Premium Concierge
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class="wp-caption-text">Have you tried doing this?
style="text-align: left;">Whatever you need done, they make it happen. You give them an end goal and they help you to get there. They are your business partner. They have experience so they can suggest improvements for your campaigns. Most importantly they are
professional.
5. The Hustler
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class="wp-caption-text">Check out what I found for ya!
These guys push the line of what affiliate managers do. They have eyes all over the place. They get “inspiration” from other affiliates…on the network. They share entire campaigns with you. Do they share your campaigns to their other affiliates? Of course not…they are your exclusive BFF…yeah right.
Now obviously there are affiliate managers that cross between a couple of these groups, but that is the main crux of it.
class="size-full wp-image-3730 alignleft" title="no hating" src="http://www.mrgreen.am/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/1.jpg" alt="no hating" width="137" height="137" />I’d also like to disclaim that I’m not hating on any affiliate managers. There is always just a couple in the bunch that ruin it for everyone. For the most part they act on the feedback they are given by affiliates and mould to their needs. So if an AM suggests a campaign that they saw, and the affiliate reacts in a positive way, obviously the AM will keep doing that.
Personally, I like the “tech support” type and the “premium concierge” type depending where I’m at with a certain campaign.
Trust is the biggest thing for me. I want to know that whenever I run a BAWSE campaign, my affiliate manager won’t go parading it around their network. I’ve experienced a network sharing my campaign, and I can tell you it got saturated as fast as rug at a keg party.
If an affiliate manager comes to me and says “try this campaign, one of my affs is KILLING it. Here’s the lander, run it on this traffic source“, it makes me automatically think that if they are sharing this stuff with me, it is very likely they would have no problem sharing my campaign with others.
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I want someone who’s responsive, who’s creative, who treats you like a business partner. I know when an affiliate manager has got my back when they suggest running a certain offer at a competitor’s network.
What do you want from your affiliate manager?
How do you feel about AMs sharing campaigns with you? Have any of your campaigns been shared around by a network?
P.S. To all my affiliate managers reading this, I <3 you.
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