The Affiliate Manager’s Pain: Affiliates Who Don’t Care

As someone who has been on both sides of the aisle, I can sympathize with affiliate managers who are left frustrated by the majority of their affiliates. The 80-20 rule applies in the affiliate marketing world as well. If you look at any affiliate program, you’ll see that 80% of the sales are being done by less than 20% of affiliates. But the other 80% of affiliates either have no idea how to promote a product or are just too lazy to put a good effort forward.

Affiliate marketing is a tough business, and it takes a lot of work. Cashing the checks is my favorite part but there are many boring tasks that need to get done on a daily basis. You need to constantly watch your market, improve your PPC campaigns, find new keywords, and participate in the social media. Besides, there will be times that you will have to do some data-entry work, and that is certainly no fun. But a lot of newbie affiliates think that affiliate marketing is a home-based business that keeps bringing you checks without you having to work more than an hour a month. That’s just not true, and I would blame those late infomercials for putting these notions inside some people’s heads.

Affiliate managers go through a lot of pain to design competitions and all kinds of incentives for new affiliates to get them going, but some affiliates are just hopeless. They grab your product’s banner and put that in the middle of the page. That’s their idea of promoting a product. It’s easy, but it won’t get you many sales.

As an affiliate, the best way to show that you care is by going back to your affiliate manager and ask him/her about his suggestions for your site. Your affiliate manager is there to help you succeed, and you should not be shy about asking for favors. Many affiliates don’t even respond to the communications their receive from the merchants. But those who do show that they at least care. It’s acceptable to be a newbie and ask questions. What is not acceptable is not trying hard enough.