Affiliate Management: Ways To Go

Not all affiliate managers are the same. I admit that there are a few that take the time to work with affiliates and genuinely want to help them achieve more from their campaigns. But laziness has become a norm in the affiliate industry. Some affiliate managers don’t respond to affiliates e-mails even when they are not too busy. They just don’t check their e-mails more than once a week. There are others who go further and don’t pay their affiliates on time. You want to know the worst kind? Those who slack off for 20 days a month and then rush things through in the remaining days (often making mistakes along the way).

You can have all the certifications and knowledge in the world. If you don’t take time to improve your performance in your job, then you are not doing yourself or your company a favor. I admit that affiliate program managers are often underpaid. After all, while they do manage affiliates, they are not seen as those who directly contribute to the bottom-line (which is somewhat untrue). Top affiliate managers can actually help companies make more money by engaging affiliates, establishing relationships with them, and partnering up with those who have not taken the time to become an affiliate.

The very top affiliate managers can command a decent amount of money to run affiliate programs. But they do take time to keep things in order and provide affiliates with tools they need to succeed online. Take Buy.com’s affiliate manager. She and her team spend a lot of time reaching out to affiliates to help them get more out of Buy.com’s affiliate program. Not many affiliate managers are like that. Isn’t it frustrating as an affiliate to need a banner for a hot offer but have no one to reach out to? Shouldn’t companies take time to plan these things ahead of time?

I have seen and worked with a lot of affiliate managers in the past. Many of them do the bare minimum to complete their job without doing anything too drastic. Sometimes you can blame their companies for not providing enough support for the affiliate channel. But there is a lot that can be done even with little support from the management. If you are passionate about managing affiliates, you probably wouldn’t put anything less than 100% effort forward. But if you happen to be an affiliate manager due to the fact that it was the only job available, you are in the wrong field.