Affiliate Manager Checklist

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I love affiliate marketing. (Bet that got your attention!) I know it's often considered the black sheep of e-commerce, but in my seven-odd years in this industry, I've learned to appreciate the nuances of this business from the perspective of an affiliate, a couple of merchants and now a network. After experiencing the highs and lows of each of those roles, I'd like to offer the following insights. Call them best practices; call them observations; call them opinions. Whatever you call them, I hope they provide some pause for thought.

Affiliate Marketing and Business Development Are Not the Same
The idea behind affiliate marketing is to manage multiple advertisers as a single group. There is a group commission rate, group communications, group promotions. VIP relationships are similarly managed as a group, with a VIP commission rate and exclusive VIP offers. From the point of view of upper management, the affiliate channel is measured in aggregate. Good affiliate managers go above and beyond the call of duty and get to know individual affiliates. They build relationships with specific affiliates. This is good. This is normal. This is supposed to happen. Affiliate managers are responsible for driving sales through a clean marketing channel, and the best way to ensure everyone is operating on fair ground is to know who you're working with.

Business development is different. A business development manager is responsible for finding new marketing partners and working with each partner individually to maximize the relationship. Each partnership may require a unique legal contract. The objective of the partnership may go beyond marketing and involve market research, product development, beta testing, etc. Each individual relationship is measured separately.

There are elements of both functions that overlap. Conflict occurs when management sees a particular affiliate doing well, and starts to view that one affiliate as a bus development lead. In the interest of being fair, if a relationship is cultivated by the affiliate manager, it should remain within the affiliate realm. However, if it is more profitable for both the affiliate and the merchant to enter a bus dev relationship, then the affiliate manager should yield to the gods of profitability, re-examine budget numbers and adjust forecasts and expectations accordingly.

Treat Affiliates as Partners
Affiliate managers often fail to treat affiliates as colleagues. How odd. Think about it. You wouldn't fire an employee without warning. You probably know something personal and nonwork-related about the guy in the next cube over. However, I've seen too many instances where affiliates are treated as second-class citizens. I've seen affiliates booted out of a program with a form letter and no warning. If the affiliate did something that went against the T's and C's, tell them what it was. It's entirely unnecessary to jump to conclusions. Perhaps it was an honest error. We all make mistakes, and as my boss says, "Fix it. Own up to it. Move on."

Help Your Affiliates
Affiliates don't have the benefit of information. Often times, when they're notified of a sale, the only information they are given is the purchase amount and date of sale. The affiliate doesn't know what was sold, or which ad drove the sale. Some of this is related to technical barriers; however, affiliate managers can help overcome this limitation by passing as much information along to the affiliate as possible. What does seasonal conversion look like? What's selling like hotcakes right now? What just went on sale? What's the off-line advertising schedule? What product niches are doing well, but are being neglected? The more an affiliate manager communicates with their affiliates, the better the channel will do.

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