Many times in the past, either here or on Twitter, I have railed against the bad affiliate management out there. It is just a part of doing business in this industry but you can’t escape the fact that many affiliate programs are being mismanaged by people who really don’t know anything about the affiliate industry.
Affiliate program management isn’t just a position in your company you can throw anyone with a couple spare hours a month. It is much more than just looking at the sales reports and telling the higher ups in the company how many sales were generated. Affiliate program management is a very specialized marketing position that should be filled by someone who knows what they are doing.
One problem is there is very little quality training or educational opportunities out there for affiliate managers. Most affiliate managers I know basically just learned on the job or were just thrown into the position without knowing what they were doing (read Daniel Feinberg’s story) and had to learn on the fly. There have been a few training opportunities in the past and there is always some great information at Affiliate Summit for affiliate managers but just like most other professions an affiliate manager needs some sort of training.
Recently there have been two big steps forward towards properly training affiliate program managers. We need more of these but these two are a start:
1. Affiliate Management Days – Geno Prussakov has started a conference specifically for affiliate managers. It is a two day intensive training conference with some great speakers like Todd Crawford, Sarah Bundy, Karen Garcia, TimAsh, Rebecca Madigan, Sam Harrelson, Kim Rowley, and others who have many, many years in this industry and have some awesome knowledge to share.
I recently asked Geno three questions about this conference and here is what he said:
Why do you see a need for this conference?
Because affiliates need educated affiliate program managers. Remember the quick Twitter exchange we’ve had between you, me and Tricia Meyer? That one exemplifies the (crying!) need perfectly well.
Besides the educational component, Affiliate Management Days, becoming a regular conference (we’ll start with two conferences in the U.S., but hope to gradually add a third one, as well as an international one) will provide something else. The industry is dynamic, and new threats, issues, and challenges spring up nearly weekly. AM Days is also meant to become a professional forum for affiliate managers and merchants to discuss the most pressing questions, and collaboratively come up with solutions to the biggest problems.
Is this for experienced AMs or people just looking to get into affiliate management?
Both. If one takes a look at the AM Days San Francisco 2012 agenda they’ll see that we’ll give attendees some choice there. The keynotes will be perfect both for people who are new to affiliate marketing, and to the savvy and experienced ones. While with breakout sessions we’ll offer two tracks, and regardless of an affiliate manager’s (or merchant’s) professional maturity level, everyone will be able to pick something of interest.
What do you hope people will take away from this conference?
Three things: (1) inspiration/motivation, (2) a truly holistic approach to affiliate as a way of online marketing, and (3) actionable knowledge — to come back, apply it, and reap higher revenues, as a result.
So all in all this will be a great place for current and prospective affiliate managers to gain knowledge, information, and connections with other great people in this industry.
Today is the last day to get the early bird registration ($1,195) and tomorrow it jumps to $1,495 so save yourself $300 and register today.
2. Affiliate Management Trainers – According to their site “Affiliate Management Trainers (AMT) was created to fill the need for professional and personalized affiliate management training for Internet Retailers around the world.”. So here we have a group of experienced affiliate managers who want to train other affiliate managers.
They are offering one on one training as well as other consulting services. From what I have seen a brand new affiliate manager will learn much more from a one on one approach like this than they could ever learn in a classroom.
Sarah Bundy, Matt McWilliams, and the rest of the trainers are some of the top affiliate managers in this industry and have a ton of knowledge they can share with anyone who wants to learn.
I really do believe both of these opportunities will help train up some new, awesome affiliate managers. How many affiliate programs are out there? 10,000? 20,000? And how many quality affiliate managers can you name? 20?30? Maybe 50? There is a huge need for trained affiliate managers out there and Affiliate Management Days and Affiliate Management Trainers will both help get those people a head start on their job.
Just to illustrate how there is a need for quality affiliate managers: I recently talked to a local manufacturer/merchant about their affiliate program. They do have a private program but they don’t publicize it at all. Overall they have about 20 affiliates that barely produce any sales. I offered to help this company get their affiliate program up and running, recruit new affiliates, set them up on Shareasale, and as much else as I could do for them. I am by no means an expert in affiliate management and I was gonna cut this guy a great deal since I would also be learning on the job.
But as an affiliate for the past 14 years or so I do have quite a bit of knowledge and experience that would have been valuable to them. But they decided to just let their website manager run the program. I have little doubt I could have turned their affiliate program into a very viable sales channel for them and am pretty confident I could increase their affiliate revenue by at least 10x what they are doing now but they decided to let someone who has no clue about affiliate marketing run their program. Just imagine what a properly trained affiliate program manager could have done.
Sadly this is not an uncommon tale. We need more good affiliate managers!
Joe, thank you so much for helping support our movement to create a better industry for us all. With more affiliates talking about the options available to affiliate managers, more merchants will start to take notice and the ones that care will do something about it. Keep talking about the need, everyone. Together we WILL make a difference! #FBAME
Every merchant and AM that is educated more makes our job as affiliates that much easier. Glad to see you are stepping up and working on training some of them.
Joe, I really appreciate you blogging about AM Days.
You're right on the money regarding multitudes of affiliate managers out there who either had to "learn on the job" or got appointed to manage the program without having a slightest clue as to what it is, and how they were supposed to "manage"… Between our and Sarah's efforts, it does look like 2012 is going to be the year of affiliate manager education. And this is certainly good to see.
Thanks again for the mention.
I think it might take more than one year Geno. hehe. It is nice to see some sort of training available though. Everything that can be done to better educate and train AMs will only help affiliates and the industry as a whole.
Joe, any aspiring AM would do well to listen to you and the cool things is that you are willing to help them. I expect AMT to make a radical change for good in the industry!
If you are involved in AMT I am sure it will help a ton of people.
So true. I've been involved with affiliate marketing for about 10 years and tried my hand at running some affiliate programs for a couple years during that time. It takes a special person to be an effective affiliate manager. Better training & education opportunities for managers will go a long way to helping our industry.
I seem to remember one of your forays into affiliate management… hehe. It definitely isn’t a job for everyone and the more education and training that is out there the better.
I've posted quite a bit about how to be an effective affiliate manager and will continue to do so. I'm all about putting free content and strategies out there that I know work for running affiliate programs and working with affiliates. Only people with a background in online marketing and a drive to actually help and facilitate affiliates can be good affiliate managers. Affiliate management is a 24/7 job and should be done primarily on the phone to be truly effective in my opinion. Hopefully these conferences and training programs will help more affiliates get a clue so they can teach affiliates how to be more effective.