affiliate managers

Are we really independent?

by Joe Sousa on March 15, 2011

in Affiliate Stuff

One of the best things about working for myself is the “independence”. I get to work from home, I can work whenever I want, I can build whatever sites I want. Pretty much all the day to day decisions regarding my business are made by me. But am I really independent?

I was thinking today about how, as an affiliate, I am dependent on nearly everyone but myself. I guess every business is dependent on many people like customers, landlords, distributors, advertisers, employees, and so on but I don’t want to be dependent on others! I want to control my own business and run it the way I want! How dependent are affiliates? There have been a few recent developments that showed me how dependent this business is on others and how the actions of others really do affect it. Here are a few examples

1. The Illinois ”Affiliate” Tax –  The state government of Illinois has passed a very short-sighted, flawed law that would force merchants to collect sales tax on sales made through their affiliates. As a result of this law Amazon and other merchants with affiliates decided they don’t want to work with affiliates in Illinois any more.  This law was passed under the auspices of “fairness” and was meant to help local merchants but it will do no such thing. I don’t want to get too far into the whole situation here because there are plenty of other people who know more about the particulars and you can read more here:

Governor Quinn Abolishes Affiliate Marketing In Illinois
Illinois Gov. Quinn Flaunts “Fairness” in Passing Nexus Tax, Cuts off Nose to Spite Amazon
The Senselessness of Illinois Legislation

So how does this affect affiliate marketers? Well, there are a few very large affiliates in Illinois who are making plans to move out of the state due to this law. Since as an Illinois affiliate they can no longer work with Amazon and many other merchants they would be losing a signifigant portion of their revenue if they stay in Illinois. These aren’t just small time affiliates like me who crank out sites in their basement. These are companies with dozens of employees and millions of dollars in revenue every year. The state of Illinois will lose jobs, lose income taxes, lose some great community leaders, and all in all cost themselves a lot of tax revenue because of this law instead of making money.

If a law like this was passed in Washington State it would force many affiliates to rethink their businesses. I am dependent on our state legislators and government to make wise decisions and reject any similar legislation. It does scare me to be dependent on the government to do what is in my best interest but the truth of the matter is I am dependent on them. One law could change my whole business and a large portion of my life.

2. Google “Farmer” Update – Once again Google reminds so many people how dependent many of us can be on their traffic. None of my sites were really hurt but there are lots of people who lost a ton of traffic on this update. It isn’t the first time Google has made some big changes (Remember the “Florida” update years ago? Nov 16th, 2003) and it won’t be the last. But it was yet again a good reminder that I am fairly dependent on Google for a good portion of my traffic and in turn my income. One click of the mouse and I could be in trouble.

I think now there is less and less of a need to be dependent on Google as a main source of traffic with other sources like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. but for most of us Google is still where most of our traffic originates. It kinda reminds me of a restaurant located right next to a big shopping mall. Can the restaurant generate their own visitors? Of course they can. But they are dependent on the mall staying around to be the source of the majority of their diners. Yeah, if Google went away there would be something else to replace it but like it or not many of us are pretty dependent on Google right now.

3. Merchants Screwing Things Up- This happens all the time. A merchant might add some PPC restrictions where there were none before, they might lower the commission level, and they might drop their affiliate program all together. The merchant could also just go out of business, be sold to another company who doesn’t see the value in affiliates, or any of a number of situations. But all in all as an affiliate I am dependent on the merchants I work with staying in business, offering at least a decent shopping experience to the customers, shipping the products, and paying me.

There are a ton of things a merchant can do to screw things up from changing their affiliate agreememt to breaking some trade laws to making stupid business decisions. I am reliant on the merchants I work with doing their job and doing it well. I depend on them to do their job and that can be scary at times.

So what can we as affiliates do to be more independent? Is there any way we can truely be independent? Do we just need to trust those we depend on to make smart decisions even when the track record is sketchy? Is it just one of the issues we have to deal with in this industry? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughs.

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Affiliate Managers who Get It

by Joe Sousa on November 5, 2009

in Affiliate Stuff

Over the years I have worked with dozens, maybe even hundreds of affiliate managers and they range from awesome to terrible. Some of them get it and some of them are totally missing the mark with their efforts.

So what makes a good affiliate manager?  Here are a few things I think an affiliate manager should do if they want to make their affiliate program successful and help their affiliates succeed:

1.  Be available. I need to be able to contact my AM and get a quick response. If I send them an email (at least during semi-normal work hours) I want a quick response.  Usually when I have a question or need something it is while I am in the process of building a site and if I don’t get a quick response I either lose interest in building the site or I find a different merchant. Even better than that I need to be able to contact them on IM. The good affiliate managers I work with are usually on IM most of the day and I can get an instant response.

2.  Be quick. Once again, I like having a somewhat instant response.  If I need a new datafeed, some new graphics, have a question about something, or whatever I want a quick response. I don’t want to have to wait a day or two to get what I need. It takes a lot for me to actually start building a new site and I don’t want to have to wait once I get started.

3.  Actually help the affilates.  I want affiliate managers who will give me feedback on my sites, give me new ideas how to promote their stuff, and help me increase sales.  A lot of affiliate managers are much more passive on issues like this than others and the ones who aren’t proactive don’t really do much for me.

4.  Affiliate Managers need to have flexibility. Many affiliate managers work for companies who don’t give them the flexibility to do their job well and if an AM is in this situation they need to fight for their affiliates and talk to management and help them see what will help the affilaites. If a company gives the AM the flexibility to be creative in helping their affiliates everyone wins. This could be in the form of affiliate promotions, custom graphics, custom landing pages, increased payouts for affiliates who perform, etc.

5.  Affiliate Managers need to have the answers. Too many affiliate managers just don’t have the answers to some somewhat simple questions about their affiliate programs or what is allowed and what isn’t. They can give a stock, canned answer but I want a real answer that makes sense. A good affiliate manager will know the answers to my questions or at the very least find out the answer and get back to me quickly.

6.  Affiliate Managers need to make sure the program is running properly. This includes stuff like being vigilant to keep parasites out, making sure affiliates who are violating their TOS are booted quickly, make sure links are tracking properly, payments are getting sent, etc. 

7.  Make sure the links you put out there work. If a merchant is on a network they need to be able to make sure their links work with all the tools provided by that network. Example: If a merchant is on Shareasale and I want to go use their custom link builder I don’t want to find out later there is something else I need to add to the code to make it track.

8.  Affiliate Managers need to be nice.  I don’t need to be their friend but the affiliate manager should at least be personable and easy to talk to. Don’t make me feel like I am inconveniencing you when I ask you for something. But many AMs I have worked with in the past I now consider my friends and not just business associates.

I am sure there are many more but those are a few I can think of off the top of my head.

So who meets these criteria?  There is one AM I have only recently started working with that fits all these criteria and many more. Of the affiliate managers I am currently working with he is at the top of the heap even though I have only recently started promoting his program. That person is Matt McWilliams of Legacy Learning Systems. I talked with him a few times over IM before the Shareasale ThinkTank and was impressed but when I actually met him in person and talked to him I realized even more that he has his stuff together and knows how to run an affiliate program.

He is always available to answer questions and does a great job of promoting his program and making it easy for affiliates to succeed. Recently he started his LEGACY week promo offering stuff like increased lifetime commissions, double commissions for some products, and some giveaways. The great thing about promos like this is they are useful for all affiliates, not just affiliates who generate a ton of sales.

Yesterday I decided to build a site http://www.masterballroomdancing.com promoting their ballroom dance course. I build my site and let him see it and he noticed I could use a new banner.  So within 10 minutes he had a new banner for me and I loaded it up on my site. I started sending some traffic to it and within an hour or so I saw my first sale. And wouldn’t you know it?  That sale came from someone clicking that new banner.

So thank you Matt for getting it. Any affiliate looking for a new program to promote should check out the Legacy Learning System program. Any affiliate managers looking for someone to emulate should look to Matt McWilliams.

But that also raises a questions.  What should you do when you have a bad affiliate manager?  Should you just drop their program and look for someone else? Should you talk to their management and let them know how the AM is hurting the program?

What are some other things you look for in an affiliate manager? Who are some other good affiliate managers you work with?  Leave a comment below and let me know.

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