The commandments of Being a good AM

I just read a post here that gives a great explination of what i think to be the unwritten rules of affiliate management.

My favorite is #3 and i can’t stress this enough to any other affiliate manager in the business.

“3) Thou shall know what the hell you are talking about

I don’t care if you’ve been in the affiliate game for 1 month or 6 years.  KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOUR TALKING ABOUT.  I’ve had affiliate managers who don’t know what a scrub is (they had to check with their manager).  I’ve had affiliate managers who don’t know the difference between traffic sources.  I’ve had affiliate managers who can’t tie their own shoelaces.  Figure out what you are doing and learn about your industry before you make a fool of yourself. “

you can read the full post here

Communication and campaign management

I came across a campaign the other day that was performing well at the beginning of the month and slowly but surely dwindled away towards the middle/end of the month. As I noticed this trend of the campaign, my initial reaction was to contact the owner of who was running this offer. After a couple phone calls and a few emails sent out to the publisher, I had received no response. Now there are two things I could have done at this point. Let it run through the rest of the month, or redirect the offer to something else. Redirecting offers is not something I like to do, there are ad copies that need to be considered, keywords that might be being bid on, and/or targeted email lists that this campaign may have initially been set up for. I chose to let it go hoping we could get in contact with that publisher in order to discuss and agree on something else.

I finally get a call back from this particular person running this offer. As our introductions finish, I mention to them that the current offer they’re running is sucking ass. They mention to me that this offer (and my company) was the topic of conversation this morning and how can they run anything else from me based on this particular offer. ???.

I can completely understand when an offer sucks that it doesn’t reflect well from that merchant. But what some people fail to keep in mind is that as an affiliate network, we’re receiving campaigns from SEVERAL merchants at any given time. I asked them to take this in consideration and not be all too quick to judge my entire company as a whole based on one single campaign.

I didn’t want to divulge too much into a traffic issue. So I suggested that I inquire about the offer with the merchant and we see what may have happened to the campaign. I know this might not have been the quickest solution but, given the speculation of the way my company runs, I have only limited of options for satisfaction.

What I’m saying with all of this is, don’t be so quick to turn the back on a network as a whole based off a single issue. I can understand payment issues, sure, or even maybe consecutive problems with reporting, OK fine. With what you might take away from a simple phone call, early, could save a world of stress for both you and the guys on the other end.

Cheers!

Twitter getting a clue

Today I read about twitter implementing what they should have started off with initially. Advertisements. I know that you can only run an ad-free platform for so long before you have to start making money. It’s just too bad they had to wait this long to finally go about doing it. some of the small edits are as follows;

Following a large amount of users or following and unfollowing, or following and unfollowing the same users in a short amount of time

- Having a small number of followers compared to the amount of people you are following

- Updates that consist mainly of links.

- Large number of people who are blocking a particular user

- Posting duplicate content over a number of accounts

- Attempting to sell followers

- Posting multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #

- Sending large numbers of unsolicited @replies in an attempt to spam a service or link

It was only a matter of time before they figured out they need to MAKE money for this upcoming social network.

What do you think you’re going to start promoting on twitter now?

Dealing with competition

Mostly everyone in any business has competition. Whether it’s another business, individual or personal, competition will always surround you. The thing you have to keep in mind is how to best handle competition.

Business competition- In any industry there’s always business competition. Microsoft/Apple, Dell/HP, Sony/Samsung etc. One thing I like to do with my ‘business competition’ is research. Whose got what and how much are they giving it out for. Now as an affiliate manager, it’s my job to know who’s giving the best campaign for the top payout. There might be other networks out there that don’t have a clue on what payout they need to give an affiliate to make the offer back-out. There are also networks out there that give the highest payout possible in order to draw in affiliates. The key is finding the medium that keeps everyone afloat. If everyone’s happy, then there’s progression. If not, you’ll find that relationship doesn’t last long.

Individual competition- This relates more to our industry and our affiliates. Affiliates are always competing with one another. Whether it’s a keyword, a keyword list, a specific niche or if the competition is just simply trying to earn more money than the other. What you have to think in this case is that there’s more money out there than anything. There’s ways to get better keyword structure. And there’s always a niche that’s hardly touched that no one knows about. Keep these things in mind when, if at all, worried about your individual competition. You know you’re the best at what you do, that’s why you do it. Don’t second guess yourself, it will only help your competition get ahead.

Personal competition- This is going to be your worst nightmare if not handled properly. Some things that might be personal competition would be time investment. What should you put time into versus what do you put your time into. Everyone has things they want to do, but they also have things the need to do. In order to stay off tangent in completing things try a little to-do list. Check things off as you complete them and rest assure, when time comes to launch that campaign, so long as your check boxes are marked, you’ll be ready to go, and you’ll have the confidence in knowing that you’ve won over your own personal competition.

Although some may see this as business competition as well the best way I can describe having individual competition is to think of selling your car. How the mileage, interior, exterior, does it drive well, are there any dings in the body, etc? Basically, is the next person who looks at your car going to want to buy it? Relating to our industry; Does your landing page look proper, how’s your keyword list (is it cleaned up/related), Is your ad copy sharp, how’s the ‘mileage’ for your site, etc? Is the next person that comes to your site going to buy whatever it is you’re putting in the window?

In the internet industry, it’s a little different in the sense that most of the competition is fairly negotiable. Sure there might be four affiliate networks that have the same offer, but ask yourself; what makes this network different than the others. How’s their response time, payout terms, communication. These are all things I pride myself on and they’re what make me different and better than most others.

September campaigns

As September rolls in we’re going to see a lot of changes in the traffic market. More specifically, we should see some fluctuation in the social media sphere. School is back in session and as more and more college and high school attendees are getting their ‘friends list’ bulked up you will see a nice change in that traffic source.

As for email marketing, there’s still good financial offers available, cash advance, and some mainstream products that are continuously staying strong.

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