External Affiliate Managers - Good Or Bad?

[FeelingChilled]

Hi Folks,

I'm currently the affiliate manager (amongst other things) for FeelingChilled.com. After a hectic and very busy Christmas period we feel the need to recruit an external campaign manager who can focus on the campaign and really drive it forward, providing our affiliates with the tools and support they need to make our campaign really profitable to promote.

The problem I have is that we have never availed of any affiliate management services before and to be honest know very little about what an external person/company could offer. Obviously a google search returns millions of companies promising the earth, moon and stars!

If anyone can shed some light on the pro’s and con’s of going down this route it would be greatly appreciated.

Also, can anyone recommend an affiliate management person/company who they have worked with in the past (either as an affiliate or a merchant) who they consider to be “top-of-the-pile”?

All feedback greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[oxleyBM]

Hi Denis,

I work for an agency who provides outsourced affiliate management for our clients.

I think OPM's are a good idea, especially if you don't have the specialist resource in-house. An agency/OPM can often :

- Leverage contacts at Affiliate Networks to maximise your performance on those networks
- Cut your costs by handling bespoke relationships in house
- Recruit relevant affiliates to your program, and get 'super affiliates' to join.
- Police your program effectively

I understand I'm clearly biased given the field I work in, but overall I think they can bring a lot of growth to your program while minimising the usual affiliate program risks.

Feel free to call me if you want to talk about it more, or check out our website Brilliant Affiliates if you want a better description of what we do. I'm sure other affilaites/merchants on here will also chip in with some thoughts too,

Good luck whatever you chose to do with your program,

Thanks,
Matthew

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Here is a short list of suggestions for you, who as an affiliate we feel comfortable working with, hopefully other affiliates may come forward with their own personal choices.

Existem - Mark Russell or Bruce Clayton Existem Affiliate Program Managment » Home
Total Search Solutions - Duncan Popham Search Engine Marketing Uk - PPC Expert - SEO Uk
Altogether Digital - James Little & Kenneth Cheung Altogther Digital
MediaVest - Sean Carter MediaVest: About MediaVest
Shine Marketing - Stephen Pratley Shine Marketing - A UK Online Marketing Agency for Retail and Travel Businesses
Azam Marketing - Nadeem Azam Marketing - Professional Affiliate Management Services
Affiliate Program Advice - Jess Luthi Affiliate Program Advice
Blue Barracuda - Paul Wright Blue Barracuda

Have you noticed how most of the above have a strong background as an affiliate.

[Azam.net]

Denis... the advantages of hiring an Outsourced Affiliate Manager are that they are often very experienced - as are all the blokes reommended above - and able to use their contacts and skills to help make your affiliate program a success. The one downside I've heard it that OAM's don't know enough about the product or service, but I don't think that needs to be the case (certainly not if you're a geek like me and have your client's leaflets as your bedside reading )

We do Affiliate Management as well and, to give you an idea of the kind of results we produce, have recruited more white-label partners for a cashback client in three months than all the other sites in the sector in the UK combined in the last five years. Feel free to get in touch if you'd like more info.

In terms of other Affiliate Managers I would recommend, apart from the aforementioned, I'd throw Jess Luthi and her wonderful team into the ring.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

My profuse apologies Nadeem, I've added you to the list accordingly.

[3wdl]

It really depends on the business model and needs - employing an affiliate manager can be expensive and agencies (despite their reputation) can lower this cost.

Like Nadeem said, most of us at agencies have been doing this for a few years and know the best and worse practices as well as who are potentially the best people to speak to about your program.

Here at Altogether whilst we have a network we also still work with other networks on a consultancy basis (it's still our bread and butter infact) so anyone that is looking for this kind of service please feel free to get in touch,

Cheers
James

[hirschnathan]

My opinion with external affiliate managers are:

Pros: They can be friendly and deal with affiliates and sometimes if they were affiliates undertsand the affiliate side of the picture.


con: They can be really target driven and only know how o stick to the rules. Say you had an afiliae who was giving you 10% of your sales and then they bymistake do something against t&c's some external affiliate managers can ruin with bad communication the relationship the existing affiliate had with the merchant.

I imagine if you can find someone with the right skills and have a get out clause, email your affiliates in say 2 months and ask them to reply to your email add, whether they are happy with the manager

[jess1]

The main disadvantage will always be the external affiliate manager is not in the thick of things and is reliant on the merchant to update on latest company news re products and promos. How ever this is also an advantage as an external affiliate manager can see how the company is working from the outside looking in.

Id always go with a company or aff manager that has a proven track record and always ask around about that person and or company. There are many cool people on this forum that can talk the talk but when push comes to shove, they cant walk the walk. But… I would take my latter comment with a pinch of salt. Some times merchants seem to be blinded by their own unrealistic expectations and seem to have a very skew idea about their online business. Education is all well and good but what do you do when a merchant refuses to be educated. It amazes me the number of merchants that expect the stars and the moon when their overall site conversion is less then 1% (depending on sector).

Sure be demanding but also be realistic and don’t buy into the hype that affiliate marketing is anything less then a long term commitment which compliments your other marketing initiatives.

Cost… external is cheaper then internal, that’s if you want an experienced aff manager.
But another route would be to get a cheaper bod and get a consultant to mentor them.

[kcheung]

I run the risk of rocking the boat a little...but its with the best intentions.

As an affiliate manager at Altogether Ads/ Altogether Digital, i think regardless of if you go for an in house or an external solution, its important to keep focused on the objective of an affiliate manager.

As an affiliate manager, 1. we need to know exactly what you're planning, which direction are you taking your business, what are you trying to achieve by getting into the affiliate marketing and online marketing, how does this match up with your other advertising and the bigger picture of your business. It might not be our business as such but we need to go out of our way understand the bigger picture of your business in order to really make a campaign rock. 2. we might actually rock the boat with regards to how various process at your end need to be done, things like redesigning the site, landing pages, incentives and so forth are point where we can offer loads of advice and we know from experience the changes we make will make a great deal of difference however often times some merchants may not be aware or have factored in this option. 3. here at Altogether we spend a great deal of time working with the merchant, we are in regular contact, at least, AT LEAST once a week at the very minimum, I am proud of the fact that we do this not only from a merchant side but from an affiliate side as well, and I'm confident that any affiliate manager/agency will have this as one of the priorities. Our aim isn't slow down the process but to speed it up and increase the efficiency.

Hope that helps.

PS. thanks Paul for the props.