What is Affiliate Marketing Management and how does it work?

The term "affiliate" first appeared in 2007 and was used in relation to the Google AdSense system. Today, the term is applied to affiliates in different lines of business promoted online. Affiliate marketer is not about selling, but finding business partners who may be interested in working together. Management is an important skill for an affiliate manager.

What is affiliate management?

The term "affiliate management" refers to actively seeking out business partners, maintaining business relationships, and comprehensively providing certain services to them by the center in conjunction with that company, for the purpose of providing, expanding, or offering.

How does partnership management work?

How does partnership management work?
Partner management is necessary to identify, understand and set goals, and to achieve them with people and other resources. If the management functions are accomplished, the company arrives at the planned result.
  • Planning
Planning is strategic thinking that helps make sense of the possible ways and means of achieving predetermined goals. It is necessary to be able to make good use of human and other resources. Planning also helps to avoid confusion, uncertainty, risk, and loss.
  • Organization
Organization consists of a series of relationships between individuals as well as entire departments or divisions within a company. It is the responsibility of the manager to make sure that these people and organizations work together as a unit. A good manager knows how to build interpersonal relationships between team members and eliminate any misunderstandings and conflicts.

A company needs the manager to establish an authoritative relationship among its team members. Maximizing organizational arrangements can help businesses improve efficiency in the marketplace, reduce the value of doing business, and increase productivity.
  • People
A company's employees are the driving force behind any business. Managers need to make sure they have the right employees for the day-to-day tasks and create a comfortable environment for them to work productively. A company needs to retain the best people by providing incentives such as: bonuses, paid vacation, training, and more.

Coordination puts people in motion within the company, as planning, organizing, and staffing is part of the preparatory work. Through this function, the work of achieving goals begins: processes are set in motion and employees begin to take action.
  • Control
Employees in the organization must understand the goals they are striving for, as well as the measurement methods that will be used to determine if they have achieved success. The manager must control what employees do, how they do it, and how they measure their progress. Controlling these factors helps the manager achieve success.

The purpose of control is to make sure that everything is done according to standards. An effective control system helps predict deviations before they actually happen.

This is how partnership management works, and the point is to work constructively and perform productively.

Affiliate Managers

Affiliate Managers
An affiliate manager is a customer service professional, but while regular managers work with customers, an affiliate interacts with affiliate programs and webmasters. Such people are also called affiliate network managers.

In simple terms, this is a specialist who creates, develops, promotes and seeks out affiliate programs for businesses. Affiliate marketing management is suitable for those who are interested in management and marketing and want to work remotely.

To understand what an affiliate specialist's job is, you need to know about affiliate programs and the principles of their work.
The list of responsibilities of an affiliate manager includes:
  • Finding affiliates willing to partner with a product or service;
  • Development of promotions and promo materials;
  • Consultation and support of existing partners;
  • Consultation, assistance and enticement of prospective partners;
  • Defining a working strategy for partners;
  • Strategic analysis of all advertising campaigns, affiliate results, received traffic;
  • Definition of the efficiency of work with partners and optimization of their work;
  • Work with different types of offers;
  • Monitoring of fraud;
  • Monitoring the quality of traffic from partners;
  • Informing affiliates about new terms, changes, promotions and features.
Affiliate manager has to take care of affiliates who work with the company. Often he has to be responsible for negotiating deals, managing the creative design that provides income to affiliates. These tasks are similar to those of networks and can only be easily accomplished if the affiliate manager is sufficiently educated and experienced in his field. In addition, affiliate managers are basically responsible for all serious issues related to the affiliate program. This is important, because if the employee is not serious, it can seriously damage the reputation of the company.
Among the skills and abilities that will not be necessary, to perform that position, should be noted responsibility and leadership qualities. The tasks facing an affiliate manager include making responsible decisions and actively participating in the resolution of problems facing the company. The second most important skill is communication skills and a willingness to work with clients from different social groups.


There are many other useful qualities, which can be useful for any professional. These include creativity, the ability to present the company's product and advise clients on matters of interest to them. The ability to work with finances and the ability to take part in the solution of a company's money problems can also be useful. An Affiliate manager should be able to attract traffic to a business by maintaining contact with potential clients. Moreover, if you are productive and creative, you have already acquired another skill to be a successful affiliate manager.

What Makes a Good Affiliate Manager?

An affiliate manager oversees affiliate publishers on behalf of the advertiser. They will recruit, manage the program, work with current and potential affiliates, answering questions and solving problems. Their job also includes optimizing the program, working with the network, ensuring compliance, and analyzing program performance to find areas for improvement.

1. Product and industry research

Before managing an affiliate program, a manager needs to have extensive product knowledge. Knowing the product, the customer, the competitors in the space, and general concepts about the industry, will help the manager develop and deliver results. The more the manager knows about the product, the better prepared he or she is to answer questions and develop strategies.

2. Set up for success

The manager needs to make the program appealing. Set up a comprehensive online overview so that potential partners can see the benefits of product promotion and how they will be compensated. Provide your partners with all the tools they need to succeed. This means having updated creatives and promotional offers. The easier it is for them to promote and the less work they have to do, the more they will want to work with the company. You can't just limit yourself to adding banners and graphics online. By developing a promotional offer for your partners and providing them with all the necessary information about the product and company, the manager will only increase their desire to join the program. It's worth showing partners what sets the company apart from the competition, and giving examples of how other successful partners have promoted the product the manager provides.

3. Partner Recruiting

Constantly look for new partners. A manager cannot rely on the partners he or she has in the program and should always be in recruiting mode.

4. Working with affiliate partners

Recruiting is important, but successfully managing an affiliate program is not everything.

Particularly worth paying attention to:
  • Activation
    As soon as partners appear in the manager's program, you need to interact with them and activate them. Develop the relationship from day one.
  • Diversification
    The manager needs to make sure he or she is not dependent on one type of partner to increase sales. A manager needs a good set of partners.
  • Optimization
    It is important to look at the different types of partners the manager has in the program and optimize each group. Content, blogs and coupon sites can be optimized differently, so it is important to develop tactics and strategies for each group.

5. Communicate

This is one of the most important ways to set yourself up for success. Excessive communication with your partners, will help to endear them to the company. It's important for a manager to provide partners with multiple ways to communicate - email, Skype and even phone calls. Keeping time zones in mind is essential for a manager to know when is the best time to contact partners.

6. Strategy

  • Planning for success and constantly evaluating your program to make it better for partners is important for every affiliate manager.
  • Develop a promotional calendar that the manager shares each quarter so partners know the key dates for promotions. Managers may have some sales dates beyond the normal retail dates of Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Black Friday and Thanksgiving.
  • Does seasonality affect your product, and should you plan key promotions around these times?
  • Can you offer exclusive offers or bonuses to partners?
  • Will new products be launched, and if so, plan ahead with partners to plan publications and promotions around the launch.
  • Can you submit products for review?

7. Invest time in relationships

Building strong relationships with affiliate partners can make a huge difference in the success of a manager's program. These relationships must also be mutually beneficial. Managers should view these relationships as partnerships, where they are just as concerned about the growth of the affiliate's business and what they can do to help them. It is also important to develop relationships in the partner world. Learn from others and don't be afraid to seek advice.

What is the difference between affiliate management and affiliate marketing?

What is the difference between affiliate management and affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a set of activities aimed at promoting products or services on the Internet owned by others for a fee. Simply put, you advertise a product and get a profit for a targeted action from a potential audience, which means a lead or purchase. The cost of a product or service through an affiliate is similar to that of the owner or manufacturer. But the latter pays a percentage of the sale. Despite the additional costs, affiliate marketing allows you to earn more, because new customers come, the potential audience increases, the product is popularized.
Affiliate management refers to the development and promotion of an affiliate program. In order to make the affiliate program work well, to give partners a lot of traffic, it is necessary to improve constantly the product, tools for promotion of the offer, payments should work stably.
To put it simply, marketing is a complex which influences the promotion of services or goods of this or that company, and management is a control and work with the partners themselves.

Tips for managing affiliates

Tips for managing affiliates
  • Encourage positive, ongoing relationships
Developing quality relationships is vital to a successful affiliate program. You will need to represent your brand as accurately as possible as you are constantly communicating with your affiliates. Remember that because they are constantly working with many other brands and affiliate managers, your job is to clearly demonstrate why your brand and company are a great choice for partnership.
  • Challenge your affiliates and hold them accountable
It's perfectly normal, and you're expected to desire and demand reasonable success from your affiliate partners and push them to do more from time to time, as needed. After all, you are rewarding them for a reason. They should also anticipate and respect this if a mutual trust, appreciation, and need for success has been established from the beginning.
  • Give what you want in return
Being calm, pleasant and respectful goes a long way when things aren't going well. No matter what happens, remember that the partnership world is tight, so you can't take any chances and burn bridges. When you follow that old advice to treat everyone the way you would like to be treated, you will set yourself up for long-term and successful partnerships.
  • Qualify your affiliate manager
Think of your affiliates as long-term supporters and partners of your business, not one-time promoters or advertisers who move quickly. With this in mind, you should design your affiliate program so that it is a win-win for everyone, both you and your affiliates. Your affiliate program can generate a significant share of your income if your affiliate manager does his or her job effectively. This means that all affiliate management tasks are performed smoothly and to a high standard of quality.

This includes:

  • Tracking and monitoring advertising,
  • Evaluating campaigns and reporting on their activity,
  • Optimizing your site for targeted KPIs,
  • Selecting and recruiting new affiliate partners, maintaining those relationships and expanding their accounts,
  • Launching and managing promotions, and
  • Finding the best ways to improve your business performance through affiliate marketing.

Conclusion

Affiliate management is a popular activity in today's world, which is why its development has not bypassed the best affiliate companies. Affiliate management suits motivated and attentive people who are willing to work for their company and give it their all, sparing no effort.
Author:

Victor Hinch

Researcher and writer. Specializes in finance and stock trading. Since 2019, he has been professionally engaged in research and analysis of the CFD and Forex markets and publishes news and articles about leading brokers.