Poor affiliate programme management costs industry heavily
by Hayley Pinkerfield Revolution UK 13-Jul-07, 12:15
“LONDON – Ineffective affiliate programme management costs brands considerable lost sales and profits margins, according to new research.Affiliate management agency R.O. Eye surveyed a cross section of the top 20 super-affiliates. Poor communication and a widespread lack of market understanding result in considerable sales and profit margin losses across the affiliate industry, the study found. R.O Eye found that super-affiliates see ineffective affiliate programme management as the root of these problems, citing issues such as dead or old data feeds and expired offers as frequent causes of reduced commission for affiliates and loss of sales for brands.
Mark Kuhillow, MD, R.O.EYE said: “Affiliate marketing passed the £2 billion threshold in 2006 and is now a serious element of a company’s marketing activity. The resources dedicated to its day-to-day management must reflect this. Mismanagement of affiliate marketing risks not only drops in revenue, but also potential negative impact on a brand’s integrity online.”David Hall, communications director, Affiliate Window, said that mismanagement is largely down to industry-wide training gaps and merchants’ inability to devote sufficient time to affiliate campaigns.He commented: “Smaller networks have traditionally suffered from issues due to failing to communicate to merchants how to best set up and manage affiliate programmes. Larger networks, including Affiliate Window, TradeDoubler and buy.at try to give good advice from the off.”The wider online marketing industry has only realised in the last 12 months the financial opportunities in running affiliate marketing courses, hence the knowledge gap.
There is now a massive boom in knowledge sharing to improve management at affiliate and client level.”Hall is currently chair of the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council, a platform for the industry to collectively address topics of concern.” (source Revolution)
CurveTraining.com was set up in order to address this very issue and provide anyone coming into this industry with knowledge in order to manage an affiliate program affectively. There are rules to follow and things like simple affiliate communication is vital. How ever, to be fair it’s easy to sit and point fingers at affiliate managers, not all are bad, they are only as good as the tools they have to work with in some cases, in the same way that affiliates need the tools in order to assist them generating sales and or leads. Some tools are woefully lacking or absent in some networks. Catherine Dunn our senior affiliate manager here at affiliateprogramadvice.com describes some of the problems she has encountered since starting in this industry.
“This is by way of a general whinge at affiliate networks that take their time to sort out problems and generally fail to respond to emails for assistance. They know who they are! Perhaps they should rename their customer services, customer disservices!
As an affiliate manager my responsibilities are to look after the interests of our merchants and affiliates. But this can be hindered by the slow response times of certain affiliate networks. If there’s a problem with the affiliate program that needs the network to sort it out speedily, then having to send email after email without response is not just downright annoying, it’s unprofessional of the network. It also hinders our job and doesn’t reflect well on us as affiliate managers because, at the end of the day, both merchants and affiliates expect us to look after their interests. What we expect is for the networks to sort out any problems that arise, without us having to keep chasing and checking that it’s been done. And once they say it’s been dealt with – that should be it. Recently, I’ve had the situation where I’ve been assured by a network that a problem has been sorted out (after numerous emails) only to find that in fact another error has been made and it hasn’t been properly sorted out at all! All together now scream!!
It’s very frustrating to have to constantly chase affiliate networks and it’s unnecessary too. It doesn’t reflect well on us as affiliate managers, and it looks bad on the merchant too. And if we are doing everything in our power to sort out the problem then it’s not just unnecessary, it’s unfair too. And we can do without it thank you very much! Seriously though it’s a real problem, because it can reflect badly on our affiliate program. Especially when we’re doing everything in our power to sort problems out as soon as they arise, and keep affiliates and merchants alike happy.
On a positive note, there are some great affiliate networks out there that are totally on the ball and responsive to emails and a real pleasure to work with. But you know what that means – if they can do it, then all you networks out there can.
So come on all you affiliate networks that are guilty of these bad practices, it’s time to sort out your customer services and give us the kind of service we’re all looking for.” Catherine Dunn
AffiliateWindow.com and PaidOnResults.com seem to have it together to make the lives of an affiliate manager a lot easier. But le’ts keep all this in perspective, not all affiliate managers are bad, some are ace, some are better then others and there are some out there, sitting in 40+K per year jobs who know jack about managing an affiliate program and some even have quite a high profile. I get very frustrated when they ask me about what their affiliate program should be doing and ask me to provide them with industry stats and even affiliate contact details. Your supposed to be the experts?
Agencies like RO-EYE and AffiliateProgramAdvice.com dont have to sing and dance and wave our arms in the air “hey look at me” we are judged on our performance, this is how to get a good name in the industry, most of our work we get is referral based which speaks volumes. We have years of experience which really is the key metric here. Its not just about what you know but who you know too.
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