How Affiliate Managers Can Improve Their Performance And Partner Results
First of all, we need to define who is the affiliate manager.
The affiliate manager works directly with partners (webmasters, media buyers, media companies), analyzes the quality of traffic, and helps to scale and optimize the result.
The main tasks include:
- Inbound and Outbound sales to existing and new partners;
- cooperation with existing partners: contracts work, communication with other departments (IT, creative, strategy), working with the reports;
- Analysis of the traffic, its optimization (increasing of efficiency of work by fraud analysis, selection of the best offers, analysis of the audience, technical analysis of traffic (devices, GEO’s).
It is necessary to emphasize that the main key for the affiliate manager is to achieve better results by having several qualitative clients because his/her earnings depend on it. Therefore, testing and data analysis are extremely important.
In essence, the role of the affiliate manager consists of working with several areas:
- Sales manager: direct sales and work with incoming ones as well as selling new offers to existing partners;
- Account manager: communication with partners;
- Marketer: working with traffic channels;
- Analyst: analysis of incoming traffic and its optimization.
Due to this, the affiliate manager has to:
- Negotiate with all the stakeholders to get the best results. You need to understand that there are several stakeholders in the affiliate program, and your goal is for everyone to have a qualitative outcome;
- Critical thinking, processing, and analysis of the information;
- Focusing: experienced managers have hundreds of partners. You should work with everyone, set priorities, and focus on what is most important;
- Work with a lot of data. The manager compiles reports, organizes payments, works with traffic - tracking and processing it;
- Adapt and find solutions rapidly, especially in crises.
How Affiliate Managers Can Improve Their Performance And Partner Results
Firstly, our advice is to take regular «comfort breaks».
Take breaks from screens.
You're likely spending a lot of time staring at screens. With remote working still in play across much of the globe, you’re also probably spending much longer hours attached to your computer and other digital devices while keeping yourself connected to your partners, family and friends.
Schedule conversations with your top five partners
One of the best ways to drive growth in a partner or affiliate program is to work directly with your largest partners. You can collaborate on new tools and platforms they may offer, gain new market insights, or learn about and address any issues that are holding your sales back. In most cases, large partners are delighted to work directly with important advertisers.
Benchmark your competitors’ offers
If it’s been some time since you compared your offers to those of your competitors, today is the day to change that. If competitors are sweetening their offers, you may need to respond in kind to maintain or grow sales. If they’ve diluted their offers, there may be an opportunity to increase your margins.
Get some competitive intel. If nothing else, do a Google search for your competitor’s offers. Alternatively, ask your agency to look into it for you. Then compare those to what you are taking to market.
Use Leverage Tools To Elevate Your Program's Performance
Events and networking that typically drive affiliate engagement may remain offline for a while longer as countries loosen their pandemic restrictions. We’re all trying to do more with less to engage new partners remotely. Think smart when it comes to the day-to-day operations within your affiliate program by using tools to help with some of your marketing functions. For example, you can tackle design requests that come in from affiliates using graphic design platforms such as Canva. These tools allow anyone on your team to do things like resize banners and create logos in custom sizes, which can help affiliates go live with promotions quicker.
Consider tools that can help smooth your affiliate program's onboarding and engagement processes. You can use customer relationship management tools to automate and overhaul your affiliate communications and welcome sequences. There also are tools specifically designed for affiliate marketers that can aid in keeping your affiliates compliant, growing in size and delivering the right results and customers to your site.
Getting the right tools in place can help you save time and drive increased revenue.
In conclusion, we hope that these fast-acting tips to improve partner and affiliate performance would work for you.