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Affiliate Management and Sales Management

It’s amazing how many companies treat the internet as “something different” especially when it comes to affiliate managment and most get it completely wrong. Here’s some of my stories and ways to manage affiliates better.

Affiliate management gone wrong – the story

So for one programme I have been an affiliate for this company in a particular niche for over 3 years and in that time sent over £25,000 of sales their way collecting a nice 30% for my efforts.

During this time the company MD has sent me various emails asking me to promote the product more – in more places on some of the websites I operate. I have asked for help on how other affiliates are converting so I may change my links or web copy but to no avail but I continued to promote and send sales there way.

Then out of the blue I got an email saying my commission would be cut from 30% to 15% – what !!??

Obviously I made contact but there was no way they would change their minds and they offered no help in terms of providing me targets to get back to the previous level. So what does this say ?

Affiliates are sales people

Back in my brick and mortar days I helped manage the sales forces for multi-billion dollar companies and we spend thousands of hours developing sales commission schemes to ensure the sales force was well motivated. We provided as many sales tools, presentations, techniques and training as we could as well as targets and detailed reports to help them. They drove sales for these companies like no other and we all made great profits.

The company was successful and the sales force was motivated and sold well.

The online problem

The problem most companies have online is they don’t see their affiliates as sales people for their organisation – some see them as a necessary evil and almost a pain for their company. Most don’t offer help nor the motivation for affiliates to sell well and most companies don’t make that many sales from their affiliates.

Other evidence

I belong to many affiliate programs from the big affiliate networks to private programs and see how they operate and manage. Other emails I get (or don’t) really sum up how these businesses treat their affiliates:

- one private program I belong to has a monthly subscription service. Their product was selling at £12 per month and I got £2 per month in commission. They increased their product pricing to £17 per month but didn’t increase the commission (and at less than 10% commission is almost hardly worth promoting in any case)

- I joined a new affiliate network and logged into my account to find my “personal affiliate manager” so emailed them to ask about some programs and the best ways to promote them – 3 weeks later I am still awaiting a response.

The best ways to manage affiliates

So what can companies do? Well first and foremost treat affiliates as a sales force and manage them accordingly :) – not many people will have managed sales people before and it really is a skill and an art that should be learned.

Additionally, some people think that giving out commissions is profit lost from the company but really, would you have made the sale without the affiliate in the first place? Once a sale has been made you have a customer that you can ask to help promote your products to people they know (in terms of a member get member scheme).

If there is anything to be learned from the “get rich quick” industry and the “big” internet marketing programs is that they offer a large % in commissions. These guys and their affiliates make millions of dollars per year. If the commission were small (ie: 10% as in the example above) do you think people would promote the products as hard as they do? no.

So leading on from the above here are my top tips:

In reality the above are all part of a sales management tool kit that the large international companies use to manage their sales forces. They know what it takes to get the best from their sales people and if you operate a business online and have an affiliate program then may be it’s time to beef up your in house resources in this area ?

Posted in Marketing | 4 Comments »

4 Responses

  1. Gate Says:

    People must see to it that the finances of their company is stable. If you need some assistance, you may consult with the professionals for the probable solutions.

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  3. David Morson Says:

    Affiliates have now become sales force for the companies in the recent years and a very successful strategy to get more sales and profits but right use of affiliates is also necessary especially for for a dropshipping business.

  4. David Morson Says:

    I would like you to visit aidnadtrade.com for more information.

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