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Do You Need an Affiliate Manager? Why of Course!

October 8, 2008

In my last post, I touched on getting started with your own affiliate program. In that post I hinted to the fact that you can outsource setting up and maintaining an program to an affiliate manager. I don’t know about you, but the less busy work I have to do, the happier I am. ;-) Less busy work gives me the ability to concentrate on planning and marketing my business so that it continues to grow.

In case you’re wondering some of the things an affiliate manager can do so that you won’t have to, here you go:

  • Recruit new affiliates
  • Follow up with affiliates through an autoresponder
  • Teach those new to affiliate marketing and the program how it works
  • Maintain an affiliate center
  • Pay affiliate commissions
  • Keep affiliates informed of new and upcoming product launches
  • Help brainstorm ways to get affiliates motivated i.e. contests, specials, etc.
  • Aid in evaluating what’s working and what isn’t with your program and implement changes to make it more profitable
  • Create promotional tools (graphics, text promotions, etc.) for affiliate’s use

Just because the list above doesn’t seem very long (there is more that an affiliate manager can do but these are the basic areas you’ll be looking at) or the tasks performed by an affiliate manager don’t seem difficult does not mean it’s not a time consuming task. Recruiting affiliates and keeping them happy is a job all in its own, especially if your affiliates are new to this form of marketing and might require a bit more hand holding in the beginning of their efforts. Having someone on hand to help with all that helps ensure that your affiliate program continues to grow and become more profitable.

Generally speaking, affiliate managers are often paid a retainer fee plus a percentage of commission. How much you’ll pay will depend on how much work you need your manager to do and their level of experience.

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Written by Alice Seba · Filed Under Alice Seba 

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