With this being the very first post on a brand-new blog, I cannot think of anything better to devote it to than to the core subject of the blog. Since this website is fully devoted to all things affiliate management, let’s start right from affiliate management itself.
Having worked as an “affiliate manager” since early 2000s, I have taken note of several different definitions of “affiliate management.” Here they are – together with the reasons why, in fact, they all represent nothing but misapprehensions about the subject.
Approach #1: Affiliate management – the process of overseeing and managing affiliates.
Flaw: By the very definition of the term, affiliates are independent, self-managed online marketers, generally not accountable to merchants for performance, and free to choose what affiliate programs to promote, and what programs to drop, what merchants to push more aggressively, and on what merchants to spend less effort.
Approach #2: Affiliate management – the practice of supporting, supervising, and controlling the company’s relationship with its outsourced affiliate manager.
Flaw: While the previous definition/approach aimed at going deeper than necessary safely possible, this is one is surprisingly shallow. No company should ever equate their “affiliate management” approach to mere vendor management. Handling vendor payments, reviewing their routine reports, and managing your contract with them has nothing to do with affiliate management.
Approach #3: Affiliate management – the process of managing the company’s relationship with the affiliate network.
Flaw: While, similarly to approach #2, this one equates affiliate management to vendor management, it may end up being even more disastrous than approach #1. Presuming that all you need to do is keep positive affiliate network balance, while the rest will be taken care of by the network can be deadly. The network’s job is provide you with the infrastructure for running your affiliate program. The rest (affiliate recruitment, compliance policing, and other affiliate management tasks) is extremely rarely included by default.
Having said all of the above, here is what I suggest as the definition of (and the approach to) affiliate management:
Affiliate management – common shortening for affiliate program (or marketing) management, or organization and coordination of affiliate marketing activities of a business, as well as full support of its affiliate program with the purpose of equipping affiliates with the tools and knowledge they need to market the business efficiently.
Since in most cases it involves management of a specific program, wherever possible/suitable I try to call it affiliate program management. It is also because of this that I included the word “program” in the very domain name of this website.
More articles on the subject to follow. Stay tuned…
Oh, and if you have something to add to the above, the “Comments” area below is all yours! I’d love to hear your thoughts too.