The landscape of affiliate management agencies has changed significantly since the time that the concept of such an agency came to life. An affiliate management agency is more often called an “OPM agency” or one that manages affiliate programs on an outsourced basis. Back when I started mine, there was less than a dozen of us worldwide. Today, affiliate management agencies are in the hundreds.
It’s often tough to tell chaff from the wheat, especially with multiple pay-to-play “rankings” scoring high on search engines.
But there are a number of affiliate marketing industry-specific organizations that hand out “Best OPM” or “Agency of the Year” awards, which are always fun (and helpful) to follow. Among these, there are both platform-specific ones like CJ Excellence Awards, Rakuten Marketing Golden Link Awards, ShareASale/Awin ThinkTank Awards, as well as platform-agnostic ones like Performance Marketing Awards and, of course, Affiliate Summit’s Pinnacle Awards.
Today, the latter have just announced their finalists for this year, and we can see 5 agencies listed in the OPM/Agency of the Year category. These are:
I am excited to see my very own AM Navigator in such a fine company. Four of these five affiliate management agencies have been in the business for more than a dozen of years, and there are many people within these shortlisted companies that I consider real thought leaders and dear friends.
Being “the best” in any industry is as much about doing your job well as it is about giving back to the industry. Most of the affiliate marketing agencies on this list are amazing at the latter: educating, inspiring, and evangelizing through all their work. I am honored to have my own agency be up there with these guys!
We wish everyone who was shortlisted (regardless of the category) the best of luck; and looking forward to seeing the winners announced at the upcoming Affiliate Summit in New York!