What can your Affiliate Manager do for you?

Affiliate Managers… Who needs them?

I often I hear seasoned affiliates questioning the value of their affiliate manager. Wondering what on earth people in this position could do to help them? Why they would waste valuable time talking to an AM instead of trying to contact the owner of the ad network directly or someone who is seemingly more in charge?

Well the truth is not all affiliate managers were created equally. You will find that in working with different ad networks, just like there are good and bad offers, there are good and bad affiliate managers.

So what is it that you can actually expect from your affiliate manager and what are not likely jobs that you will get them to perform? Your affiliate manager is not in most cases an affiliate or a webmaster themselves (although in a perfect world that would be a pre-requisite). The AM will not be able to help you learn how to get the banner from the ad network to display on your site. They will not know how to create the traffic to promote the advertiser. If you, as an affiliate, do not already have a traffic source you probably need to take a few steps back and learn to do that first. If there is no traffic to the site no matter how great the offer and the ad you will not convert!

Now, if you have a good source of traffic already and know how to manage it then this is what you can expect your affiliate manager to do for you:

1. You can expect them to always answer your emails. If you cannot get an AM to reach out to you before you signup to a network, you should probably take that as a sign of things to come and bail. At Empyre Media we are especially proud of our availability and personal touch to all of our affiliates.
2. Your AM should be able to walk you through the signup process to the network. If there are any out of the ordinary steps, or approvals are required your AM can definitely help to push you through the system a little faster.
3. Your AM should know about what types of traffic are working well with which types of campaigns. If you are running a mommy blog versus a tech review site they are obviously going to have different types of creatives and ads for you to put out there. If they are recommending offers from verticals that don’t seem to match your surfer demographics then you know they don’t have your best interests at heart.
4. Your AM should let you know when new advertisers come on board that fit your vertical. They should try to get you the ads first before anyone else. A GREAT AM will even send you your creatives for the newest, hottest campaign already coded with your referral code.
5. If you are a large volume affiliate your AM Should be able to make negotiations with payout timelines as well as amounts in order to keep your awesome traffic. If you are asking for this type of favor though please make sure your traffic converts and is AWESOME. Otherwise it is not unreasonable for your AM to tell you that you don’t qualify for these perks. Don’t be upset if that is the case, just keep building and try a little harder to meet the higher quota.
6. In the event that one of the advertisers within the network you have chosen to promote does not like your traffic, you may find a network is not paying you when you think you are owed money. If you go and scream at the owner of the network they might help you. The affiliate manager is however the more sympathetic ear to tell your story to. They AM will take your story to the appropriate entity and get you an audience with the person who can affect that decision. How much better to have someone working for you on the inside though instead of just you versus the whole company and an advertiser.
7. Finally if you need any custom work done in order to better promote a particular offer, or new tools for promotion, you should speak to your AM. They are the front lines and they are fighting for you inside of the company for you to get the things you need.

So be nice to your affiliate managers. They are there for your benefit and a good affiliate manager will help you a long a fair amount. A great affiliate manager, like all of our affiliate managers here at Empyre Media, will go that extra mile for you to make sure you get the most from their network.

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