As I’m both a small time affiliate and an affiliate manager, i guess i’m in a good position to comment on the challenges that affiliate managers face. Theres been lots of discussion about affiliate managers contacting affiliates, unsolicited via email or phone, affiliates complain that this is intrusive and they aren’t interested and their busy, and rightly so, they have a right to, after all for an affiliate time is money.

However would an affiliate manager be doing the right thing by not contacting affiliates in this way? sure theres positing on various affiliate industry forums but does that give any margin for negotiation? surely think style of affiliate recruitment is very passive and for affiliates who don’t check forums regularly, the affiliate program might be over looked. As an affiliate manager, I’m allocated specific affiliate programs to manage, this means that I’m not going to be contacting ever single affiliate I know, and be pestering them to signup, naturally a casino affiliate will ahve no interest in promoting web hosting, for example, so point 1- Affiliate managers who are doing their job are only going to contact affiliates who are actually going to benefit from the affiliate program they are promoting.

Now as an affiliate, I have several sites some are larger some are smaller and there will be sites I’m more focused on and others I’m not too bothered about. How would an affiliate manager be able to tell what sites I own, and which sectors I focus on? As an affiliate manager, I try my best to gain an idea of what the affiliate I work with do, with this understanding I tend to know who to contact for what programs, eliminating the chance that I’ll contact an affiliate unnecessarily, however, I might try and take a shot in the blue and contact an affiliate whom I think will be interested in the program, this leads me to point 2 - an affiliate manager will try and cold call affiliates, but again this isn’t out of the blue it will be because they are guessing that that affiliate will have a site that suits the affiliate program they are promoting.

There are a lot of bots out there that hijack emails so I do understand that affiliates will want to disguise or hide their email address, I do the same, however, its often times a real struggle for Affiliate managers to get in touch, especially if they find an affiliate site that is perfect for the program they are promoting and they aren’t able to get in touch with the affiliate, ironic really as my personal stance as an affiliate manager is that if i can promote the right program to the affiliate I’m aiming to help the affiliate make money, which helps me as an affiliate manager make money and naturally the affiliate program a success and the client happy… as an affiliate manager, why would I waste my time contacting affiliates that I know won’t be interested in the program, I’d be better of spending my time, catering to the needs of the affiliates who are keen to promote the program, and for that I’ll give them all the support they need, from sorting out creative, trying to negotiate better commissions, sort out discount codes, special offers, datafeeds, email creative, even SEO optimized content, getting this stuff together (I hope) will help make my affiliates jobs that much easier and help both the affiliate and I to get some hard earnt cash at the end of the day.

If I contact an affiliate, the least i hope in return (assuming they arn’t interested) is a quick one liner, ’sorry I’m not really interested in this program, perhaps in future’ - thats all I need to cross the affiliate off my list for the specific affiliate program, but at least giving a response will save me from emailing an affiliate several times (on the assumption the previous mail was forgotten).

Affiliate managers (good ones at least) go out of their way to help affiliates and merchants, I guess its a small favor to same them and you time by dropping them a response, even if its that you’re not interested.

Rant over, time for dinner