Affiliate managers are often lambasted for making poor decisions and generally ticking affiliates off at times. For all of us, having a good moan about various programme managers who clearly don’t have two brain cells to rub together has become something of an occupational sport. I enjoy this as much as the next chap, but I do think it’s important to realise that there are a lot of affiliate managers who make real efforts to communicate, assist and add value to the affiliate programmes they are running.

Not one to usually give people free plugs or let on who I promote but…

One programme I’ve been really impressed with is CreditExpert. Their affiliate manager, Patrick Perraton, regularly sends out useful seasonal information on his program and also sends articles for use on affiliate sites out on a regular basis. Beyond that, he’s always good at dropping me a line to ask what I’m up to and if there’s anything he can do.

With this in mind, I thought it would be interesting for us affiliates to find out what a hardworking affiliate manager gets up to on a day to day basis and how one ends up walking the hallowed halls of affiliate management!

Patrick’s background in his own words:

Born in London, grew up in SE Asia, did my Bachelor in Business Administration in Vancouver, Canada - then completed the full circle and moved back to London. My first proper job was as a Sales and Marketing coordinator for a financial institution in London. I naturally got heavily involved with the website as this is where my main interests were and then ended up managing the operation of it. The company then got taken over and instead of moving down to sunny Bournemouth - I took the redundancy payout instead.

That’s when I joined CreditExpert (part of Experian – the UK’s largest credit reference agency). Launched in the UK at the end of 2003 - CreditExpert is now the UK’s leading credit monitoring and identity theft service. The product has grown very rapidly since its induction by providing customers the tools they need to ensure that they stay on top of their credit status and at the same time protect themselves from identity fraud.

The Role At CreditExpert!:
As the CreditExpert business was growing so quickly, the already successful affiliate program needed someone enthusiastic and motivated to take it on to the next level. So that’s where I came in - to make sure it reached the potential it deserved.

What do I actually do!!
- Develop rapport with existing and prospective affiliates to help them maximise their sales
- Create promotional campaigns and incentives
- Identify and recruit new affiliates on to the program
- Help new affiliates to use the networks if necessary
- Brief internal design team on new creatives to fit into affiliate promotions
- Analyse reports and stats
- Check affiliates are promoting CreditExpert properly and not damaging the brand
- Provide optimising suggestions to affiliates by sharing successful techniques and supplying copy, editorial and general tips
- Educate CreditExpert to both prospective and existing affiliates
- Engage in face-to-face meetings and attend networking events
- Liase with the affiliate networks to ensure they are doing the most for us they can
- Grow the affiliate channel so that it reaches its potential.

Phew! So if any of you thought that people like Patrick spend their entire day sitting formulating their next evil ploy to confound those “grubby little affiliates”, then you’d be entirely wrong (well, about Patrick at least!)

Finally, I asked Patrick what makes him feel warm and cosy inside when he thinks about his job, and what he hates the most!: -

Warm and Cosy: Educating an affiliate from scratch about CreditExpert and how to promote it effectively – then seeing them bring in applications. Its literally planting those seeds of success for a win-win situation.

Yah Boo Sucks To: Putting lots of effort to help affiliates strengthen their campaigns and from a select few – not getting the same energy back.

If you want to contact Patrick to see if you can make the odd quid or two promoting free credit reports, give him a hoy at: -
patrick .perraton @ uk. experian .com (remove spaces) He tells meCredit Expert fit well into most verticals other than travel and gaming - get in touch with him and he can show you how.

You can find out more about the programme Patrick runs for Credit Expert at: -
joincreditexpert.com

P.S - I absolutely wasn’t paid or bribed in any shape form or fashion to write this. I just appreciated Patrick’s kind attention and help and wanted to say a public thanks! See? It’s nice to be nice!