We have been running an in-house affiliate program for over 2 years and have also tested waters with Networks too. The success of our in-house program has been phenomenal and is down to personal relationships and making sures affiliates are updated with all the special offers to help them increase their conversions and drive more traffic to the site with offers that customers will respond well to. We communicate regularly with our in-house affiliates; they know I am just a phone call away and will respond via email, if not within an hour, then certainly the same day, sometimes even late in the evenings as I work from home. This has been hugely appreciated by affiliates. We treat them as partners and they are an integral part of our business.

Saying all that, I am extremely frustrated with Networks. We have not been able to replicate the same relationship through them. With some, we can not even pick up a phone and can only contact them affiliates via their Email Affiliate interface. It is very impersonal. Feeding regular offers every week once or twice is not as effective than when done through an in-house program.

Any suggestions how to overcome this problem?

The Affiliate Future system doesn’t make things terribly easy. However, in the past I’ve simply gone through all the sites making money on AF and found contact details on them, setting up my own database of people to talk to about performance. Also, sometimes you have to locate your own super affiliates, alas, I’ve rarely found one comes knocking! Check out who’s ranking for terms relating to your key revenue building areas… and identify which sites are e-commerce and which are affiliate sites. Being familiar with your search space is an excellent first step.

I do promote a couple of Lovehoney products which were part of a PPC test I ran a while back, and I’m quite impressed with conversions. Lovehoney definately has my stamp of approval. I must find time to do more with you guys.

I don’t think Nadeem meant to tar affiliate managers with the same brush. He is, after all, an affiliate manager himself! It is easy for affiliates to feel that affiliate managers are against them and make sweeping statements. I do too sometimes… it’s hard not to when you regularly come up against the “brick wall” to progress that is an untrained or ill informed AM.

We have an in-house program and a program on Affiliate Future who, amazingly, won’t share our own affiliates’ contact details with us.

Super-affiliates – please mail me richard at lovehoney.co.uk and let’s work together to make some £££s. We’ll give you what you want!

Gentle aside: for me, how is the comment from Nadeem about affiliate managers different from Robertson’s notorious “grubby little people” quote?

I’m sure some affiliate managers are crap and some are great – but to tar them all with the same brush is no doubt as offensive to affiliate managers as Robertson’s was to affiliates…

That’s why I really do feel it’s time for merchants to individually take responsibility for in-house training and education. More knowledge and attention to affiliate programmes from merchants can only mean more revenue for all concerned.

All to the good I say!