5 Common Mistakes of Affiliate Program Managers

1. Competing With Affiliates
2. Lack of Communication
3. Inaccurate or Lack of Statistics
4. Late Payments
5. Working with Theftware Companies

Competing with Affiliates

This is one of the most common complaints that I hear from affiliates especially in the pay per click world. If you are competing with your affiliates in this arena you are doing the very thing that could make their campaigns ineffective and unprofitable. This is a sure fire way to lose an affiliate and give your program a bad name. Word travels fast in the affiliate industry to be very careful on how you manage your program. If you use SEO, don't try to out code your affiliates. If they are paying to refer traffic to your website or have naturally ranking sites, don't try to get your site to rank above theirs. They will know what you're doing and believe me they will not be happy.

Lack of Communication

Managers who do not communicate with their affiliates quickly lose their affiliates. So often managers forget that their affiliates may be promoting several programs at the same time and yours is not always at the top of their minds. Keeping your program in front of them with cheerful emails, newsletters, and words of encouragement will help your program stay fresh and favored in their minds. Take time to write monthly newsletters, respond to email inquiries, and return phone calls. Further more, take time to contact your affiliates personally from time to time. Trust me, a little bit goes a long way. Not many managers will take the time to do this and those that do, will not be forgotten quickly.

Inaccurate or Lack of Statistics

If you are running a program which does not offer live real time statistics easily available to your affiliates, you can bet that your competitor does and your potential affiliate or existing affiliate WILL find them. Affiliates need statistics to know what is working and what is not working. They have very little patience for inaccurate statistics or delayed statistics. If your program solution does not currently offer real time reporting, find one that does and move your program. Your current and future affiliates will thank you.

Late Payments

Nothing drives affiliates crazier than late payments. Yes, sometimes things do happen and a payment might get delayed and affiliates realize this. However, if this is the case, let them know before the fact that their payment will be a few days late. You do not have to go into great detail of why, but at least give them a general reason. Affiliates are sometimes quick to judge a program by the promptness of their payments and new affiliates are even quicker to judge. It behooves you to pay your affiliates as quickly and as on time as possible. Also, offer your affiliates multiple methods or payment. Many affiliates prefer Direct Deposit. If you can do this great! If not, in the very least offer payments via check and PayPal or some other form of electronic payment. The more choices and flexibility affiliates have in receiving their payments, the happier they will be.

Working with Theftware

This is a biggie, so pay attention. Theftware or Spyware is considered to be something that steals commissions away from honest affiliates. Think Gator, HotBar, and WhenU. These products cause pop up ads to appear over sites. For example, say you are an affiliate and you own, greatgadgets.com and the person visiting your site has WhenU installed on their computer, more than likely they will see a pop up appear on top of your site advertising gadgets of a competitor of yours. In some instances, keywords within the text of your site, will become hyperlinks to other sites. Affiliates are strongly against these programs and have written countless articles about these types of software. If you are an affiliate manager, take a stand and do not work with these types of programs. Let your partners know and your potential partners know that you refuse to work with these types of programs and they will respect you and your program more.

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