If you plan on staying in the online marketing space for a while, regardless if you are a Newbie or experienced. Build a solid relationship your Affiliate Account Manager if you can. A good manager is always fixing problems you didn’t even know you had.
So creating a symbiotic relationship with them will benefit you. More so if you find one that is results-oriented, and tries to build a high level of trust with you. Like most things in life, this will take time to grow and develop. The rewards you can gain from doing this will outweigh the extra time invested.
The Benefits of having a good rapport:
- Ability to test New Exclusive Offers
- Stay up to date on Relevant news
- Higher payouts
- More leniency
- Custom payouts
- Faster response rate
- Faster approval rate
- Better traffic optimization
- and more
Just like on your end, there are a ton of things they have to balance as well. They greatly appreciate it and will be more likely to go out of their way for you. They sometimes have to stick their necks out for our clients and accept the consequences. Listed below are a few general guidelines on how to build a relationship with account managers in the marketing industry.
Table of Contents
Tips for Relationships with Affiliate Account Manager
3 Legged Bar Stool
Their job is to balance happiness between publisher, their boss, supporting staff and the offer owner. If one of the bar stool legs breaks, it comes crashing down. Help them out so they can help you out.
Targeted Leads
Ask them what targeting backs out the best on the offer. Ask them for a review of the recent traffic. So you can make adjustments if the quality is low. Knowing you have good quality traffic is your leverage to getting higher payouts. Also, be willing to shut off a campaign if it comes down to it.
Communication
Be responsive if you are running traffic with them. Its one of the biggest factor to a successful business relationship with them. If they cant get a hold of you, they will get nervous about whats happening. There is no need to hold hands and sing kumbaya together. You don’t have to talk with the AM for more than 20 seconds, but try to respond if you are running traffic. Just log into Skype once and awhile, so they know you are alive.
Data is money
Don’t bounce around on niches. The more relevant data they have, the better they can help you out directly. Understand you can send the network some data via the subids, without giving away your campaign. Make it so they can provide you with feedback that only you can make sense of. Examples: &subid1=trafficsources35 Or &subid1=traffic35&subid3=target5. Talk with them to find out what data gets passed back. They will be able to help set it up if you ask.
Difficult to earn, easy to lose
Don’t pull sneaky stuff, and lie. It may take them a few days, but they will find whatever you did. Cant cloak every IP. AM’s are secretly trained internet ninjas. If the advertiser catches it, game over. You really don’t want to get outed as a scammer and ruin your internet marketing career. The affiliate industry is fairly small, and word travels fast online.
AMs are not fortune tellers
If you’re running traffic, and you are going to shut down a campaign because you are slightly in the red. Let them know, I’m sure they will give up some more margin. Find another offer for you to test. Make suggestions on new targeting/ad copy. They should want to keep your business and take steps to do so. If something up, tell them. Its what they get paid to do.
People Helping People
Most account managers are friendly and enjoy helping others. Please do not take advantage of the situation, and treat them like a slave. There is also no need to direct your anger towards them, they are just a middleman. If the account manager is causing more problems than helping. Then reach out to the network manager.
Non-compliant creatives
Are you unsure if some targets or ad copy will cause issues? Ask them. They do this all day and know what to look out for. If they are unsure, ask them to reach out to find out. Common sense to them isn’t always that obvious to other people. It’s not worth losing the ability to run an offer, or worse. It could possibly cause the network to lose its business relationship with that advertiser.
Be understanding
There are so many variables in play that are out of their control. They don’t want any downtime as well. People make mistakes, try to take precautions on your end as well. They have software that looks out for issues.
Documentation
Send in your paperwork. If you have not received a link/PDF to a tax & payment form. Then hit up the AM, they will be more than happy to send over the documentation. Please update the AM if these things changes, so they can update it. They are a business, and its required of them. You are a business, and its required of you. Common updates to let them be aware of include business name changes, bank changes, and address changes.
Personality Differences
If you don’t get along with your assigned account manager. Then reach out to the owner or senior AM. Don’t be in a bad mood about it when you do though. Be honest, and level-headed when you chat with them. Tell them the real reason for wanting to change account managers. They need to figure out what the cause was. They will switch you to someone who might be a better fit.
Read the TOS
Make sure to read the Terms of service. Including the network and the offer, you want to run. Understand networks almost never payout on unknown traffic. Offers have different lengths of review time as well. Make sure you are not running non-compliant creatives before you turn on the traffic. Find out what is required for you to get paid, and meet those said requirements. Its boring to read the fine print, but its incredibly important to do so.
For more information on social dynamics. I highly recommend the critically acclaimed book How to Win Friends & Influence People. You can find Dale Carnegie’s book on audible or amazon for cheap.
Guest Post by Jason Brusse from PDXWeb Design follow him on Facebook.
