Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, and Consultant

Why You Need an Affiliate Manager (And It Can’t Be Me)

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My posts may include paid links for which I earn a commission.

Affiliate Manager RecommendationsI get a fair number of affiliate marketing consulting inquiries as a result of my blog, but I have to turn away over 90% of them because I know I’m not the best person for the job. Sometimes they just don’t need to be spending any money on a consultant yet because they are not far enough in their process, and I tell them that. Most of the time, however, it is because they need a specialist on the opposite side of affiliate marketing from me. They need an Affiliate Manager or an Outsourced Program Manager (OPM).

What Does An OPM Know That I Don’t?

Essentially everyone in the industry has the same basic knowledge of affiliate marketing. We should all be able to explain to you things like: what networks are, the key players, flat rate versus percentage commission, cookie length, coupon sites, cash back sites, content sites, CPM/CPL/CPA/CPS, text links and banner ads, widgets, auto-updating banners, deep linking, conversion rates, reversals, etc. Those are the basics that affiliates and affiliate managers should all understand.

But when it comes down to very specific knowledge about program management, OPMs know things that I am not qualified to answer. For example:

  • How much does it cost to launch a program with X network?
  • Should you launch a program on more than one network?
  • Who are the top affiliates in various niches?
  • How long will it be before you can expect sales?
  • Who will make the banners you need for your program?
  • How do you upload your datafeed to the network? What format should it be?
  • How do you get your program featured with a certain network?
  • What kind of attribution levels should your program use?

Of course I have opinions on things like which network does certain things better than another or whether a merchant should work with coupon sites. In all fairness, though, those things are going to be very dependent upon the specific merchant.

How Should You Pick an Affiliate Manager or OPM?

If you want to hire someone in-house to manage your affiliate program and have direct control over them at all times, you need an affiliate manager. They may have other social media or ecommerce responsibilities as well, but you want them to have enough time to dedicate to understanding affiliate marketing and managing the program that they can do a good job with it and not just “set it and forget it.”

Otherwise, if any of the following fits you, you want to hire an OPM:

  • You don’t want or can’t afford a full-time employee.
  • You have an in-house employee with other responsibilities who needs someone with more experience to act as a consultant on the program.
  • You want someone to launch the program quickly and need them to leverage their existing affiliate relationships to do that.
  • You are a small company and want to manage the program yourself but don’t know enough about affiliate marketing to do it effectively.

Whether you want an Affiliate Manager or an OPM, here are some questions to ask to find the right one:

  • Do they fit your budget? (I’ve heard these can range from $500 a month to $10K or more)
  • How long is the contract? (less than 6 months won’t likely give them a chance to really launch it)
  • Do they only work with one network? (not every network is best for every merchant)
  • Are they managing any conflicting programs such as a competitor to you?
  • Do they have experience in your niche?
  • How do they find the affiliates that they recruit?
  • Do they attend conferences and will they represent you there?
  • How much experience do the people who manage the program day-t0-day have? (not just the owner of the company)
  • What is the ratio of the number of employees to the number of programs managed?
  • What exactly is included in the monthly rate including reporting, recruiting, approvals, loading creatives to the networks, newsletters, etc?
  • Are their top affiliates coupon/deal sites or content sites or a mixture of both?
  • To what extent will they allow trademark bidding on your name and how does that fit with your current strategies?
  • Are they a member of the Performance Marketing Association?

As you can see, it’s not sufficient just to be good at affiliate marketing to be an affiliate manager. Even knowing a LOT about affiliate programs doesn’t give someone all of the tools and experience that they need to manage a program. It’s a different mindset completely and requires someone who does it on a daily basis to really do it effectively.

Which OPMs Do I Recommend?

I get asked for OPM recommendations on a daily basis and I always struggle with it. After 10 years in the business, I have worked with a LOT of different OPMs (including my mom!). I don’t recommend based on who pays me for referrals (although some do) or who I “like” better (because my mom would always have to win, right?). Instead, I ask questions about the merchant, try to ascertain a little about their personalities and their budget, and check out their site.

Based on those things, I ask myself who I think would do the best job with that particular merchant. Do they already have a similar merchant or have they had a similar merchant in the past? Do they work with sites that I think have the same target demographic as this merchant? As an affiliate, do I feel like they do a good job of keeping me informed about programs, being fair with cookies and commissions, and helping me be successful?

For that reason, I don’t tend to recommend the same people every time. I have a little list in my head and I work my way down it until something works or the merchant decides that program management isn’t actually right for them right now anyway. So I’m not going to publish any kind of list because it wouldn’t really do anyone any good (and would probably just get people mad at me if I forget to put them on it).

If you have a site and are looking for affiliate management and have read everything in this post and still want a recommendation, please reach out to me! Tell me a little about your company and your site and I will check it out and give you 3 or 4 OPMs that I think might be a good fit for you. If you are an OPM, feel free to drop your link in the comments so other people can check out your site and so I don’t forget to think about you the next time I make a recommendation!

Comments

  1. Thank you for the amazing list of things to look for in an OPM / affiliate manager! Very helpful

    I sell real estate agent training for a niche that I created: Selling real estate to Chinese cash investors. I lived in Asia since 1989 and the videos are all my own experience selling real estate in China to Chinese investors. My $998 online video course is popular with real estate agents in US, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand who want to service Chinese clients.

    I’m looking for an OPM or affiliate manager who has experience in the online real estate agent (realtor) training space

  2. Any business that is serious about affiliate marketing really has to find a great OPM. The problem is that many of the best known really don’t do a great job for their clients. You need someone who knows how to find power affiliates and get them on board. They need to mentor new affiliates and teach them how to become power affiliates. And they need to consistently reach out to your team and provide creatives and landing pages. Most OPMs just don’t do that much.

    One of the biggest cons is to get a small business to create an affiliate program on every single affiliate platform. I seriously doubt that makes any kind of financial sense and most serious affiliates are active on multiple major platforms so you aren’t going to get much benefit from reaching the same affiliates more than one place. (Tricia may have more insights into that than I do.)

    • Thanks, Gail! I completely agree. Good OPMs will continue to reach out to their affiliates throughout the year, even when the affiliates do not always seem totally receptive! We do get a lot of merchants emails, so sometimes there is a lot of “noise.”

      I always feel bad when I see OPMs convincing merchants to pay to be on more than 2 networks. I don’t understand. I can see why 2 might be necessary depending on the niche. But over 2 is just expensive and confusing for everyone.

  3. Excellent (and much needed!) post, Tricia.

    Anyone interested in an OPM is most welcome to speak with me. I’ve been around for some time. It’s all on the website.

  4. Hi Tricia! Nice article! I’d like to introduce my company as well. Schaaf-PartnerCentric offers premier affiliate program management. We work with 60+ merchants, across 20 tracking platforms, and can support affiliate efforts internationally. Our account managers have an average tenure of 10+ years in the affiliate space. We use our relationships, experience, and extensive data to leverage insights and build benchmarks for our clients’ programs. You can check out our full list of clients at any time on our website at http://www.schaafpc.com/clients.

  5. Tricia, great article as always! You’re such a trusted voice in the industry and I really appreciate all you do and how transparent you are.

    Thank you for giving us the platform. There are so many good OPM options out there as you mentioned and I wanted to share my company, AffiliateMission.com. We’re also an affiliate management company with a focus on giving a percentage of our quarterly profits back to a non-profit of our clients choice. Happy to talk with anyone at anytime on how we can help.

    Thanks again!
    Priest

  6. Tricia – I’ve been enjoying all your posts and especially this article. You have really great advice in terms of what questions are important to ask when searching for a partner for your affiliate program, as there isn’t a cookie cutter solution.

    Allow me to introduce your readers to AffiliateManager.com: AffiliateManager.com brings 10 years experience as a leading OPM. Our proprietary recruiting tool, AffiliateRecruitment.com, is the leader in recruitment and powers our Affiliate Suite platform. This is only the start to our recruitment, activation, and optimization process we utilize to reach a program’s full potential.

    Thanks for the opportunity to mention our company!

  7. Excellent advice, Tricia! Definitely all very important facts for merchant to consider..Thanks for the opportunity to post our company link. MGECOM specializes in building and managing affiliate programs with our team of 12 people who have over 100 yrs combined experience. We’ve launched new and re-launched existing programs on all the networks you know and love, as well as many client’s internal programs. Thanks again!

      • Awesome! I know our clients are putting together some cool gift packages and contests. I can have one of the account managers contact you directly? If you want to DM my email that may be easier and I can take it from there :-).. thanks again!

    • Maybe this is a good starting point for our presentation at Affiliate Summit West. We really need to get started on that. I think people are going to LOVE seeing us go head to head on a lot of these topics.

    • I applaud the Greg Hoffman Agency (which has a new name: apogeeagency.com) for being a great OPM!

      I am a startup Affiliate and they directed me to one of their great clients, who is now on my site.