Adam Riemer Marketing, LLC.

I was talking to a new friend of mine; many of you probably read her GrowMap blog about Social Media Marketing.  She is probably the top of the list when you are looking for her particular niches in Marketing, but Affiliate Marketing from the Affiliate Management side is not really her thing.

Her Client recently got taken for a ride with their Affiliate program because of a company that had a glowing reputation but didn’t show results to match. They were not able recruit any solid performing Affiliates and the Client was especially unhappy that the only serious Affiliates they seemed to get were coupon sites that only sent low ticket value and discounted sales.  (Not that there is anything wrong with coupon sites, just that the company should have been able to recruit a larger mix of types of Affiliates that would also help to build a brand and drive high value ticket sales as well).

Although the Client’s results from Affiliate Marketing were dismal – even after an entire year with that Affiliate Management Company – she still strongly believes in the potential power and potential of Affiliate Marketing and asked to take over the task of managing their program instead of seeing them pull the plug on it altogether.  Although they did cancel all their Affiliate Network accounts except for ShareASale which was a very smart move.

That is when she started researching what the experienced Affiliate community knows that most people just entering the Management side don’t know.  There is an entire world of Affiliate Marketing out there that drives legit sales and ethical Affiliate Program Management.

One of the major things a Manager needs to know is how to protect merchants from the growing number of Parasitic Affiliates using downloadable software like toolbars (also known as Adware) to overwrite another Affiliate’s cookie, or software to steal and set a cookie on the Merchant’s own organic, email, CSE and ppc traffic.  Seeking the answer to that question, she reached out to Murray Newlands who has a top Affiliate Marketing Blog, who introduced us to each other.

Knowing that many Merchant Affiliate Managers did not even know how to recognize bad Affiliates, she also wanted to know just what a Merchant should expect from an Outsourced Program Manager or OPM firm. Since neither she nor her clients were finding the answers online, and for me, the answer was simple, I wrote this post for you all. I won’t include everything, but will give you a lot of the information you will need to evaluate your current OPM firm, hire in house or outsource your Affiliate Program Management.

After being an Affiliate and an in house program Manager, now an Agency, I can answer from all sides and the following is what you can expect to get from me with my services. Since I cannot post all my secrets and deliverables, this is my minimum and what you should also expect from your current OPM or Outsourced Affiliate Program Management Company.

1. A monthly newsletter that helps your Affiliates promote you. This needs to go out on schedule, be well written and be for the Affiliates. If your Management company has not done this, guess what, they aren’t working for you and you should try to find out what they have been doing instead.  If you already have the Affiliates in the program, this is key to getting and keeping them active.
2. Sending out recruitment emails and cold calls that are custom written.  Some only do 100 each month; some do 500; some don’t do any.  Many OPMs just rely on posting on forums and to me, that is just lazy.  Make your OPM give you a number of recruitment emails, calls, etc… that they will make each month and also make them provide you with proof that they have been doing this.  Evaluate the quality of their copywriting – and always understand that some are more successful than others at recruiting and sometimes their odd writing style just works, even if it does not make sense to you.  After all, you are paying them for the work and they should show you what they are doing and defend why it works and why they wrote it that way.
3. Recommendations on improving your site as well as what is missing from your program. I am hopefully taking over another program this week which is moving from the same firm that screwed my friend’s Client over.  Not only did the firm not add in all the standard banner sizes, but the calls to action are weak and the artwork is poor.  Worse, they didn’t even categorize the banners for the Affiliates.  This is a huge warning sign that your OPM either doesn’t have a clue what they are doing or are not willing to invest the time in you to do it right.
4. If your OPM recommends opening on multiple networks, run away screaming! I can see opening on one like Share a Sale and then a niche network like the Bridaluxe wedding affiliate program network if you are a wedding merchant, but if you are on SAS and really want one of the others, CJ would be my first choice but in reality, the other major networks have pretty much the same Affiliate Base as SAS and if the Affiliate refuses to work with SAS, chances are they were declined by SAS and aren’t telling you the truth.  On a side note, did you know that Agencies get commissions and money from Networks for launching on them? (Might that be the main reason your OPM recommends so many and says to launch because they all have huge and different Affiliate bases?) It the pitched idea is that you have to be on all of them your OPM is putting you at major risk.  Affiliates can double dip on sales, you’ll be exposed to sooo much Adware and so many bad players that it isn’t even funny – not to mention the Network fees you will incur for little to nothing.  This is an insane tactic since it takes a long time to grow even on a single Network – not to mention all of the manual approvals and reviews that need to go into each program on each network which goes to my next point.
5. If your OPM firm is not going to manually approve all Affiliate applications by hand, they do not give you a list of at least 5 things they look for on each application (including things not available on the Network or that are included with the application), then what the heck ARE you paying them for?  Recruitment is one thing, but knowing who is in the program and manually reviewing everyone is just as important to protect you.  Furthermore, that is their job and if you are on auto-approve you now have a free-for-all in your program. Chances are you have Adware that will steal from you, you’ll have trademark bidders, you can have porn sites, sites that promote bigotry and hatred or other connections that will destroy your brand.  One of the things you hired your OPM firm to do is manual approvals and if they don’t have time to do that for you – and do it multiple times a day, around the clock and on weekends – then they shouldn’t be working with you.  I mean, seriously, protecting you as the Client is one of the most important things and being on auto-approve is one of the most careless and lazy things an OPM firm or Management Company can do.  If they have convinced you that it is ok and safe, send me an email (adamr (at) adamriemer (dot) me (not dot com) or leave a comment here and I am almost certain I can prove why you should leave your firm and find a new one – especially if you are on CJ, Linkshare, Google Affiliate Network or any of the CPA Networks.
6. If an Affiliate Program Manager tells you to launch on multiple networks because all Networks have different Affiliates you should tell them to get lost. Affiliate Marketing isn’t a quantity numbers game, it is a quality, then quantity. If Affiliates are not on Share a Sale*(SAS) they were probably not allowed in because of SAS’s strict policies on Affiliate approvals and standards.  Any Affiliates who are not on SAS, you probably don’t need.  If you are on one of the Major Networks, CJ, Linkshare, Share a Sale, Google there is no reason to be on all of them.  If a Client insists on a second network other than SAS, I usually recommend CJ but you do have to keep a seriously close eye on it with all the toolbars, etc… in the Network.  On another note, if an Affiliate is interested in promoting your program they will join the Network you are on.  You don’t need to spend money on launching another program so your OPM firm can make a commission.  It is their job to recruit Affiliates to your program where it already is.  If they can not do that then they should not be managing your program.  Again, it goes back to them being lazy and not worth you having to spend money on them.
7. Adware testing and removal.  If you are on any of the major Networks, you need to be protected from AdWare.  If your OPM firm can not talk you through who has applied, who they have removed, and how the Adware has hurt or could have hurt your company, move on now!  They not only do not care about you or your company – they may actually prefer to allow your “trusted” partners to steal from you so they look better and make more money – at your expense.  They are also letting this bad practice run even more rampant and mainstream, and hurting your bottom line, not helping it!  Adware is NEVER a good thing for Merchants and if your OPM firm can not tell you about it and walk you through it in your program, get rid of them a.s.a.p. Why should you lose money to Adware theft because your OPM firm doesn’t remove them?  Your Affiliate numbers will look higher but your other channels will slowly drop as the AdWare steals credit for sales from them.  This is a very serious issue and one that many OPM firms pretend to not know about or deny knowing about until you contact someone like me or Kellie Stevens at Affiliate Fair Play for ethical affiliate marketing.  Let us look over your program to give you the fuel to approach your OPM firm.  Adware does not and will not help you when an Affiliate is using it.  Get rid of it and get rid of the firm who refused to address it.

There are plenty of other things you should expect from your OPM firm; however, I will save those for other posts and for those interested in becoming my Clients.  One thing that you should think about is laziness.  If your OPM firm isn’t doing everything above to protect you and grow your program, then that is simply unacceptable.  That is what you pay them for and why you trust them.  Call them out on the above and if they don’t want to do an excellent job for you then give me a call and not only will I give you an overview of what I can do for you, but I can also recommend other firms you may want to interview. Write adamr (at) adamriemer (dot) me (not dot com) and let me show you what a real Outsourced Program Manager can do for you, or in the least, let me show you what is actually happening in your program that you probably didn’t know about before.