What makes a good Affiliate Manager?

**stephaniewynters** · 3 October 2014, 2:55 am

I have asked that throughout the years and I get different replies. Overall a good attitude, responsive and knowledgable can be some basics.

**Christiaan** · 3 October 2014, 10:26 am

I think those 3 skills are indeed the most important. And of course you have to offer us the best deals

**stephaniewynters** · 3 October 2014, 11:02 am

Originally Posted by Christiaan

I think those 3 skills are indeed the most important. And of course you have to offer us the best deals

That's true, good negotiation skills that are sensible and beneficial to the affiliate.

**-Shay-** · 3 October 2014, 11:27 am

Refusal to put blinders on when a problem is presented is the most important quality of a good affiliate manager to me. Too many people in this industry pass the buck, play dumb, or refuse to acknowledge a problem (with reporting, tracking, payments, etc) and default to the "everything looks normal to me, nothing to see here" posture. A simple, "let me look into this and get back to you within x amount of time"... and then following through (investigating & responding) without the need for 6-10 additional reminders goes a long way...

**stephaniewynters** · 3 October 2014, 11:46 am

Originally Posted by -Shay-

Refusal to put blinders on when a problem is presented is the most important quality of a good affiliate manager to me. Too many people in this industry pass the buck, play dumb, or refuse to acknowledge a problem (with reporting, tracking, payments, etc) and default to the "everything looks normal to me, nothing to see here" posture. A simple, "let me look into this and get back to you within x amount of time"... and then following through (investigating & responding) without the need for 6-10 additional reminders goes a long way...

Sorry to hear, I hope you got your payment from them.
As affiliate managers, we need to take responsibility for the company we represent and be honest with affiliates even if things aren't perfect.
My experience is that affiliates respect us more when we just lay it out as is and give realistic dates.
Good luck Shay!

**wettFORM.AT** · 3 October 2014, 1:10 pm

For an affiliate manager I think the most important thing is that he can understand what the affiliate is doing. It's not enough to ask for as many players as possible what some do all day long. It helps much more when they understand your service and offer things to improve it to increase the conversion. So knowledge is an important thing but also the affiliate manager should be able to decide things. Sometimes I have to wait for weeks because they have to wait for the supervisors feedback. Sometimes they simply are not allowed to decide about a deal.

**Gamer** · 4 October 2014, 4:14 am

I'm tired of all that e-mails coming to my inbox: Join our program! Join our program! You become happy for the rest of your life!
... and after a year or so, they change affiliate manager and you do not get paid.

Affiliate Managers should be owners of the business, their represent. (let say should own 10% of the company).
Then, they could understand that affiliates provide backlinks, landing pages, all the good stories about the business, articles, etc.etc.
....which all means FREE ADVERTISEMENT for your business, on ours affiliate sites!
YOU ALL GET IT FOR FREE !!!!! from us, hard working affiliates.
Suppose, not all of you understand this point of view. I'm not screaming!

**wettFORM.AT** · 4 October 2014, 5:45 am

Good point and this is exactly what I mean. It´s not all about advertising a program. It´s about how they should understand this business. It´s easy to offer the best program and the highest income but you need to do a really good job to offer something that improves the results for the affiliate and the operator as well. Many of those affiliate managers always want to give all the risk to the affiliate and they don´t understand that as gamer said correctly that this is a free advertisment until the first income was generated for the affiliate and this can take some time. Many affiliate managers think that every affiliate should be happy with a higher revenue share but the work is all on us and we have all the risk. This is why I think it is most important that the managers need to understand what they are doing and many of them simply don´t.

**Christiaan** · 4 October 2014, 6:50 pm

There are some great comments in this topic. All affiliate managers should read this topic. Many of them could learn something if they did.

**TomPregon** · 7 November 2014, 4:14 am

Originally Posted by Gamer

I'm tired of all that e-mails coming to my inbox: Join our program! Join our program! You become happy for the rest of your life!

They think they can suffice with their automated spam messages. I always delete them. I have yet to see an original written email in which they represent themselves properly, wanting to do business and why they want to do business. Sad to say the least. Is it not? Stating they 'found my site' and think it is such a good resource. Many times it has happened that I was ALREADY an affiliate with them, meaning that I also will make it my business to delete them from my sites and cease to be an affiliate with them.

Mostly, these messages come from the 'new affiliate managers' if you can call them managers at all, and they think they invented the best thing since sliced bread by sending quick automated messages, or copy and paste messages to real in the new affiliates.

Not a sign of high standard. And, as result: I stop working with them if I AM / was working with them, and never WILL start working with them if I am not yet working with them.

Personally I only work with a few programs which I choose myself. And, that has been a good experience.

PS: 138 also sends those messages. I will not work with a program that does this. If you want my attention, write a personal email.

**stephaniewynters** · 7 November 2014, 8:29 am

Originally Posted by TomPregon

They think they can suffice with their automated spam messages. I always delete them. I have yet to see an original written email in which they represent themselves properly, wanting to do business and why they want to do business. Sad to say the least. Is it not? Stating they 'found my site' and think it is such a good resource. Many times it has happened that I was ALREADY an affiliate with them, meaning that I also will make it my business to delete them from my sites and cease to be an affiliate with them.

Mostly, these messages come from the 'new affiliate managers' if you can call them managers at all, and they think they invented the best thing since sliced bread by sending quick automated messages, or copy and paste messages to real in the new affiliates.

Not a sign of high standard. And, as result: I stop working with them if I AM / was working with them, and never WILL start working with them if I am not yet working with them.

Personally I only work with a few programs which I choose myself. And, that has been a good experience.

PS: 138 also sends those messages. I will not work with a program that does this. If you want my attention, write a personal email.

Hi Tom:

Thanks for your feedback. At times there isn't a whole lot to chat about in an initial email and I try to keep it short. I will bank that though and improve on it, Thank you.

**MMM** · 7 November 2014, 8:29 am

Agree with all of the above.

I think what separates good AM's from all the average ones is the type of partnership they build, and i don't mean in social terms but whether its actually a partnership vs you send players we send money.

To use the initial contact as an example (just the general idea)

#1 "You have probably heard of us, we are #1/the best/ program on xxx market. Contact me if you wish to increase your profits" - horrible.

#2 " I saw your site and noticed that you focus on slot machines. We have over 200 popular slots and i think we can convert your traffic. I can offer xx% revenue share for you to get started" - average. not really personal but at least noticed what the site is about.

#3 "I went over your site and i think that there are few sections where we can work together and generate profits.
a. Noticed that you have a free games section with various slots, but no MicroGaming slots. If you wish, i can send you codes for demo MG slots to add on your site.
b. If it helps, we have in-house content writer, i can send him an example of your review style and we will get you few unique reviews for the most popular ones.
c. You rank high for Slot tournaments and free slot tournaments. XXX casino converts very well for tourney traffic with high prize pool free tourneys. Maybe we can start on these pages and the free games and see how it goes.

P.S I've noticed that on page xxxx the link to xx page is broken. "

The last one, at least in my opinion is what i want to see. It shows that:
*The affiliate manager knows what's his talking about.
*He makes a true effort to help me with my business.
*He gives confidence that he will be able to assist me in the future and help me improve my business.
*He understands that it's a partnership and it needs to be mutually beneficial.

**TomPregon** · 7 November 2014, 9:03 am

Originally Posted by stephaniewynters

Hi Tom:

Thanks for your feedback. At times there isn't a whole lot to chat about in an initial email and I try to keep it short. I will bank that though and improve on it, Thank you.

Hi Stephanie,

You're welcome. I understand what you are saying. But, I own a truckload of websites. And, when I go through the email boxes from those sites, I get the displeasure of reading the same 'copy and paste' messages over and over (and over ) again.. Whether or not they are 'short' they are all the same.

Although there might not be / is not much to chat perhaps, a bit more professionalism and a bit less insulting the site owner is highly recommended.

Not all site owners are noobs in the industry as I am sure you know. How many do you think will 'go for the so obvious mass produced' emails, do you think? If you would take some serious time to 'craft' a first approach email rather than keeping it short, and send that, you might just see that people will be more interested. At least, I would be.

I know we all only have 24 hours in a day, and writing an email for every single webmaster is not 'doable' but, try to find a way to stand out. 'Crafting' that email properly is a good start.

Thank you,

Tom

**DanHorvat** · 7 November 2014, 12:04 pm

I'm personally leaning more and more towards irresponsible affiliate managers who are good company on parties. But that's just me.

**justbookies** · 7 November 2014, 6:20 pm

100% Responsive (not 90%), transparent, honest and every word that Shay said.

**clarar** · 9 November 2014, 2:53 am

This thread is really interesting.

I read all the above and I think I can add some points, from the AM perspective...

Sometimes affiliates forget that bringing affiliates is our job, specially at the beginning, we really need to chase after new accounts. Our speech is not the best (as any newbie) but still we have few lines to make an impression and try to get to work with you.

I cant agree with you more, the super sales speech sucks (in my opinion) but you would be surprised to know how many people answer to that kind of emails, against the more technical ones. Think about how many variables we - affiliate managers - need to consider when writing an email.

For the rest, I believe a good affiliate manager is someone responsive, who tries to understand what the affiliate is doing and how to contribute with the content in order to make it work for both. Knowledge.

I believe that a true partnership has to be based on trust and flexibility.

I also prefer to work with people who I get along, obviously.... To go to the conferences and meet the people I work with is one of the greatest chances to enjoy this job

**golfbettingsystem** · 9 November 2014, 5:31 am

The best affiliate managers we work with are those that understand that we know more about our niche than they do and, rather than prescribing deals/banging the 'more exposure' drum continually, they work closely with us to maximise the opportunities out there.

Our site is seasonal with huge peaks and troughs so getting the most out of the peaks is critical to success - the wrong offer at the busiest times is an opportunity lost for both sides. The affiliate managers who come to us and ask what's most likely to work - and have the clout to actually get the deals live - are the ones who we get the best results with.

**freebetking** · 12 December 2014, 9:20 am

How about an affiliate manager who doesn't input the stats by hand for the previous month 12 days after the month end, deny they input stats by hand when there is already a written acknowledgement by way of email. I don't think that's asking too much to be considered a good affiliate manager - anybody got an issue with that 138?

**mathematician** · 4 February 2015, 7:05 pm

Fastish response times with intelligent thought applied to the response
would be traits I'd appreciate.

Some of the big uk bookies aff dept email contacts addresses appear to act as a black hole.
Affiliate queries go in..but nothing ever comes back out.
Or often if it does actually come back out say three weeks after it went in..it is clear little thought has gone into the response .. so another three week lag cycle has to start to get the original query answered.

Such stuff of course may not be 100% an individual aff managers fault.
More so it is a bigger issue with the company management.
They opt for too few and too cheap a quality of staff.

In the long run trust is a big thing too.
Again not so much an individual aff manager issue as a company issue.
Trust is built with fair terms and trustworthy actions over the long term.

Some of the stan james threads on this forum would provide a great example
of how to do the opposite of building trust in an affiliate brand.
Who knows some alternate thinking aff manager might even build a target list of those still active
with SJ, point them to some key posts here in an attempt to get SJ banners replaced with their own.
It would be a more eye catching style of approach than the usual drivel.
American presidential style negative campaigning if you like.

That may work better of course with a set of solid terms aimed at protecting your promoters from your company doing the same as SJ a year or two down the line.

Cheers
Mick

PS super simple idea for you
Ensure every aff webmasters email address gets white listed in your system
You don't want a silly over zealous spam trap wrecking affiliate relationships.
Nor do you want rogue lazy affiliate staff to have the huge ability to lie about not receiving emails as the excuse for not doing their job. I am sure if the will was there tech could automated it all.
It's a simplish idea that could help provide a better service.

**Triple7** · 6 April 2015, 3:41 am

I think you have to be responsible, like: answering your mails, do the things you've promised and also know which agreements you cannot make (don't promise things you cannot comply).

Also you should be able to make affiliates enthousiast to promote your casino. And that's much more than call someone "mate" or "my friend". Provide input for news articles, promotions and bonusses that do convert, etc.

It's something subjective. A really good aff manager cannot make nothing with a casino that doesn't convert and has a affiliate unfriendly policy and the worse aff. manager will even do a good job with a online casino that converts the best and has a aff. friendly policy.

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