Affiliate Program Management, An Hour a Day—Helpful to Both Novices and Experts

If you need a comprehensive, up-to-date, practical guide to planning, running and improving your affiliate marketing program you’ll be wise to consider Geno Prussakov’s latest book, Affiliate Program Management, An Hour a Day. While I’m not particularly fond of the trendy “hour-a-day” genre (I don’t believe anything can done effectively in an hour a day) this tome is in a league of its own and worth your time and financial investment.

Practical and Bold

Geno’s promise is simple: to show anyone interested in running an effective, profit-focused affiliate program how to research, launch, manage, and grow it—and he delivers. It’s not an easy promise to make because affiliate marketing is filled…FILLED…with potholes and dangerous black holes! Geno’s ability to address the darker, risky aspects of affiliate marketing is to be admired. More importantly, he’s providing a practical way to cope with them.

Geno points at affiliate marketing’s known flaws by issuing thoughtful warnings that a business can use to make quick decisions and roll bravely forward. To accomplish this goal, he provides insights that set a useful perspective early on in the book, and then he sticks to his guns throughout. For instance, Geno says, “… affiliate marketing is not a marketing ‘channel’ but, rather, a way of remunerating a marketer… hence, affiliate marketing really exists on the crossroads of a number of online marketing channels and works with nearly all of them.”

Sure, this is an author who believes in affiliate marketing’s ability to materially contribute to profit. But the devil’s in the details, and I’ve harped on this fact for years. Yet Geno offers a refreshing, balanced, and thoughtful (logical) viewpoint. He resists turning a blind eye to the downsides and pitfalls of affiliate marketing in an effort to support the industry and sell lots of books. Instead, he plainly admits affiliate marketing isn’t perfect, nothing is “perfect” in this world and to blame affiliate marketing for inherent flaws is not only a waste of time but could prove costly.

Insightful, Raw and Motivational

As a thoughtful business person, it’s easy to agree with Geno and put his perspectives and step-by-step guidance to use. Just because affiliate programs, for instance, can wreak havoc on analysis of other programs’ effectiveness (e.g., search, display, email, and social marketing) doesn’t mean you should avoid or disparage affiliate programs. It means you need to get to work understanding how strategies interact and grappling with issues like identifying the best strategy based on attribution and identifying what tactic works the best.

In the end, Geno spends time with his readers helping them in ways that I’ve not seen before in a book on this subject. For instance, he walks you through a SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat) analysis, including what it is, why you need to do one, and how to make sure it serves your ecommerce business. It’s practical from beginning to end. Geno never lets you forget why you’re doing what you’re doing and helps you develop habits to power success. Humans are creatures of habits and there is simply nothing more important than developing successful habits in life.

Surprisingly Useful to All

Who can benefit from this book? Surprisingly, novices and experts alike given its comprehensiveness. For instance, there are useful basics that offer insights to affiliate managers who’ve been in the business for as many as ten years plus. Geno is providing enough new and useful information to “the basics” that it’s worth the time investment as a brush-up while also proving a learning experience. I am surprised at how much we have learned as an industry and Geno has successfully distilled it into a fun, useful read.

What do you think about Affiliate Program Management an Hour a Day?

About Jeff Molander

Jeff Molander is the authority on making social media sell and corporate trainer to small businesses and global corporations like IBM and Brazil’s energy company, Petrobras. He’s an accomplished entrepreneur, having co-founded what is today the Google Affiliate Network. He’s adjunct digital marketing professor at Loyola University’s school of business and author of Off the Hook Marketing: How to Make Social Media Sell for You.

Website: JeffMolander.com

Blog: Off the Hook Blog

Answers: AskJeffMolander.com

You can find Jeff on Twitter @jeffreymolander.