About four weeks ago, I applied to the affiliate programs of several merchants in the diet and weight-loss category. The New Year is here, the biggest time of year for this market. A few were automatic approval, others were manual and approved me wit…

Todd, while you make good points, I think that you are discussing something that is slightly different. Jeff's post is about how to deal with affiliates once they are in your program and not how to select them (aside from avoinding the accept all urge). Merchants should tier their programs so they can allow any good site to join and then give added benefits and VIP commissions to top performing VARs while firing bad affiliates.

Buckworks, you are right. It is frustrating to have merchants (AND NETWORKS) who are unresponsive. We have a term for these: backfill.

Again, my main point of confusion is, "why is the Internet different?" Why do marketers make investments in this business realm that they would not make in their traditional/offline realm?

I suppose the affiliate perspective works as well – why would an affiliate work with a marketer whom they feel is "lesser", un-responsive or "not living up to expectation?"

Very early in my corporate career – pre-Internet, when computers still filled a room, I was taught to only tolerate being on hold for 2 minutes before hanging up the phone. I'd forgotten all about that in the decades since and need to apply some of that knowledge and experience in dealing with merchants.

Kudos to you, Jeff. Your article has caused me to experience a pre-Christmas Epiphany: Not to cater to flunkie AMs. I feel liberated and free as a bird ….

Thank you, Jeff, for your insight.

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A particular pet peeve is AM's who think that posting messages on [this or that message board] is any kind of substitute for answering their email. It's galling when an AM announces on some board, "Send me a PM and I'll send you the info" … breezily ignoring the fact that not all affiliates have access to the board and its features; and even if they did, that's still no substitute for answering messages sent through a network's mail system or direct email.

Affiliates have to give priority to the merchants who yield the best reward for their time and efforts. If an AM feels ignored the situation might be a symptom of problems at THEIR end. A merchant who puts nickels and dimes into an affiliate's pocket will generally be a lower priority than the merchant who generates hundreds or even thousands of dollars for that affiliate every month.

Here's an example of a situation where I ended up cringing every time I heard from one AM: He wanted me to post a certain banner on a certain page. Superficially it looked like a good match, but because of luck in the search engines the page had little traffic. Combine that with a below-average commission rate and less-than-stellar conversions on traffic I'd already been sending, and posting his banner was low on my to-do list. I was trying to work with the AM because I liked him, but do the math, other things were more pressing. If he had taken the trouble to create a dynamic promotional banner that they'd update from their end (a la Performics), I'd have posted that, but posting a static banner in an unproductive corner that I'd then have to update by hand made little sense at my end. The time the AM spent nagging about it would have been better spent creating better tools.

Jeff, your argument is somewhat flawed and essentially says fishermen should not use nets to catch fish but instead should catch them one at a time. This is why so many in-house programs never get off the ground because they need to recruit affiliates one at a time. Advertisers use network providers, like Commission Junction in order to gain access to thousands of potential affiliates and accelerate the growth and results of their affiliate program. They may allow as many affiliates into their program as they want and usually wish to evaluate more affiliates than they eventually work with on a long-term basis.

I will argue that some advertisers are throwing the baby out with the bath water due to their "approval" rules/policies. Many affiliate program managers do not know ahead of time which affiliates will or will not perform for their program. Many affiliates will join a program with the intention to market an advertiser – but it may take weeks or months to get the advertiser up on their site and begin driving results. Also, many "known" top performing affiliates do not perform well for all advertisers or do not care to work with every advertiser in a given category.

Another thing many advertisers overlook is the country in which the affiliate is doing business. I hear this time and again that affiliates are getting rejected when they are not in the same country as the advertiser or in their serviceable/shippable areas.

These affiliates are upset because they know they can generate results if given the chance but advertisers are rejecting them based on their country of residence. These affiliates have no intention of marketing to the traffic in their country or region if the advertiser cannot ship to or provide service to the end users. Trust me – they want to market the advertiser to the traffic in the countries/regions that will earn them commissions.

In the end, managing a program that has a high percentage of active (valuable) affiliates is easier and can drive significantly more results than letting a program run on auto pilot (regardless of how you approve your affiliates) with hundreds or thousands of inactive affiliates. I think advertisers should allow more affiliates (but not all that apply) into their programs in order to create more opportunities to evaluate and develop relationships that will drive results. The key is actually managing the affiliate program and developing the relationships – unfortunately, being a program manager is not an easy job and not all program managers are created equal.

We, whether we want to call ourselves 'publishers, affiliates or Boozo The clown', must remember that business is business. Yes, I want to make money for myself and the merchants. What I also want to do is keep my business. Dregs, flunkies and the like are 'get rich quick' knuckleheads that make it bad for everyone. What to do about it is clean our own houses first.

I am looking out for number one. ME. And I will do whatever I can to ensure I get what I deserve.