Affiliate Manager Education: Integrating Search and Affiliate Strategies to Maximize ROI
Tired of listening to bloggers and other peers suggest that affiliate marketing and affiliate managers deserve more respect? Well it’s time to do something about it. Believe it or not the Direct Marketing Association is giving affiliate managers everything they need to earn back some of that much-needed respect. Yes, the DMA… believe it or not.
Let’s face it, retail affiliate programs are coming under scrutiny. Marketers expect more from their affiliates and I’m not just talking about making PPC ad bidding rules for affiliates. More and more, affiliate managers must do battle with internal (or external) search marketing teams for credit. Fact is, many times these two Web marketing channels collide.
What’s really going on here? In difficult times (and this recession is serious for retailers!), affiliate programs are being targeted for maximum output – incremental sales. In other words, marketers want sales that were created by the affiliate – and only the affiliate. Marketers don’t want to pay affiliate commissions if, as an example, they find evidence of a paid search campaign or email campaign having truly created the sale (and the affiliate cookie was just “along for the ride”). Many marketers are literally reconciling affiliate programs against other marketing channels just like you might reconcile your check book. They’re literally measuring or estimating the “influence” of their affiliates and zeroing out commissions when other marketing campaigns are involved.
Marketers want both a better understanding of what’s truly creating a sale AND they want to cut wasted dollars. They want efficient, integrated performance marketing programs.
Does this sound familiar? Well, yes, the result is often a reduction (sometimes temporary) in affiliate program revenues and commission payments; however, as Angel Djambazov reminds us the long-term results can not only be good for the affiliate channel but the affiliate manager.
Marketers are zeroing in on efficiency and moving beyond a singular goal of increasing sales or leads… and affiliate managers are on the front lines. Marketers need to do more with less (budget dollars) and it’s in the affiliate manager’s best interest to assist in this corporate-wide goal. Tired of defending your affiliates? Try on a new pair of shoes!
Savvy affiliate managers are grabbing hold of easy-to-use Web analytics packages to gain understanding. This newfound knowledge is what’s producing cravings for a new level of performance marketing efficiency (not just effectiveness). It’s what’s producing opportunity for affiliate managers to grab a hold of the reigns and lead within marketing departments. The rest, as managers like Angel Djambazov know, is good old fashioned hard work – diving into Excel spreadsheets to reveal what’s going on behind the scenes ranging from adware affiliates to trademark rule-breakers and other unwanted affiliate behavior. Analytics tools are giving both affiliate marketers and their search counterparts down the hall new ways to measure the success of cost-per-action (CPA) and cost-per-click (CPC) strategies.
Sure, we all hang out in the forums like ABestWeb or Digital Point and read blogs like ReveNews and listing to podcasts like Paying for Performance. All well and good but I come from a cataloging/direct mail background and a place I’ve always turned to for good information is the Direct Marketing Association. They’ve always provided solid information about “traditional” marketing but, lately, have brought in industry leaders to educate people about online marketing though conferences and online Webinars.
So kudos to the DMA for creating a Webinar discussing how affiliate managers can take the reigns and manage the intersection of search and affiliate programs. If you face challenges in understanding and measuring your search and affiliate marketing campaigns, I recommend you attend the conference. You can sign up here.
