So, the other day I receive the following comment on my blog from an affiliate manager asking me to participate in a launch.

Note: Identifying comments, names, etc. have been removed.

Hi Netprofitstoday.com owner,

My name is ____ and I am ____’s
affiliate manager for his _____ Formula.
(www.____.com)

___ told me to contact you personally to see
if we can develop a joint venture business
relationship together…

I understand you have a high-traffic site in
the biz opp niche.

We have a product that converts VERY WELL
for biz opp traffic.

In fact, we have one affiliate that logged
over 100 sales in 3 days…

We were also able to drive 100+ sales
to ONE of our jv partners with 2 emails.

Let me know if you’d like to work with us.

I have a few ideas on how we can help each
other increase the value for our visitors,
your customers and both our bottom lines.

Regards,

____
Affiliate Manager for ____
phone number removed

HELLO?

Contact me ‘personally’?

Then why did this affiliate manager (I use the term loosely) write to “Netprofitstoday.com owner“???? My name is Rosalind, which is really easy to figure out if you spend all of 1 second reading this blog.

No real affiliate manager would post a jv request as a comment on my blog under a totally irrelevant post, when my contact (Support Desk) information is posted on every page of this site.

We have a product that converts VERY WELL for biz opp traffic.

Really… good for you. For WHAT product? Where can I look at it? How do I sign up as an affiliate IF I like it?

In fact, we have one affiliate that logged over 100 sales in 3 days…

Good for him or her!!! For all I know, you’re selling it for 99 cents and they earned 10% commission for a grand total of $10.00.

Yee-freakin-HA!

Sheesh.

C’mon guys, spend a little time working with those affiliate managers and train them how to approach real JV prospects properly… you’re losing money.

One morning back in March, I hit ‘Check Mail’ on my email client and was horrified to see more than 300 emails downloading.

When all was said and done, about 20 of those emails were valid.

285 of them however were all the same – see the screenshot below.

The email came from an adult dating site affiliate program manager who was trying to get affiliates to sign up for his program.

Spamming potential affiliates is bad enough, but worse than that… the email had been sent to hordes of people, all of whom had their email addresses visible because they’d been CC’d, rather than BCC’d.

I immediately assumed that it wouldn’t be long until I started receiving spam program invitations from other affiliate program managers and I was right – the first one came in just a couple of hours later from a program that I’m already affiliated with.

I sent a reply to the 2nd spammer to express my dismay and intent to drop his program.

His reply?

I will look forward to having you back on board after you realize we are the best converting dating site on the internet. Best of luck testing our competition!

Duh!

No apology – just a stupid pitch.

He did NOT reply again after I sent him a link to my “Art of Wooing Affiliates” article published on the Revenue Magazine site.

That wasn’t the only affiliate program that I ditched that day, however.

If you read the article linked above, under “Affiliate Tip” you’ll see how I found out which affiliate program was responsible for selling the email address to the original spammer. It’s a practice I employ with all independent programs.

Going to the January Las Vegas Affiliate Summit’s is always a highlight in the year, but each one has its own particular high points. Here are some of my highlights from Affiliate Summit West 09 held January 11 – 13, 2009.

Negotiating commission increases with some of my favorite merchants.

Learning about new products to promote and brand-new commissionable products that are coming to market.

Speaking with affiliates, merchants and managers during our Super Affiliate PPC Marketing Strategies session. I was also happy to hear Amit say that although arbitrage can be a highly profitable strategy, that he recognizes the need to build real review sites if affiliates want sustainable businesses over the long-term.

Exchanging copious business-enhancing tips with other Super Affiliates.

Consulting with numerous merchants and affiliate managers to help them improve their service to affiliates. Hopefully, they’ll take my advice.

Finally meeting my favorite affiliate manager, Chris Reynolds (Internet Marketing Center) in person.

Having a good chat with Kris Jones (Pepperjam) shortly after arriving at the hotel.

Finally getting to meet long-time NPT readers and helpful contributors, Jake Becker and Peter Koning.

Seeing Clickbank at Affiliate Summit for the first time ever. Pretty sad however when a long-time Clickbank affiliate and merchant whose book ranked #1 in the business-to-business education category page for YEARS and is still listed on the 1st page, stops by to say hello and draws a big blank stare from the booth attendant.

Dining with the new Offeratti affiliate network team that includes Jim Lillig, Shawn Casey and his sister, Sharon. Super affiliates in attendance were Colin McDougall, Andrew Wee and Brad Waller. Nobu is my new favorite restaurant in Vegas. The food is a complete party in your mouth from the first to the last bite and everywhere in between. Thanks SO much for choosing the restaurant, Shawn!!

Enjoying a beer with my favorite Canadian affiliate network guys, JP and Steve Sauve of MaxBounty. Not only do they have great offers, but they understand the special circumstances faced by Canadian affiliates.

Hanging with industry pals Anik Singal (Affiliate Classroom), Chris Reynolds and others at the Voodoo Lounge. The music doesn’t do much for me, but the view from the rooftop of the Rio at night is awesome.

Watching Lisa Picarille pedal her heart out on a tricycle during the Affiliate Triathlon.

Calling Joel Comm “Fart Man“.

Looking at Brian Littleton of (Shareasale). (I’m just old, not dead.)

Being party to Colin McDougall’s first experience with Hugo Boss.

Enjoying recession deals at the Forum Shops.

Getting a chair massage at Shutter’s.

Doubling my money on a penny slot and walking away 20 bucks richer.

Checking OUT of the Rio.

Of course, hearing “Thank You, Ros! Yours was the first book I bought and I’m doing great business” over and over and over again from Super Affiliate Handbook readers is always the biggest highlight of any conference.

Thank YOU to all those who stopped by to chat.

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While you are searching for a new job, keep networking via social sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Too, consider volunteering time with a non-profit organization or doing some contract work by posting your availability on sites such as Rentacoder, eLance, and HireMyMom

What? Me say that dirty word – J.O.B. – not once, but THREE times?

I know, I know, but what with the Big 3 bailout on its last legs today (unless the White House steps in), my guess is that more than just a few NPT readers will be among the 1.6 million workers affected by the fallout – not to mention those of you who are already looking for work or have concerns that your job may be in jeopardy.

Seen in that light, ‘job’ isn’t such a bad word and I thought you should know that there are PLENTY of jobs in the affiliate marketing industry. Here’s a screenshot taken today of Monster.com returns for a search for ‘affiliate marketing’.

Note that there were 396 job listings just in the States, posted by companies such as Amazon, Commission Junction, Google and Netflix. A search of the U.K. site resulted in 76 returns and the Canadian site returned another 16 job listings, including postings by our friends at EcomAccess / ShareResults and MaxBounty had posted a full-time entry-level affiliate manager’s position.

If you – already having some knowledge of affiliate marketing – think that you’re not qualified to be an affiliate manager, I’d like you to read the following list from MaxBounty’s listing:

We are looking for people with the ability to:

• Learn the INs and OUTs of Internet advertising
• Accomplish tasks with initiative and little supervision
• Develop strong friendly relationships with our clients
• Utilize the Internet for research and prospect development (email, browsing, instant messaging)
• Converse well in the English language (oral or written)

If that didn’t convince you of your potential to qualify for an affiliate manager’s position, here’s another snippet from their ad:

We can’t emphasize strongly enough that finding the right type of person is far more important than finding someone with experience.

MaxBounty wasn’t the only company willing to provide affiliate manager training, however most DO expect some experience and/or training.

So, can you translate your experience as an affiliate marketer into a job as an affiliate manager? Well, let’s just say that you stand a much better chance of doing so than someone who doesn’t know the meaning of affiliate marketing. And there are ways that you can improve your chances of landing a job in the affiliate marketing industry.

1. First, you have to start looking. Search the industry job listings on Monster and other job sites. Is there anything that interests you and are qualified for? Apply.

2. Don’t automatically reject those listings for which you don’t qualify. Take note of the skills and experience that they are seeking. Now, think about your own experience. Perhaps the 2 – 5 years that you spent in offline retail sales or managing a small office IS helpful.

3. Now, dust off your resume. Emphasize your online experience by adding “Expertise in website development, online marketing strategy, email marketing, affiliate marketing strategies and search engine optimization” for starters. Hint: Use the wording in job postings to guide your resume preparation. If you don’t have a resume or need help with preparing a new resume, consider letting a professional resume writer customize your resume for that job.

Affiliate marketing is one of the few industry’s that is forecast to grow in the coming years… so, NOW is the time to start looking for that job or set yourself to be in a position to land that job when the position opens… because guaranteed, there’s going to be a ton of competition for all available spaces.

And one more thing to consider – many affiliate managers do enjoy the luxury of working from home!!

Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Here’s a tip for affiliate program managers.

Every couple of months, I receive the following email from a program manager in the dating niche with the subject line “Affiliated with ProgramName.com”.

I’ve changed the real name to ProgramName.com in each case so as not to give unwarranted publicity to this affiliate program.

“To Whom It May Concern,

First Name
Affiliate Manager
ProgramName.com”

OK, let’s look at this request point-by-point.

1. What the heck kind of grammar is ‘Affiliated with ProgramName.com’? Reading this subject line gives a really good indication of the author’s lack of professionalism, and a really bad first impression.
2. My name is not ‘To Whom it May Concern’, it’s Rosalind – a fact that is easily discovered if indeed this affiliate program manager had ‘visited your (my) web site’ and gone to the ‘About Us’ page which is linked from every page on the site.
3. Speaking of having ‘visited your (my) web site’ — which site exactly did you visit? She should have the courtesy to include the appropriate domain name just in case I am one of those affiliates with hundreds of sites (which I’m not, but they don’t know that).
4. “We will pay you $30 commission on each sale you drive to us and link back to you“. Huh? Some more weird English… but I got the jist that in addition to paying a set fee per sale, she was also offering to link back to my site. That set off the affiliate alarm bells, so I looked at the site and sure enough, she has a links page. Ugh. (More about that later).
5. She includes only her first name in the message which is only a step above signing off with ‘Affiliate Manager” but still appears unprofessional.

What I’ve found particularly frustrating is that I wrote back to the affiliate manager the first time I received one of her emails, and explained that I would consider their dating service a valuable option for my site visitors, except for the fact that they were linking to other affiliate sites as well as their own merchants directly from the homepage.

I explained why such linking was a deal killer for any super affiliate and mentioned my affiliate marketing credentials (author, speaker and consultant) and offered to help her (at no charge) to make her affiliate program more attractive to all affiliates — and therefore more lucrative.

Not only did she not extend the courtesy of a reply, but despite several requests she has failed to remove my email address from her mailing list which makes her a spammer, which of course is the biggest deal breaker of them all.

“You spammed me” I said with a smile to the affiliate network manager standing next to me as we posed for a picture together at the last Affiliate Summit. Her smile suddenly disappeared.

Kind, compassionate and understanding person that I am, I fervently hoped to hear an honest, if not apologetic reply that would give me the slightest reason to consider ever doing business with her network’s merchants.

Despite tripping over herself with admissions of having been “horrified” when she realized that she’d spammed me, she left me in the dark as to why she would try to solicit my attention through the email address that I use only for domain registrations.

Affiliate Tip

Creating a unique email address for individual functions such as domain registrations is an effective way to ferret out spammers. Filter email sent to that address into a separate folder and check it occasionally to see who is operating on the dark side. Delete the address to which the spam was sent and make a note never to do business with that company.

OK, it should be fairly obvious that I have almost no compassion for spammers. I was simply curious to see what excuse she could come up with on the fly. However, there was no excuse because there simply is no excuse.

First of all, spamming is illegal, which makes it a lousy way to try and recruit super-affiliates for anyone who cares about their reputation as a trustworthy business partner.

Secondly, I am hardly an under-the-radar affiliate. My contact information is almost too easy to find. Google my name with or without quotes and my affiliate marketing “how-to” site floats to the top of the natural search results. In the upper right-hand corner of every page on that site there is a link to my Support Desk, at which my virtual assistant, Joel, is eagerly standing by to field questions from affiliates, managers and merchants alike. Our Support Desk is open to anyone and everyone. No proof of purchase is necessary and the only skill required is the ability to correctly enter an email address.

If a not-so-savvy surfer somehow misses the listing for that site in the search results, the vast majority of the other 999 results which Google serves on a query for my name are affiliates who link to another of my sites, which also includes a clearly labeled link to my Support Desk.

Regardless of how one chooses to get to the Support Desk, the manner in which a solicitation is worded determines the response (or lack thereof) that it receives.

Authors of generic blasts that do not include my name or are addressed to some variation of “Dear Affiliate” or “Future JV Partner” are sent a canned but friendly TYBNTY (Thank-You-But-NO-Thank-You) note. And they should consider themselves lucky that we take the time to do them the courtesy of a reply.

Those who address their request appropriately but then hype the offer receive the same note, as do merchants and managers who provide insufficient or incomplete details.

The number of correspondents that fail to show basic courtesy by including their real name and full contact details is staggering. I used to try making the point by addressing replies to “Dear ___” or “Dear Your Affiliate Team,” but I am not in the business of teaching basic email etiquette, so they too now get a canned TYBNTY.

I’m also not in business to research offers that are not only unsolicited, but which are also apparently a secret. I don’t really care if you have a “ground-breaking opportunity which will make affiliates a lot of money.” So does every other merchant, and Sherlock Holmes I am not.

Tell me what the product is, and include a link to the specific offer’s sales page. Also, if the offer is restricted to a U.S. audience, please provide a link that does not redirect my Canadian IP address to Classmates.com. Please apply the same technology within your network interface so that non-U.S. affiliates can view all merchant landing pages. I asked for that feature at MaxBounty and they were only too happy to oblige, so we know it’s doable.

Then there are those pitches for products that are completely irrelevant to my audience. If I find those before Joel has a chance to send a TYBNTY reply, they are summarily deleted. Seriously, why waste your time trying to get me to promote George Foreman grills on my dating service review site?

Do your homework and check out my sites before you contact me with your offer. Find the page on my site where your offer should be placed for the greatest impact and don’t bother to suggest that it should be placed on my home page.

Answer the question, “What’s in it for Ros?” If the offer is available on several other networks or directly through the merchant’s own affiliate program, the commission rate you offer has to beat them all, or any chance of further discussion will stop right there. Furthermore, be specific about how much more you can offer than each of the other guys.

Better yet, if the product is an online service or piece of software, kindly provide me with a username and password so that I can assess the product for review purposes. Doing so costs next to nothing, and if I really like the product and continue to use it, your product will receive a stellar review and subsequently many more sales. On the other hand, you could provide me with time-limited access, but then there is no guarantee that I will make time to review the product by your deadline.

Best of all, if you have a real product and are inclined to send samples, hit me up for my mailing address. It’s unlikely that such a request will be denied. You can be sure that affiliate Colin Mc- Dougall promoted the heck out of the inflatable boat that he was paddling around Vaseux Lake last summer.

We super-affiliates also work harder for merchants and managers who go the extra mile to get to know their affiliates. For example, while attending a conference in Los Angeles, two of my Australian- based merchants went 1,568 miles out of their way just to take me out for dinner. By result, I have been promoting their product for almost nine years and don’t intend to stop anytime soon.

If you’re not inclined to visit Beautiful British Columbia, then chat me up at a conference. Make it your job to learn that the super-affiliate you wish to recruit prefers beer over wine and dark beer over light. Super-affiliates eat too; so an invitation to lunch is always a good segue to doing business.

Having shared a belly laugh or two over lunch, you by now have my business card and telephone number. Do a follow-up call. Propose your best offer and have the name or number handy of the offer that you want me to look at.

Next, follow the call up with an email (yes, by now you also have my private email address) and include a link to the offer along with a list of keyword suggestions. Consider sending unique copy targeted to my audience and which I am allowed to edit. Barring long copy, a bullet list of product benefits and features is also very much appreciated. At this point, your job is done. Now just sit back, relax and watch for the sales spike.

There are many ways to get my attention and me working for you as a super-affiliate. Plaguing me with spam, however, is not one of them – especially when I’m already affiliated with your network!

This article by Rosalind Gardner was originally published in the May/June 2007 Issue of Revenue Magazine.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw this note in my Inbox a few mornings ago…

Hi, My name is Ian and I am an Account Manager here at Linkshare. Nice to meet you!

Best regards,
Ian

WHY was I shocked? Well, for a couple of reasons…

First, I just celebrated my 9th anniversary of affiliate marketing on January 1st, and although affiliate managers have contacted me in the past to say they like one of my articles or endorsements — up until then, no affiliate manager has ever gotten in touch with me so quickly after I’d posted an affiliate link.

Talk about the value of blogging and Technorati tagging. WOW!

But better yet, here’s an affiliate manager who is REALLY on the ball! Ian is obviously an enthusiast and knowledgable affiliate account manager, and his approach was absolutely perfect.

He introduced himself, mentioned how he found me and acknowledged what I’d said in the post. He was also helpful when he very nicely suggests that I should have mentioned joining the Apple iTunes affiliate program as well as Apple Store program. He then offered additional assistance and thanked me.

As affiliates, we shouldn’t be shocked by good communication. Unfortunately, however, affiliate managers like Ian are few and far between.

For example, I applied for a program run through Commission Junction in early December. I waited a week for application approval and heard nothing, so I sent sent a couple of emails through the CJ interface, and still got nothing back. I then phoned the company and asked for the affiliate manager by name. They’d never heard of her. After being placed on hold for a few minutes, my call was redirected to her extension, so I left a message. I waited 3 more days and called again and left another message. FINALLY, after almost two weeks the application was approved without the courtesy of either a returned call or an email reply.

Quite frankly, I was disgusted — and that kind of shabby treatment doesn’t inspire me to make a lot of effort towards promoting this merchant’s products.

So, what’s the point of this rave/rant?

Well, Dear Merchants – hire great affiliate managers who have business savvy and PAY them well for their efforts. Better yet, give them incentive to help their affiliates succeed by offering them a percentage of affiliates’ sales. Best of all, make sure they get proper training.

And Affiliates – don’t put up with crappy treatment from program managers or merchants. Do your best to get what you want out of a particular program, and DO make the effort to suggest improvement where you see problems. Too, give KUDOs where kudos are due.

This industry is still very much in its infancy — so there’s still lots of room for hope and improvement.

I found the following included in the MPwH (an HPV dating site) affiliate newsletter.

“By the way, if you want to really get into the affiliate marketing business, we highly recommend the book by Rosalind Gardner, well known as one of the Internet’s most successful marketers.

I read this book and it was how come I ended up setting up our affiliate program the way it is. It shows how to run your website to make the most from affiliate programs.

Rosalind was our first affiliate – after we came up to the standards laid out in her book!”

AJ, the affiliate manager at MPwH, told it like it happened… I didn’t agree to promote MPwH right away, but helped him get his affiliate program together until it worked like a charm for affiliates.

I also noticed that AJ linked to the Super Affiliate Handbook with his own affiliate link.

Now, that’s one smart affiliate manager! Not only does he build a better program, he wants to have trained affiliates.

Do your affiliates need training?

Send them to the Super Affiliate Handbook and earn some more affiliate coin in the process!

Even Clickbank merchants can benefit.

Simply add a brief description of the SAH to your own affiliate signup page (you DO have one don’t you?) that pops a window to the Handbook.

You’ll earn a commission from the sale… and better yet, your affiliates will sell more of YOUR product.

Talk about a win-win-win proposition that makes everybody happy.

Visit the Super Affiliate Handbook site and join our affiliate program today.

Cheers,
Ros

Revenue Magazine’s senior editor, Maria Sample, is looking for affiliate managers to contribute to their ‘Manager’s Corner’ column.

To keep things spicey over there at Revenue, they’re looking for input from a different affiliate manager for every issue… so it’s not a long-term commitment.

So, if you’re an affiliate manager with an opinion and who likes to write, check out Maria’s entry on Revenue’s Blog. You’ll see her email address posted at the bottom of the entry.