I have already mentioned the vital importance of a good and reliable user-centered support. It’s all about an effective two-way communication. In my opinion it’s a pretty obvious issue, but even so, it’s “obsessively” neglected by many affiliate advertisers and more than 60% of affiliates throughout the world are unhappy with what merchants and advertisers are doing – or not doing – on the communication front.

Honestly? I simply can’t understand how it’s even possible for an affiliate advertiser to be uninterested in providing help and support to its “sales team”. According to my foggy red-neck philosophy the equation is very simple: if you want results, you’ll have to build trust and you’ll have to support your “crew” constantly and efficiently. In any way you can. As I said, it’s all about communication, so you’ll have to focus on 3 main factors: the form, the type and the timing of your communication. Choose them carefully and pay attention to their needs and preferences. Here are a few tips for you:

• the most widely accepted form is the good old email; of course, there is always room for occasional phone calls, but a well-targeted, purpose-oriented email is probably the best way to contact them; with that being said, you should keep in mind, that a really good support also needs at least one specific instant communication channel (online chat, social media support, etc)

• use both group and individual messages

• don’t be spammy or overwhelming; find the healthy balance somewhere between a weekly or monthly newsletter; if you don’t have anything newsworthy to bring them, simply skip your newsletter

• avoid sending messages at the very beginning or the very end of the month when they usually are assaulted by other advertisers; send your messages towards the beginning of the week, possibly on Tuesday

• personalize your messages, be concise and relevant, and of course, use strong call to actions

OK. You’ve got the idea … If you want to learn how to manage an affiliate program … You must be there for them anytime. You must help them in any way you can. It sounds like a cliche right? Well, it might be a cliche, but you can’t create an efficient support platform if you don’t understand their motivations and their problems. Your goal is to detect – or even better, to anticipate – the potential roadblocks they can encounter. In order to do that, you’ll have to keep an eye on your most important metrics to identify the under-performing areas.

So, let’s see what are the most important metrics that can help you to create a better support platform:

• the percent of active – and inactive – affiliates

• the percentage of top-affiliates and their share of total sales

• the chargeback rate and reversed sales rate; if any of them it’s bigger than 10-15% you have a considerable number of affiliates who aren’t promoting your products to the right audience

• the most efficient sales approach; it’s a good idea to segment your affiliates based on how they are closing the deals (email marketing, blogging, paid search, etc); in this way you can provide segment-specific help focusing on the least efficient segments

• the engagement; a very high number of clicks resulting in a very small amount of sales – or even no sales – also indicates a low affinity between your products and the audience targeted by your affiliates

Conclusion

If you don’t want to hit the proverbial plateau, you’ll have tweak your affiliate program continuously. I know, it’s another cliche, but is also another undeniable truth. Affiliate program optimization is one of the most important responsibilities of every affiliate manager and it’s an ongoing, never-ending process. There is always room for growth. Period.

As your affiliate program grows, you’ll find some things that perform especially well and you’ll find some things that don’t work at all. You’ll have to analyze carefully the anatomy of those failures and successes to eliminate the biggest roadblocks and to duplicate the most lucrative avenues.

And don’t ever forget your competition! Join their affiliate program to find out their strengths and weaknesses. Check out their key performance indicators, analyze their marketing materials, take a look at their social media profiles and “test” their support platform. Review your discoveries objectively through a prism of practical application and try to turn the given data into new competitive advantages that can be easily applied by your affiliates.

Believe me, if you can keep them active and interested while you have an outstanding, efficient support platform, the success of your affiliate program is GUARANTEED. Literally.

And that's it my friends!

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