I wanted to post this last week when it happened, I was just thinking if it would be a good post. Well anyways, I decided to just post this. There are times when your affiliate managers are your best friends and I am very close to many of them. But when people move and shift, you get a new affiliate manager. They do not know you are or what your status is.
Anyways, I was talking to one of my go to networks and apparently I have a new affiliate manager. So I pinged her and gave her an introduction. I went ahead and asked for an offer that was in a particular niche, it was for mobile traffic.
My new affiliate manager that handled my account told me why I am looking for that offer, I should be pushing diet, biz ops, and penny auctions. Now she didn't even bother looking or asking, she just cut me and told me I should be pushing the more popular offers.
... kinda ticked me off.
[I pinged another person at that network, she was my AM prior but she moved on up in the corporate ladder and the AM I had after her left for another job. S anyways, I pinged her and told her what I was looking for. She got to me telling me they had these offers and maybe expecting more later on in the month. Now that is what I was looking for.
I told her that my other AM wasn't up to par and apparently do not know my style when it came to their network. No problem, but my question was simple - do you have this offer. I didn't appreciate the interruption and saying I need to push the more popular items. Really didn't like being told what I had to do.
Affiliate managers are important but the publisher are also equally important because we are the ones pushing the traffic. Telling us what to promote is ok when asking the questions "What is a good offer to promote now?" In my situation, I already knew what I wanted and what type of offer I was looking for. I just wanted to know if a network had the offer and if not if they can get it for me.
The fact my new Affiliate manager told me to promote the more popular offers bothered me because she didn't even bother looking to see if the offer I wanted was available. If she catered her response differently I wouldn't have been so annoyed. The fact she totally ignored my requests and told me why definitely bothered me.
With that in mind, affiliate managers are a resource to us affiliates and I go to them for some help and some exclusivity to an offer. That said, affiliates are an asset to an affiliate network, we are the ones providing and pushing the traffic to the advertiser. They need our traffic and most important the quality.
The fact I was told why am I looking for such offer and I need to be pushing diet and the other popular offers was really unattractive. The worst part is this situation will be remembered, bad for the network and the affiliate manager who I was talking to. Affiliate managers represents the network, treating affiliates as if they are just the ones to push traffic is not justifiable. A relationship needs to be set. It is important to work with the affiliate and not just tell him to push traffic and run an offer.
Remember only 7% of affiliates (I know its probably less) that signed up to your network is the network.
