There are some great affiliate managers, some bad affiliate managers and a whole bunch in between. As funny as some of these are, this post is a collection of real stories that have happened to me, or someone I know when dealing with affiliate mangers.
Your affiliate manager might suck if…
1. You hear the toilet flush when talking to them on the phone
Yeah, this happened. Imagine the conversation going something like this.
Affiliate manager: “Yeah, this offer is doing pretty well and……….”
Me: “Sorry, what? I couldn't hear you over the toilet flushing.”
2. They light up over Skype calls
This happened to a friend of mine, then I was telling someone else the story and it happened to someone they knew too (same affiliate manger). Now, I'm open minded but that's probably not the most professional thing, especially when you don't know the person.
3. They send you 10 funny videos but can't place your pixel
I know a few like this actually. You chat, share a few laughs and they are really good about getting back to you…until you ask them to do something like place a pixel, and the disappear for a day.
4. They try to take you away from another AM
Recently, I messaged an AM I used to work with a few years ago to see where they were working now. They told me the network and I said ‘Oh cool, I didn't know that. I work with you guys already and so and so is my AM'. A couple hours later I get a message from my AM at that network (who I had worked with for a long time) if she did something wrong and why I asked to be switched to this other guy.
Well, I definitely hadn't asked to switch but apparently this old AM of mine took it upon himself to go to the head of the company and say that I wanted to switch to him because we used to work together. I sent an email to the head of the company explaining that this guy was a giant douche.
5. They try to bring you into their MLM business
I know someone who's AM was always trying to recruit him into their offline AM business..eek.
6. They tell you about someone's campaign
If they're telling you about others, they're telling others about your campaigns too. . This does happen, so be careful what you share.
7. They flirt with you when you are making money, but stop the minute you aren't
It's great when a cute girl flirts with you..until you realize she only likes you for your conversions. This story is really common but a lot of affiliates still fall for it.
8. Don't tell you when an offer is paused
This sucks…I've dropped networks when an AM slacks on this. When you have traffic running to an offer you have to get notified asap when it gets paused, and get credited if you weren't told in a reasonable amount of time.
I would love to hear some more stories if anyone has them so feel free to share in the comments!
#yourAMsucksif needs to be a trending topic on Twitter.
That last one & 2nd to the last are the worst and its not just the AM’s some networks are that bad and even use the excuse “thats just business. we cant know when they stop, pause, change their offer LP (B*LLSH*T!) I have run across at least 5 cheap software solutions to that issue and still networks and AM’s give that excuse. Not alerting and stealing campaigns for other aff’s def. ‘kick to the street’ time. Now, anyone want to start naming names or are we all going to wait tell after the ASE/ASW parties ?! Great post David 🙂
You forgot the networks that steal your campaigns to run internally – a network employee (advertiser side) once told me that they maximize advertiser revenue by paying “internalizing” campaigns they see affiliates running since they can “do it so much more efficiently because they can look at all affiliates and see which pages/banner creatives were best, etc”. He then proceeded to explain that they usually only do that if the affiliate stops running the offer with them.
At least if they’re sharing campaigns between affiliates, you can hope to occasionally benefit from it 🙂
lol yes!
Yeah, there really is no excuse for that…it can be a way for them to get a little extra revenue though. Haha yeah we might party..THEN name names 😉
Oooh yeah, that’s a good one I missed. I know a couple networks that actively steal affiliate campaigns. Fortunately there are some reputable networks that don’t…you just have to know who you’re working with.
Knowledge is power. Know what you’re getting into before you sign the dotted line. And if you do have an unprofessional AM, you better have the knowledge to realize it.
As a former Affiliate and JV Manager, I just had to read this haha…
To me it’s more like descriptions of guys you try to outsource to because I’ve never experienced any AMs like that.
Then again, I only know a handful.
Anyway, funny stuff.
I work with a company and my AM is friendly although he is not so fast but always got response.
I need to ask about CPA JUICE do they really pay.
“It’s great when a cute girl flirts with you..until you realize she only likes you for your conversions.”
lol true dat…so many conversion diggers out there.