So I’ve been working with the lovely Alex Thompson of Silverbean fame on a couple of programmes recently. He’s a nice proactive chap, always keen, and always popping up to see what he can help with.

With that in mind, and because agencies sometimes get a bad rap, I decided to do a bit of an interview with him so you could all find out more about the human face of a hard working agency type who really does want to connect with all us cynical affiliates (for his sins).

So tell us all a bit about yourself in a Blind Date style of yer own choosing!

Hello everyone! My name is Alex Thompson; I was born in Sheffield but now live in Newcastle. I work for the UK’s leading digital marketing agency, Silverbean.

My job involves talking to affiliates on a daily basis to improve their EPC and liaising with merchants to give Affiliates maximum content and coverage. It’s all about building strong relationships. If you fancy a chat sometime about anything Affiliate Marketing or how I can help you with your EPC then hit me up on Skype “alexsilverbean”

eds note: he was in there quick with the plug eh?  Wage rise for Mr Thompson Silverbean bosses!!

How did you come to be working in the affiliate industry? Was it something you had an ambition to do or did it just sort of happen?!

A bit of both, I have always had a keen interest in the digital sector and at University I studied Marketing. When I discovered Digital Marketing it was the perfect fusion. I was passionate about Digital and had the knowledge in Marketing.

The opportunity to work at a leading Digital Marketing agency was too big an opportunity to turn down. Silverbean has fantastic relationships within the affiliate industry, this has helped fuel my knowledge of Affiliate Marketing and the digital sector.

Tell us about a typical day in the life of an agency type such as yourself…

My primary role at Silverbean is Affiliate Account Management, I work in client services team so I work in all areas of Digital Marketing but my main focus is in the Affiliate sector.

As Silverbean has multiple services PPC, SEO, Email, Social Marketing the office is always busy and is vibrant hub of digital news and information. As an agency we have to stay ahead and be aware of all the latest news, in the Digital and Affiliate industries.

What sort of merchants do you work with?

I work with a wide range of merchants to deliver high quality account management.

For example, I manage the affiliate program for the top underwear retailer Banglads, Luxury Home & Garden retailers OKA Direct & Litecraft, Baby + Toddler retailer TeenyTots and Online football pools Soccer Millionaire. These are just a few of the merchants I look after.

Obviously dealing with merchants every day you work with a lot of businesses and are privy to their perceptions about affiliate marketing. How do the people we work with see us affiliates? Is there still a notion of grubbiness in the air?!

I am going to be as honest as possible here, there is none! All my merchants appreciate and value the affiliates who generate sales for them. This is a performance channel, merchants are aware of the low risk attached with Affiliate Marketing. Affiliates who generate a sale have put in the hard work and deserved to be rewarded.

Obviously some merchants are more positive than others but I have not come across one merchant yet who has given ill perceived perception of Affiliates. In today’s day and age customers are very savvy, they know what they like to see and the kind of information they want to see from a product before they purchase.

Affiliates are meeting these requirements and are constantly building/redesigning their sites to meet them. Affiliates have a demanding job keeping up with the consumer.

When I started out in affiliate marketing it was all bedroom affiliates and it was relatively easy to get your foot in the door with a website and make some cash. What does an average affiliate site look like these days? What’s the spread of affiliates like? i.e. corporate, your weekend wonders, and in betweeners like me?

As mentioned above, the average customer is always evolving and their needs are becoming more and more demanding. Obviously there are different types of affiliates but on the whole the quality of affiliate sites is very high. As you are aware Panda has been a major blow to some affiliate sites. Google is making is harder for new affiliates to enter the market.

Is there a standard type of person you see turning up as a successful affiliate?

I wouldn’t say there is a standard type of person, the main types of affiliates who I see generating successful sales are Content, Vouchers, Cashback and Shopping Portals/Comparison, all of which make up a successful affiliate program.

What do you love most about your job?

Building those all-important Affiliate Relationships! Without them in place I couldn’t do my job. I consider myself to be pro-active and approachable. Finding new affiliates and asking them to join the program and then to see them generate sales is a great feeling.

Client relationship is also important and something I enjoy – if you have a good relationship with the merchant the information you can pass onto Affiliates will be higher quality. Poor relationships mean you can’t properly communicate to affiliates what the merchant is promoting in a given month.

There must be frustrations in your role as a bit of a “middle man” between merchants and affiliates. What are those and how do you deal with them?

I can’t lie; there are frustrations from time to time. Being the middle man can have its downsides, especially with quick turnarounds.

Merchants are very busy and asking them to jump on a task can be a big ask sometimes. Planning ahead, setting key times in a week to speak with a merchant are ways around this. Having constant communication with the merchant at a fixed time helps avoid this issue.

I’ve worked with affiliates (and still do!) and they are often difficult to communicate with in terms of catching their attention and getting them promoting a programme. What techniques do you use to open a dialogue with affiliates you want to work with?

I have several, Affiliates are very busy and I am fully aware of this. I always start with a non-intrusive email. Of course it depends on what you are asking for, affiliate recruitment emails must outline the benefits of the program and also have a short introduction about myself and how I fit in with the program. It is important to let the Affiliate know of all the tools at the their disposal (product feed etc)

Affiliate Relationship building – when an affiliate is on the program and you want push more sales for them they can be contacted in many ways. Standard emails, Social Media works well, Twitter provides an excellent way of getting in touch, Skype calls build instant rapport with the affiliate and shows you are willing to go that extra mile for them. It is all about caring and not being ignorant. I approach every affiliate as equal.

If you had the ability to call into existence one thing that would help you with your day to day work and make your job easier, what would it be?

Again going to be honest, if every affiliate I contacted came back to me! Sounds a daft thing to say but if every affiliate I got in touch with came back to me my job would be a lot easier.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand affiliates are very busy and this isn’t always plausible. In an ideal world it would be great. Would like to stress I am not being negative on affiliates!

Eds note: Don’t worry Alex, we know what you mean!

Any aspirations to be an affiliate or do you dabble already?

I have not got my toes wet just yet – Affiliate Marketing takes time and effort. It is something that has to take a lot of planning to get it right. Understanding your visitors, understanding the merchant’s customers, understanding Google. So many factors to be successful, it will be a while yet before I feel I can get involved.

If anyone is interested in a full list of all the clients the lovely Alex works with you can drop him an email on alex.thompson@silverbean.co.uk or visit www.sbnaffiliates.co.uk

This post is from: Kirsty's Affiliate Marketing Guide - Affiliate Stuff UK

Interview with Alex Thompson : What’s It Like To Work In An Affiliate Management Agency?

It can’t have escaped your notice that I’ve not been updating this blog as often in recent months. Not only have I been very busy immersing myself in all things Google Panda, but I’ve been finding solely concentrating on being an affiliate has become a little one dimensional for me. I still love being an affiliate and working on my sites but have been feeling the need to add another string to my internet bow.

An Exciting Announcement

I’ve been thinking about this for several months and have decided to take the plunge and make the exciting return to my affiliate management roots. Therefore I’m excited to introduce my new Australian business Venture, Blue Indian Affiliate Management.

When I first arrived in Australia I really didn’t feel that there was a lot of scope for offering such a service as there wasn’t a huge number of well developed merchants and the networks weren’t exactly crash hot either. However with improvements in existing networks such as Commission Monster, and new arrivals on the scene DGM and the soon to be launched Commission Factory and my own increasing awareness of some strong ecommerce offerings I think the time is right to offer some real affiliate expertise to the market here.

Given time I think it could be a scalable business for me and a great opportunity to share my passion and expertise about all things affiliate. Initially though my plan is to find myself a very small number of clients and use my experiences with them to work out just how such a business could be effectively scaled with an eye on both high quality and good profitability for everyone concerned.

Generally speaking this will be an Australian targeted business, but of course if any of you UK chaps are interested in having a chat about procuring one of the small number of spots available for my affiliate management services do please drop me a line via kirsty at blueindian.com.au

Hopefully a new project will give me back that injection of enthusiasm for this blog and help me feel more connected with the affiliate scene. I’m definately more excited about this new challenge than I have been for quite some time – a very good sign!

This post is from: Kirsty's Affiliate Marketing Guide - Affiliate Stuff UK

A Small Change In Direction!

Hello?  Hello? Is there anyone out there? Merchants… it’s me, Kirsty!

Despite all the networks, talented agency types, and in-house affiliate managers there still seems to be an issue with communication between us Jupiterites and the Martians who we work for. Somewhat puzzling, because lots of people seem to be shouting about their affiliate programmes. What I don’t understand is why do I never seem to hear the right ones?!?!

It’s Like Being Single Again…

Lingerie site owner with GSOH, ample traffic assets, and penchant for selling copious amounts of knickers.

Seeks like minded underwear or hosiery merchant for underwear fun and long term relationship. Reply to PO Box 157, Jupiter.

A few years ago I’d wondered at the lack of approaches by merchants, but put it down to not having quality content sites.  However, having remedied this in recent years I still find the number of “do you think you might be able to feature us on your site” type approaches surprisingly disappointing.

I’m not saying such approaches are non existent.  As a good example of sods law two nice agency people have approached me with very interesting undies sites in the last week. However lets not let the facts get in the way of a good rant here – I still find it surprising that this doesn’t happen more often, particularly given that I now have nice content sites in several niches.

So What’s The Issue?

There could be several reasons why merchants aren’t flooding me with requests to promote them and prostrating themselves at my bejewelled affiliate feet: -

• I don’t have bejewelled feet, and if I did merchants most probably wouldn’t grovel at them. Bummer. Still, a few free bras or the odd box of chocolates wouldn’t go amiss.
• People don’t do “Affiliate Research” any more because we’re rude buggers and don’t respond, thus making such pursuits an unproductive waste of time.
• The best use of management resources is targeting the 5% of affiliates that’ll drive 85% of your sales. Big sites such as MyVoucherCodes.co.uk can drive massive volumes.
• My location – maybe face to face networking is where the red hot merchant action is at. Australia makes it difficult for me to meet people over a nice beverage or ten.
• Too many merchants view affiliate marketing and management as a “passive” process. Build a programme and they will come. Which, of course, they quite often don’t. Said merchants then throw in their programme and tell anyone who’ll listen that “affiliate marketing is shite, and doesn’t work.”

Perhaps what it comes down to is that affiliate marketing is a lot of work, and the online nature of the industry, combined with the problems of attempting to manage and communicate with a large pool of business partners (many of whom aren’t available during business hours), means we get shoved on the “too hard” pile. Overall though, I think my 85:5 rule point above is probably very close to the mark.

The Solution?

Hah, I’m backing away from this one!  Too big a question for this affiliate blogger to answer without descending into utter conjecture and upsetting people who spend their entire working lives trying to look after us affiliates. Technology driven solutions such as Affiliate Window’s catchily named “Darwin” affiliate admin area may help considerably.

And Of Course, It’s A Two Way Street…

I’m also aware that this is my business and it’s my responsibility to build it and find new people to partner with on my own.  Maybe merchants prostrating themsleves at my feet, or even finding out about me before I start sending them sales is just a romanticised pipe dream.

This post is from: Kirsty's Affiliate Marketing Guide - Affiliate Stuff UK

Affiliates Are From Jupiter and Merchants Are From Mars

This is a guest post by Ran Nir, Affiliate Manager of Photo Paper Direct

Two months ago we decided, despite the gloomy economic outlook (it has improved a bit! since then), that the Affiliate channel was a good fit for our products, pricing and customer base. As a UK based online retailer with big ambitions, we know that in order to achieve maximum market penetration and to reach as many customers as possible, a multi channel sales strategy is vital and it must include Affiliate marketing. Since going live two months ago we’ve had our fair share of successes and stumbling blocks, some because we were a bit ‘green’ and some because we had the wrong Affiliates. I’d like to think that since then and together with our Affiliate partners, we have improved our act which leads me to write my personal view of 10 ways in which both Merchants and Affiliates can work closer together for better results.

What could we as Merchants do better?

1. Put on our Affiliate hats and think about ‘what’s in it for me?’ – It’s very important to always ask yourself what’s in it for your Affiliates and why would they sign up with you, sometimes even at the expense of a similar Merchant. If you have low conversion rates or take your sweet time to approve sales and your commission structure isn’t competitive then don’t expect the programme to succeed. As Merchants, it is our job to first conduct extensive research and with our Affiliate hats on, make sure the ‘what’s in it for me’ is answered by high sales and attractive payouts.
2. Communicate more frequently and communicate everything – Many Merchants, especially those who have been selling online for years have extremely useful information, which, when communicated to their Affiliates can really turn the programme around. Data such as historical and seasonal trends, for example, can help Affiliates invest resources on products which are more likely to convert. As a Merchant, our responsibility is to communicate as much relevant information and as often as possible.
3. Offer product feeds, custom landing pages and other goodies – The days of running an Affiliate programme with only a set of banners are probably nearing their end. As Merchants we have to cater for as many Affiliates as possible, meaning that having the ability to create up-to-date product feeds, promotional codes, product bundles and Affiliate custom landing pages are a must to cover as many Affiliates as possible.
4. Incentives, incentives and more incentives -  Targeting and rewarding Affiliates on a regular basis should hopefully increase sales but also inspire confidence in the offer or product. As Merchants, we should set targets and incentives on an ongoing basis to get the most out the channel, because leaving the Affiliate channel with no real aim or goal is a receipt for failure.
5. Manage the programme – Having in house or external resources to manage the programme is crucial. As Merchants, we need to offer direct and open communication  with the Affiliates in the shape of a dedicated resource, phone number and even on the very basic level  like having dedicated Affiliates@ email address which gets priority over other company emails will go a long way.

What could you as an Affiliate do better:

1. Ask and you shall receive – Making an Affiliate programme work requires work from both sides and although us Merchants think we offer enough tools, creative and product information, Affiliates should demand more from Merchants.  As an Affiliate if ,for example, you are sending a newsletter featuring the Merchant to hundreds of thousands of people, why not ask for help with creatives or increased commission for that week?
2. Take risks and funnel back your feedback – If you continue to offer the same products, from the same Merchants your options to increase revenue will depend on increasing traffic to your site or increased conversion rates on the Merchant’s site. On the other hand, by taking small risks and trying new products or offers from new Merchants you might just discover another gem. If the new programme doesn’t meet your expectations don’t be too quick to judge, try and contact the Merchant and funnel back your feedback.
3. Use all your marketing channels to promote the programme – If you take the plunge with the new programme, don’t walk into it half-halfhearted. Put your entire resources behind it. As an Affiliate, look to promote the new Merchant on your blog, place it on the homepage for a few days and use all your marketing vehicles such as the newsletter, paid search (in accordance with the Merchant’s policy) and SEO to really give the programme a chance.
4. Don’t promise anything WE can’t deliver on – Driving traffic to the Merchant site is one thing, while driving converting traffic is another. As an Affiliate, make sure you are not promising offers or products which the Merchant does not have e.g don’t promote a 10% promotional code if the Merchant only has 5% promotional code, don’t promote expired offers and make sure even the smallest details such as delivery cost match.
5. Stay current and update your creatives frequently – Following on from not showing expired offers, make sure creative and other promotional aids are up to date. If ,for example, the Merchant has special creatives for Christmas, update your site in time to make the Merchant’s offer as relevant as possible.

What would you like to see Affiliates / Merchants do better?

- – -
Guest post by Ran, marketing manager of Photo Paper Direct. For more information on Photo Paper’s Direct Affiliate Programme head to our affiliate page.

This post is from: Kirsty's Affiliate Marketing Guide - Affiliate Stuff UK

In time for Christmas – 10 Ways Affiliates and Merchants Could Work Better