You can run your affiliate marketing program yourself using a software program, design one for your own use, or join an affiliate marketing program. There are several programs you can join and which one you choose depends a lot on your personality and what you expect to get out of your affiliate manager. Whether you are looking for an affiliate marketing program to join so that you can find products and services to recommend or you want a program to run your company’s affiliate marketing program, these program managers can make or break your affiliate marketing efforts:

• Commission Junction - Some of the largest businesses online use Commission Junction. While that’s no reason to rush right over to CJ, you shouldn’t discount it either. They clearly know what they’re doing. Website: http://www.cj.com/

• ClixGalore - ClixGalore has quite a selection of affiliate programs to take advantage of. If you want to start an affiliate marketing program for your company, they can help you with that too. Website: http://www.clixgalore.com/

• LinkShare - One of the leading pay-per-action marketing programs online. Wal-Mart, Lego, and other recognized brands use LinkShare. Not a bad pick. Website: http://www.linkshare.com/

• ShareASale - A custom program that operates to bring affiliates and products together. Great program. Website: http://www.shareasale.com/

• Clickbank - Clickbank specializes in digital products: E-books, podcasts, videos, downloads, etc. One of the first affiliate programs to come online, Clickbank pretty much wrote the rules on affiliate marketing and just about every program now online owes a debt to Clickbank for paving the way. If you specialize in retailing digital products, you just might do well at Clickbank. Website: http://www.clickbank.com/

When you’re ready to start your affiliate marketing program or you are looking for a product to sell as an affiliate, try one of these programs

One question that keeps being raised is, “Is affiliate site verification is necessary in affiliate network management? Another is, “How closely do I need to monitor sites in my affiliate network?” These seem to be about different topics, but are actually somewhat different issues of affiliate network management.

Should those in affiliate network management be verifying the sites of affiliates, absolutely, but it does not necessarily need to be a manual job. You do not need to physically go through every page on the potential affiliate site. It is much more important that they inform you of their intentions. How do they intend to market your product? What URLs will be associated with your business? What, if any, other affiliate programs are they involved in? There is a very good possibility that your potential affiliate does not have a website set up yet, but you at least want to be sure that they have a URL that is active. Beyond that, it is not really necessary to do too much. Affiliate network management really comes later, as you do not want to discourage new signups.

When it comes to monitoring affiliate websites, it is something that you do want to be doing a lot of. This is the part of affiliate network management that can become a bit of a chore. You want to make periodic checks of the sites that are in your affiliate network. You should be looking for any gross violations of your terms of service and or anything that can reflect badly upon your company. How you choose to enforce your terms of service is up to you, but remember that your affiliates are your representatives. If they look bad, you look bad; this is why affiliate network management is such an important responsibility and is worth every hour of your week that it eats up.

Affiliate management is tough at the best of times, but if your affiliates are of the overly communicative type, the job can be a nightmare. What can you do if your affiliates are taking up too much of your precious time?

Outsourcing your Affiliate Management Communications
Marketing Pilgrim reports that more online retailers are using call centers than ever before. It therefore follows quite naturally that some businesses will piggyback their affiliate communications onto their online retail communications system. It can work, but there are a few things that you need to ensure before outsourcing any aspect of your affiliate management communication.

In general, affiliate management communications are suitable for offloading because they do not occur too frequently. As long as any call center agents are well briefed on your affiliate management procedures, there is no reason why you cannot offload the work onto your call center.

• Shop around and don’t just settle on the first call center that you come across. Some people look for the cheapest call centers that they can find. These are usually located offshore and have quality levels that vary. While you can get great service from these companies, it is a hit and miss affair. Do your research if you wish to take that route with your affiliate management communications.
• Get to know the call center company and get to know your agents. If they are dealing with the added responsibility of handling phone calls that would normally be the responsibility of those in affiliate management, you want to be sure that they are up to the task.
• Test your call center. You should be doing this anyway if they are running your business communications. Ask them a few affiliate management related questions from time to time and ensure that their responses are appropriate. Remember, if they are off course, your reputation suffers.
• Don’t be complacent. You never know when your call center is going to change staff. Stay on your toes and make sure that they are doing their job to your satisfaction.

Greg Howlett offers this final thought in an article appearing on Marketing Pilgrim:

In general, call centers are a necessary part of growing for most internet retailers. The key is simply this–you cannot hire one and forget about them. You have to remember that those people whom you have little control over have the ability to make or break your business. That is scary thought.

Affiliate management can be quite a responsibility and it can be hard to keep up with phone calls when a business operates 24/7. Outsourcing your affiliate management communications responsibilities does work; just make sure that you pick the right company to help you with this task.

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When is it time to pull the plug on affiliate promotions? The answer to that question depends largely on the types of affiliate promotions that you are making are making use of and what you hope to accomplish from each one. While the simple answer would be that affiliate promotions should stop when their goals are met, this is not the case. Affiliate promotions should stop before they cease to be profitable. You do not want to lose money on affiliate promotions; here are a few tips to avoid making costly mistakes.

• Watch your affiliate network closely. As soon as growth rates start to taper off, scale back on your affiliate promotions. If your affiliate network is large enough to provide you with consistent sales, your money might be better spent on educating your affiliates than promoting your network.
• Check your sales figures. If you are getting massive amounts of new affiliates but nothing to show for it, the money that you are spending on affiliate promotions is probably being wasted.

Affiliate network management can encompass any number of management decisions affecting your affiliates that you make as a program owner. Some affiliate network managers will just let their program go and allow their affiliates free reign. We do not believe that is the best policy, as it can have an adverse effect on the reputation of your business.

For most people running an affiliate network, it is a means to promote their business and thus allow them to earn better profits. It is the business that must always come first. One unruly affiliate can cause tremendous damage to the reputation of a business. For this reason, it is sometimes necessary to be proactive with your affiliate network management decisions.

Know your Affiliates
It is a good idea to take some time to check out the affiliates that are working for you. There are some gambling sites that perform a thorough review of each affiliate application. They even go as far as telephoning or emailing additional questions if they have them. While most businesses do not need to go that far, it does pay to check out your affiliates and the techniques that they are using to promote your site. If your business is too big to check every site, do some random checks and do send out the occasional personal email.

Do not Tolerate SPAM
I cannot voice this strongly enough. SPAM sells, we all know that, but it also tarnishes reputations. If you have an affiliate that is promoting your business with SPAM, you will need to make a serious affiliate management decision. You will need to weigh the benefits that the affiliate is producing with the damage that it is doing to your reputation. SPAM tends not to convey any long term benefit on a program. It does not encourage customer loyalty. For the short term gains that you get from SPAM, there are a lot of long term drawbacks. To avoid any awkward affiliate management situations, you can check to ensure that any new affiliates actually have websites.

Provide Quality Materials
Poor quality affiliate materials can cause untold damage to the reputation of a business. Some materials make false or misleading claims. Remember any affiliate is an ambassador of your company. If an affiliate makes false or misleading claims and a customer is dissatisfied with your product, it is you that will have to deal with it. In such situations an appropriate course of action for those in affiliate network management would be to warn said affiliate. For outrageous violations, it might be worth terminating the affiliate contract. This can of course all be avoided by providing quality marketing materials to begin with. Ensure that materials are available and that affiliates are made aware of any updates.

Affiliate network management can be challenging at times, but it is possible to avoid most of the potential stresses through some smart management techniques.