WAHM > Stay at Home Mom Work Ideas > Selling a Service > Become an Affiliate Manager 

How To Become an Affiliate Manager

It’s wonderful to have a great product or service that the market needs but if there isn’t an effective strategy in place to promote this product to a target market, it won’t generate much income for the owner.  Ideally what every small business owner could use is a sales force, but many feel they can’t afford to hire sales staff.  That’s the beauty of affiliate marketing. It’s like having a sales force of potentially hundreds but only having to hire one person…the affiliate manager.

Before examining exactly what an affiliate manager does, it’s important to understand the nature of an affiliate program.  It is essentially a program that provides a cash commission incentive for others to promote a particular company’s products or services. Affiliate programs are very popular today because they can be easily implemented and managed from a company website. 

In order for this model to work, however, the sales force – which are basically independent affiliates – have to be motivated and equipped to promote that product effectively to their markets.  That’s the job of an affiliate manager. 

An affiliate manager literally runs the affiliate program.  They recruit new affiliates and support existing ones.  This requires constant and strategic communication since affiliates are often independent business owners themselves and have other priorities.  

It’s the job of the affiliate manager to ensure that they keep affiliates informed of key benefits, new releases, special discount programs, etc.  Anything that can help affiliates to sell the product should be provided to them in a timely way so that they can improve their opportunities to make sales.  

Email communications are ideal as they serve as a reminder to affiliates to initiate promotions. A good affiliate manager will also use email to motivate affiliates by sharing stories of success in a way that is engaging.

It’s also important for the affiliate manager to make it relatively easy for affiliates to promote products/services by including in emails marketing copy and graphics that can be readily used by the affiliate.  

Graphics, advertisements and promotional copy can also be stored on a secure section of the website that only affiliates can access.  This area of the website is often called the “affiliate center” and it will likely be the job of the affiliate manager to keep this section of the client’s website updated and organized to ensure affiliates feel supported and excited about the program. 

The successful retention of affiliates also depends on the actual system in place to pay out commissions and allow the tracking of statistics by affiliates.  Affiliates are motivated when they’re able to track how many visitors they are attracting to their affiliate links and how many sales they’ve generated for the month or year, etc. 

There are various systems available and to make yourself as marketable as possible you’ll want to be familiar with some of the more popular systems. A few popular ones are - Amemberpro.com and 1ShoppingCart.com.  

How to Find Clients 

Visit online forums frequented by successful online entrepreneurs like the Warrior Forum, or basically any well established business forum and contribute your observations and suggestions regarding best practices in affiliate management.  Don’t spam, but ensure these business owners are aware of your interest and skills in managing affiliate programs.  

Also promote your knowledge on popular social networking platforms like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. 

Affiliate marketing is recognized as a proven and popular way for many online entrepreneurs to increase their sales and many will look for affiliate managers to help make that happen.  

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