jayeff

Most people are aware of the 90%/10% "rule" but often draw the wrong conclusions. Keeping the 10% happy is in fact relatively easy, because the money they are earning does most of the work for you. But instead, these are the people on whom most sponsors spend the majority of the money and effort they put into affiliate marketing.

The point of affiliate marketing should be growth, which by definition is going to come from among the ranks of the 90%. Somewhere in there are the people who can grow and become tomorrow's whales.

Based on my past experience in other industries, if I were a sponsor, I wouldn't hire reps at all. I would give a secretary the job of dealing with routine questions and I would hire one or more people to handle affiliate development. The job would be to identify affiliates with potential and speed the growth of that potential, binding such affiliates to me along the way. My employee(s) would be expected to give suitable affiliates broad practical guidance, not solely related to my products. There would be a budget for providing such affiliates with tools - scripts, designs, whatever - when appropriate.

The trick in getting that job right is picking the right affiliates in whom to invest time and money. Inevitably there will be bad choices, but they must be the minority. So as well as needing someone with the technical skills, you would need someone with good judgement. People choose different roles for all kinds of reasons, so I don't agree that anyone who could do this would be working for themselves. However, the right people aren't likely to come cheap.

Commission has an obvious appeal for an employer, but I have only ever paid bonuses. The reason being that even the very best people will produce dramatically cumulative results and a straightforward commission deal would likely mean paying too little to be attractive on day one, but ridiculous amounts of money after a year or two.

Which means having faith in my own judgement when I pick someone, as well as faith in the person I choose. But realistically, for anyone who wants to get away from the "throw enough mud and hope some sticks" approach to drawing affiliates, there is no choice. Try to do it the cheap, safe way and you all but guarantee failure.

Just about every sponsor marketing program right now relies on attacting affiliates at random, leaving them largely to their own devices until and if they get big by themselves. Then the sponsor starts to pay attention. Which was fine when there were fewer sponsors and more new affiliates. But it is increasingly an approach which means that all they are doing is swapping the no-hopers and leaving to chance whether affiliates who do make it, happen to be working for them when that happens. I would go so far as to say that many of the methods used to attract affiliates in the first place are probably a deterrent to many of those who are likely to be tomorrow's stars.

Relying on luck does not equate to running a business. To do that you need to take control. And in the context of affiliates, that means seeking out those who can provide tomorrow's sales, not just rewarding those who are making today's.