In these tough economic times, one of the challenges affiliate managers constantly face is ensuring the growth and health of the affiliate programs they manage.

Perhaps the most important thing is making sure their programs are financially prosperous. One of the best ways to do this is by auditing your affiliate program.

There are two very effective strategies that an affiliate manager can utilize to determine if their affiliate programs are growing and competitive in their respective space. These key strategies are competitive analysis and performance audit.

A competitive analysis is a great way to identify any strengths or weaknesses within your affiliate program. This analysis will also dictate what steps to take to grow your program. After completing this analysis, you should be able to answer the following questions:

• What is the current EPC (earnings per 100 clicks) for your program?
• What is your conversion rate and is it on par with your top competitors?
• What is the average order size?
• What creative is available to your affiliates? Is it outdated? Should it be refreshed?
• PPC (pay per click) policy – Is search allowed in the program? If so, who is promoting your program using search and what additional tools do they need?

Often times, upon completion of this exercise, you’ll have a clear and concise strategy for taking the necessary steps to grow your program. Many of these questions will also create solid content for an activation campaign.

I’ve found that these are typically the first questions affiliates ask when I’m pitching a program to them. Having this data available can prove to be invaluable in activation efforts.

Beyond the benefit to affiliates, knowing this information can also be helpful when requesting additional resources from the merchant. This level of analysis indicates your investment in the overall success of the affiliate program.

A performance audit is another way of evaluating the overall success of your program. The first question to ask is “who is in my program that should be performing, but isn’t?”

You can quickly find out by comparing data year over year (or month over month) to determine if any affiliates that used to be top performers are not performing nearly as well or are no longer promoting your program at all. This list of declining performers will become your activation targets.

Review each of these affiliate’s sites to determine if they are promoting your merchant in all relevant categories to maximize exposure to their site visitors. If not, reach out to them and provide them with any updated creative, copy or other offers to increase your placement.

The key to successfully executing these strategies is to create relationships with your affiliates and make them feel like they are part of the solution.

While maintaining relationships with your top performers is important, don’t overlook the “long-tail” affiliates that can also make a difference in growing your affiliate program.

Stephen Robinson is the Director of Affiliate Relations for the affiliate management agency JEBCommerce.com, MyAffiliateCoach.net and NewsForAffiliates.com.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 8 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/20220412/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-8
FeedFront issue 8 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2009/10

Times are tough. There is no escaping the fact that our industry is not immune to the high unemployment rates and falling consumer spending. It is affecting all of us and merchants may need to adjust their programs due to the changing landscape; sometimes even just to keep them open to affiliates.

As Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “The only constant is change”. But you shouldn’t make changes without thoughtful, in-depth consideration and accurate information.

Nothing will upset your partners more and reduce the overall performance of a program than affiliates finding an email in their inbox that tells of a dramatic change taking place immediately.

If you find yourself under pressure to change the cookie days (also known as commission duration or return days), overall commission rate, and/or other aspects of your program, here are some guidelines and things to consider:

• Accurate data: When making changes to commission rates, for example, be sure to know the lifetime value of affiliate customers and look at the profitability of each partner before making a decision. Accurate data will guide you in your decisions.

• Proven assumptions: Are your theories supported by data or simply the thoughts of someone outside of the marketing department? Good analysis will often stop bad decisions from being made.

• Testing: Test out your assumptions in your program.

• Top affiliate involvement: Affiliates are your partners. You shouldn’t make any big changes without consulting them first. It may serve only as a forewarning in the end, but bringing them into the process will help them understand any decisions you decide to make. Additionally, many affiliates have been in business longer than the affiliate managers themselves, they may have some ideas that you may not have thought of.

Sometimes there is simply no way to avoid making changes to your program. Following these guidelines can help lessen the pain:

• Involve your affiliates and be able to explain the issues and reasons for your decision
• Have data to back up your position
• Be prepared to offer concessions to ease the impact on your partners
• Provide adequate lead time (60-90 days)
• Send email notices before changes are made and follow up with individual calls to your top-producing affiliates

Accurate data, partner consultation, and adequate lead time will help you and your program maintain trust and the performance that we all need during these tough times.

Jamie Birch is the owner of the affiliate management agency JEBCommerce.com, MyAffiliateCoach.net, and NewsForAffiliates.com.

Download the entire FeedFront issue 7 here – http://www.scribd.com/doc/17376069/FeedFront-Magazine-Issue-7
FeedFront issue 7 articles can be found here as well: http://feedfront.com/archives/article00date/2009/08