IMMania.com

One of the things that has helped Jeremy Palmer of “Quit Your Day Job” and now “PPC Classroom” rocket to the top of the affiliate marketing world is the relationships he’s been able to establish with the merchant’s he promotes so successfully.

By building this rapport, he has set himself up to receive very favorable treatment from his merchants in the form of relaxed restrictions on trademark bidding, special offers for his visitors, and probably most importantly, increased commission payouts, which in turn allow Jeremy to outbid his competitors in the PPC search engines and still make out handsomely.

This point has been stressed over and over again, by not just Jeremy, but other major players in the affiliate marketing space, that I knew I needed to get on board with it. What follows are my experiences with relationship building with some of the affiliate managers of merchants I promote.

My first stop was for a fitness equipment merchant that I had sold over $100K worth of product for during the past year.

My website was ranking on the first page of Google for many competitive search terms for the market and my site was becoming recognized as an authority site for its niche. I thought that the affiliate manager would be falling all over himself to speak with a top-performing affiliate.

My first email went unreplied to. A followup email where I mentioned how much of their product I had moved received a reply. I had asked to speak on the phone and the affiliate manager sent me his cell phone number.

I called and we began chatting. I should point out that the merchant had very little communication with affiliates and that the creative, in terms of banners and promotional links, was extremely stale. When I pointed this out, his reply was that affiliates seemed to be doing pretty well without much input from them. He also mentioned that his primary job function was not management of his company’s affiliate program. It was just a secondary responsibility.

Things were becoming clearer.

He did mention that they were looking to hire a full time affiliate manager and that they had big plans to put more focus on their affiliate program. Perhaps things were finally looking up. I then went for the close and inquired about a commission increase. I knew Jeremy would be proud of me.

The response was complete silence.

He then acted like he had no idea what I was talking about. When I spelled it out for him, he asked rather tersely, if I was willing to give his company exclusivity. Once I realized that he wanted me to stop promoting other merchants and only promote his products I replied that was not possible. You see, one of the terms I rank on the first page of Google for is:

“blue widget reviews”

On top of that, I proudly proclaim elsewhere that my blue widget reviews are unbiased. I also make nice commissions from one of this merchant’s chief competitors, which apparently didn’t sit too well with him. I didn’t care how much more they were willing to pay me, I wasn’t going to change the focus of my site just for them.

He then made the comparison to the situation where if one of his salesmen was also allowed to promote competitors’ products that wouldn’t be good for his business. I then quickly countered that I wasn’t a salesmen on his payroll and that I was spending my own money on PPC advertising promoting his company’s products without compensation unless I referred a sale. The tone of his reply suggested that he felt I was getting defensive.

This guy was clearly a douche.

Despite driving over $100k in sales to his company for the past year, he wasn’t willing to do anything for me. This company doesn’t even send email to affiliates letting them know of upcoming sales. We need to constantly log onto their website to find out. On top of that, they have an 800 number prominently displayed on every page of their site that leaks commissions from affiliates.

I knew I had lost this one and wrapped the conversation up. It was clear that this merchant was a small time operation and that they took their affiliates for granted. I have no idea how their other affiliates make out, but the top ones must be doing quite well. Their products convert very well and the commissions are in the mid three figures. So, yeah, I guess it’s take it or leave it.

A few months later I received a broadcast email from their new affiliate manager. I replied to him and mentioned speaking with the other guy. He informed me that the other guy was no longer with the company. It seems the turn over for affiliate managers in general is about the same as for staffers in the Bush administration.

In future posts I’ll continue discussing my experiences in relationship building with affiliate managers. It actually gets worse. Much worse.