While we might wish that every affiliate will be able to push performance and drive results, that is not always the case. There are times when an affiliate will be consistently underperforming, and it is up to you as the affiliate manager to get to the heart of the matter and repair it.
In this week’s episode of Affiliate Drive Time, Lee-Ann discusses how to fix a broken affiliate deal and get the affiliate back on track and performing well. Check out the video below and read our blog to find out more.
First steps – Analyze
The first thing you need to do when looking at an underperforming affiliate is the nature of their campaign and its traffic. What is the traffic like, and where is it coming from?
You need to make sure that you have the perfect picture of what is happening in the campaign before you can begin to make recommendations and changes. Always start with the traffic flow to see if there are issues there.
How are they running the campaign?
The next step will be to turn to the affiliate’s management of the campaign overall. How are they choosing to run it, and what methods are they using to advertise the products or services on offer? It could be a simple mismanagement on their part here that is resulting in a failure to deliver good results.
Could the issue lie with their conversion ratios? Take a look at how they have worked out from that initial impression to the click and beyond. By understanding their numbers and the way in which they drive traffic, you should be able to see where the issue might lie.
Remember there may be other errors
It is important to take a step back and review the campaign from a much wider, holistic perspective. After all, the efforts of the affiliate might actually not be the issue at play here.
Occasionally, the launch of a new campaign can come fraught with errors and it can take a while for an affiliate to catch up. If something happens in the first month of the campaign that they could not control, there is a chance that they could be underperforming while also trying to make up lost ground.
A professional affiliate will always be happy to open a dialogue with you and should even be able to offer insight into their management of the campaign. By fully understanding the situation and what has happened, you as the affiliate manager will be in a much better place to fix the campaign and get the results you might expect.
Affiliate management can be a difficult business, and it can occasionally be hard to reach out to an underperforming affiliate. If you would like help with managing your own affiliates get in touch with our agency services for help with your program management. Make sure you also tune in for another episode of Affiliate Drive Time next week, and subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an update!
