Last week on my Internet marketing radio show GoodKarma I was discussing affiliate managers and the concept of skimming (the act of not paying affiliates for all valid sales). It seems I might not have been clear and some people might have misunderstood what I meant. My position is that every affiliate manager should know what skimming is NOT that every affiliate manager is skimming. There are many good affiliate managers that DO NOT skim, are very HONEST and are nice enough people I would take them home to meet my mom.
Affiliate managers have a hard job. They need to make sure the affiliates are promoting the program and not damaging the brand reputation. They also need to make sure their technical team is properly tracking sales and paying affiliates on time. Not to mention the many other things a good affiliate manager needs to do.
If an affiliate manager does not know what “skimming” is they can not keep an eye open to make sure it is not occurring. When an affiliate contacts them and wonders why their conversion rate has dropped with no obvious reason, the affiliate manager better know what “skimming” is and be able to truthfully say that is not the cause. I am lucky and have found several really good affiliate managers who do a great job running their programs and proactively finding sales that accidentally fall through the cracks and paying me for them. I have also found the occasional “rotten apple”.
The most humorous incident of dealing with a bad affiliate manager was when my conversion rate kept falling for 3 months until it was almost exactly 1%. When I confronted the affiliate manager, the person claimed to not even know what the concept of skimming was and said it was impossible for me not be receiving credit for all my sales. The next month my conversion rate rose to almost exactly 2%. And he still claimed he was not manipulating my affiliate account. Needless to say I stopped sending him my traffic and spent more time working on projects for the good affiliate managers that I know.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Greg,
It is important to know the tactics that impact your industry. If an affiliate manager is allowing skimming to happen it is because they are worried about hitting ROAS goals or some other metric. It’s a sure way to loose good affiliates. For me performing due diligence to make sure affiliates are properly credited is not just the “honest” thing to do; it simply makes good business sense.
Angel Djambazov
Affiliate Specialist at Onlineshoes.com
Affiliate Manager of the Year 2006 by Affiliate Summit and In-House Manager of the Year 2006 by ABestWeb
Hi Angel,
I totally agree with you. That is why I look for and hold onto good affiliate managers. It makes good business sense for everybody.
btw my shoe size is 10 1/2 and i prefer loafers (what else would an affiliate wear?)
As Angel alluded to, I think it just comes down to “ethics 101.” Whether I’m dealing w/ my affiliates, co-workers, acquaintances, etc. I’m not going to screw them over just to fulfill my goals (that’s not how I operate in general).
I think it also helps when you have an affiliate manager that actually runs some of his own affiliate sites (not within his own program of course). I’m much more sensitive to affiliate tracking (and where/how it can go awry) since I launched a couple of sites and started paying for PPC traffic. IMO, I think a lot of companies don’t realize how affiliates are affected by tracking leaks (manmade or otherwise) or commission reversals. Unlike other partners (e.g. advertising accounts, co-reg partners), affiliates are often an afterthought.
What comes around goes around though…skimming AMs and shady programs will eventually lose affiliates and reputation (it just sucks when you’re left in their wake).