When we tell people we are an affiliate management company, the usual response is “OK, you’re JV brokers, right?”
Well, that’s sort of like saying the Space Shuttle is an airplane. Yes, it flies on its own power through the air and can land on an airfield designed for airplanes. But the Space Shuttle does a lot more than an airplane. Oh don’t mistake what I’m saying. I’m not suggesting that an airplane is somehow inferior, it’s just designed for a different purpose.
So to bring the analogy back to earth, so to speak, a Joint Venture (JV) Broker essentially connects someone with an offer or a product that they wish to sell on the internet, with someone else who might act as an affiliate to promote that product. So for example, if you created a video course on how to alleviate back pain, and engaged a JV broker to get you affiliates, the broker might introduce you to people that have sold similar products and have lists of customers who might be interested in your product. In general the JV Broker would make a commission on the sales that might result from his introduction. That’s pretty much it!
As an affiliate management company, we don’t just make introductions. Oh no! We say that’s when the real work starts. We understand our clients’ offers or products, create an affiliate program to address their market, recruit affiliates that generate web traffic from a variety of sources – email, SEO, search advertising, banners, social media marketing – and manage them on an ongoing basis. So if you had a revenue plan for your back pain video course, we would work toward attaining that revenue goal, by tracking the success of the affiliates and reporting on that on periodically.
So affiliate management includes recruiting JV partners and affiliates, but it’s a whole lot more than that. It’s managing product launches, conducting affiliate contests, publishing leaderboard updates, staying in contact with affiliates to stay ‘top of mind’ with them, managing all the communications with affiliates, making sure their promotions are responsible and consistent with our clients’ brand values, and so much more.
We do that. We do Affiliate Management.