Guest post by James Cooper
The following is a guest post by James Cooper, Affiliate Director at Walker – i.
I was asked by Kieron to write an article on agencies and affiliates whilst he is recovering from his operation and would like to start this article off with a quote …
“In my experience (agencies are there) to skim margins, miscommunicate between the parties, delay execution, and claim to be experts at several things at once…oh yeah, and to go to lots of industry dos and lunches”. Michael.
The above quote came from a recent posting on the A4Uforum entitled “the role of an agency within affiliate marketing”. Initially the quote made be laugh in disbelief as I was gob-smacked by a certain individuals understanding of an agencies role. I was then overcome by frustration as this individual was placing all agencies into the same online basket. This was then followed by a wave of nausea probably from all the “industry do’s”. I did however feel the need to challenge Michael’s thoughts, and express my own views and ideas on what I believe agencies are here to do.
So who am I then? Well my name is James Cooper and I’m affiliate director at Walker – i. I’ve been involved within the affiliate industry for 8 years now. I started life as an affiliate coordinator for affiliate network ukaffiliates.com in 2000 which later become DGM, after a brief soirée working as an affiliate I arrived at Walker Media in 2006.
Michael it seems is rather pessimistic when it comes to agencies knowledge of the affiliate market. Back in the day I may have agreed with him as the majority of agencies would out-source their affiliate work to main stream networks, asking them to prepare strategies and passing their work off as their own.
However over time experienced members of staff from affiliate networks have migrated over to the agency side which in turn has bulked up agencies knowledge in affiliate marketing. In fact at Walker – i we have over 15 years of affiliate experience from a team of just 4.
Indeed agencies are now extremely capable of planning and managing affiliate campaigns formulating ideas and strategies that in the past would only have come from enlightened network staff.
Nowadays with the help of networks agencies can pull off some spectacularly impressive campaigns helping to both increase brand awareness and bring in significant sales.
Michael’s comment on ‘miscommunication between parties’ sounds like it comes from personal experience. Over the years I have however noticed an increase in the efficiency and transparency of communication between advertiser, agency, network and affiliate.
Bespoke newsletters, forum postings, affiliate events etc. are all now commonplace within the industry and are seen as important factors when communicating with affiliates. Yes, there is still room for improvement however communication across the various parties has come on leaps and bounds from my early days at ukaffiliates.
Michael also makes comment on the delayed execution of campaigns. Wouldn’t it be great if there was an infinite pot of cash and the flick of a switch would activate a perfectly optimised campaign … this is far from the truth! Truth of the matter is that launching a campaign takes time when done correctly.
A typical agency implementation strategy would include: obtaining affiliate feedback, calculation of commercials/contracts, meticulous planning of performance, the research, implementation and testing of the optimum tracking solution, the acquisition of promotional material, drumming up of affiliate interest and finally the launch of the campaign. All of the above takes time. Of course an agency should manage the expectations of both affiliate and advertiser however patience is a virtue if a campaign is to be a success.
In addition to the activities mentioned above there is now a trend with agencies to offer their own in-house affiliate solution in essence acting as both network and agency. We launched our own affiliate marketing solution WASP in 2006 and thus now work both with networks and directly with key affiliate partners.
The idea behind WASP is that it works with a limited number of experienced, specialised affiliates offering commercials favourable to both affiliate and client. The WASP system is used both to compliment a networks ‘long tail’, generating incremental volume for an existing campaign as well allowing the client to trial new initiatives within a controlled environment. Behind-the-scenes we’ve been working hard to present an agency offering outside the norm and 2008 will be the year when you’ll a lot more from us.
To summarise in response to Michael’s quote:
“In my experience agencies are here to formulate and evaluate affiliate strategies alongside networks, build healthy and productive affiliate relationships and liaise relevant information in a timely and efficient manner … oh yeah and to enjoy a drink or two on Friday night 
”
Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 11:59 am and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
“In my experience (agencies are there) to skim margins, miscommunicate between the parties, delay execution, and claim to be experts at several things at once…oh yeah, and to go to lots of industry dos and lunches”. Andrew.
For the record the above quote was made by Michael Anthony and not me.
Andrew Clapham
I would just like to point out that your research is flawed and you are attributing that initial quote to the wrong person http://www.affiliates4u.com/forums/affiliate-marketing-moderators-choice/72696-role-agency-within-affiliate-marketing-2.html#post371865
Hi Andrew
Please accept my apologies. The quote did indeed come from another user of the A4Uforum and not yourself.
Once again apologies for this mistake.
Kind regards,
James
Apologies for this Andrew. James did indeed misquote you in the original guest article. I have now corrected the post.
there are a number of affiliates who see agencies as ‘profit stealers’ and lets be fair there are a number of agencies out there that do just that, sit on there arses and take there percentage. BUT… there are also a number of agencies that massively benifit the programme they manage!
I think Michael was wrong to generalise, but, James, you’re also doing the same. We’ve gone from the pitch black that Michael was describing to the heaven on earth that you relay.
The truth is, as always, in the middle: some agencies behave like Michael describes, some agencies behave how you describe. The majority are somewhere in between, especially when a digital division has been added in to make the most of the online trend and hasn’t been staffed up by experienced people - the number of times network staff have had to literaly train agency staff is overwhelming.
For agencies that either specialise in affiliate marketing or those to have hired experienced affiliate marketeers, these agencies do in fact make a difference. For the rest, well, we can only hope
What is difficult for agencies is to disassociate themselves from what’s good for their pockets and go for the good of the client, especially when they’re managing ppc & affiliates simultaneously. A lot of people will say the same about the networks, and it’s a fair comment for some of the networks (I hate generalisations). In the same way that networks need to sort out their priorities and put affiliates first, when they are indeed right in their requests, agencies need to put the client’s benefit first which means synergising the merchant’s marketing with the affiliates even further.
Michael can consider himself thoroughly told!