This presentation is from Affiliate Summit West 2015 (January 18-20, 2015 in Las Vegas, NV). Session description: Become 10X more efficient with APIs & automation, dig deep into network tools & data in ways you never knew, capture low hanging fruit, streamline recruiting & more pro tips you can’t afford to miss.

1. *

2. *
Jennifer Crego, Affiliate Manager
Greg Hoffman Consulting
@jennifercrego

3. *
It’s easy to get busy and forget about simple affiliate program management
activities. Make sure you’re devoting some time to these activities. You can
make it easier by scheduling reminders.

4. *
• Attractive layout
• Include program highlights
• Program manager with contact
information or link to your
outsourced program manager
• Link to the program
application
• Remember to review every 12
weeks & update it when
anything changes

5. *
• Program highlights
• Complete terms of
agreement
• Contact information
• Review every 12 weeks to
make sure it looks good and
nothing has changed

6. *
• A good acceptance email will help new affiliates get started right away
• Program highlights
• Basic program terms
• Top performing ads
• Your name and contact information, not the “team”
• Consider including an incentive to help new affiliates get up and running
faster
• Review every 8 weeks so that you can update ads or include seasonal
information

7. *
• Review banners regularly and replace ads that aren’t performing well
• Keep in touch with top performers
• Review coupon landing pages
• If not utilizing auto-deposits, check deposits daily, especially on Fridays
• Approve & decline applications daily; don’t auto approve

8. *
• Ongoing education
• Attend network conferences
• Get to know other program managers

9. *
• Make sure Terms of
Agreement are clear
• Establish PPC rules and
monitor/enforce daily
• Brandverity is a great
tool for monitoring
coupon codes, keywords
and brand names

10. *
Don’t worry about overlooking basic tasks!
Get a 2015 calendar with pre-set reminders for tasks
that are repeated every 6-12 weeks. Most months
include 2-3 tasks, plus Friday reminders for checking
funds.

11. *
• In Google Calendar, click the right
arrow next to “Other calendars”
• Select “Add a friend’s calendar”
• Enter this email:
ob41h7k9f334g1je590e07p49c@grou
p.calendar.google.com
• Or email me at
jen.c@greghoffmanconsulting.com

12. *
Joe Sousa, Affiliate Coordinator
Fantatics, Inc.
@drcool73

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Tools – Network based features you can use to effectively
and efficiently run your affiliate programs. Not referring
necessarily to API based tools. That is for another session.
Network based tools allow you to:
• Accurately pay your affiliates
• Pay your affiliates based on their value
• Reward quality affiliates
• Reward incrementality
• Reward specific behavior
• Effectively deliver creatives/content to your affiliates

14. *
• Run your program on a platform that has the tools you and
your affiliates need.
• Could be different for different merchants
• In my opinion Shareasale and Avantlink provide the best set of
tools.

15. *
• Shareasale tools:
• Advanced Commission Rules – Clickstream rules
• Pay affiliates based on where they fall in the click stream
• Pay multiple affiliates in the clickstream
• Lower or eliminate payouts on specific clickstream behavior
• Advanced Commission Rules – Transaction rules
• Pay based on SKU
• Pay based on coupon code behavior
• Pay based on order total
• Pay based on new customer
• Advanced Commission Rules – Other behavior
• Set bonuses for new affiliates
• Pay based on recruiting source
• Pay based on creative used

16. *
• Avantlink Tools – Avantmetrics
• Shared attribution
• De-duplication of internal marketing channels
• De-duplication of multi-network sales
• Tag Based Rules
• Other Networks - ???

17. *
• Take advantage of the tools – They are there to be used
• Most of them require some advanced pixel parameters
• Test them on a small scale before rolling them out program-
wide
• Talk to your network reps – One small mistake can be very
costly
• Talk to other merchants/affiliate managers to see how they
are using the tools
• Combine your internal analytics with these tools to really nail
down the value of the affiliate channel

18. *
*Tools for affiliates – Become an expert in these
*Be able to point your affiliates to the tool they should use for
what they are trying to do
*Screenshares are your friend – Learn how to use them
(join.me)
*Write some tutorials on some of the tools available for
affiliates

19. *
Karen Gracia, CEO/Partner
GTO Management
@karengarcia

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What is an API?
•API stands for Application Programming
Interface and it specifies the way a
program can interact with an application.
•Used properly, APIs streamline your day-
to-day business activities, freeing you to
do more important things.
•Sounds mysterious and scary, but really
isn’t.

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• Most networks provide API access for both merchants and
affiliates
• Use of APIs requires a set of credentials usually involving
an IP address, API key, and a token
• APIs can be used to create in-house tools that access and
interact with data on the network in real time
• They can also be used to plot data from multiple networks
into a single dashboard
• All data is not created equal: often networks provide
additional data in APIs that is unavailable in their interface
• You -will- need to know how to code in order to use APIs,
however all is not lost!

22. *
• Reporting
• Applications and Affiliate Management
• Transactions and Reconciliation
• Consumer Promotions
• Data Retention
• Affiliate API

23. *
• Depending on the network, the KPIs you need to track
might be on several different reports or worse, they could
be something you manually have to count.
• Generate easy pulls of data by date
• Aggregate data by KPI. Want to calculate your activation
rate without counting lines for the week? For the month?
For a specific segment of your program?
• Set up data pulls for comparison to previous periods
(WOW, MOM, YOY)
• Pull reports to push into other internal services, such as
internal attribution reporting or to send a monthly report
of revenues by state to the finance department.

24. *
• Approve or decline affiliates
• Search through your affiliates by specific parameters. For
example, in CJ you can search for all joined publishers
who have listed their promotional method as email.
• Keep notes on specific affiliates outside of the network.
Especially handy when the network does not provide a
space for notes.

25. *
Processing voids, returns, and cancellations manually can be a real
hassle at best and can be a disaster at worst. Miss the cut off
and you're stuck paying commission on orders you didn't make
any money on yourself. Also, processing all your reconciliation at
once can wreak havoc on your EPC and return rates in the
network, making your program appear unpalatable to potential
affiliates.
• Process real-time voids or edits to transactions as they occur
• Set up recurring commissions like subscriptions
• Easily flag transactions for review based upon criteria you set

26. *
Often promotions come to managers last minute and,
especially during high volume periods, they can frequently
change with very little notice. APIs can shorten your
launch time from hours to just minutes or even seconds.
• Push multiple deals into a deal feed simultaneously
• Schedule deals to push automatically
• Push deal edits into an existing deal. Especially useful
when products go out of stock or when promotion end
dates are extended and you have multiple deals that need
to be edited quickly.

27. *
• Pull and save data from the network to your own servers
• Some networks only provide data for a certain time period
or have date restrictions on reports
• Storing historical data can be useful if you end a
relationship with a network
• Networks often restrict the number of API calls per month.
Saving data once or twice a day to your own servers and
then running PHP code against this saved data will save
you network calls.

28. *
Many similar reports are available for affiliates via network
APIs as well. Familiarize yourself with what is available so
you can assist affiliates.
• Transaction and Commission Reports
• Find merchants with products based on keywords
• Acquire all new merchant banners for a specific merchant

29. *
• Choose an API task
• What is it for?
• What does it need to do?
• Locate the API calls needed
• Determine any data that
needs to be stored
• Decide on output
• Code
• Network sample code
• Test
• Enjoy your free time

30. *
Kush Abdulloev, Affiliate Program Manager
VMInnovations
@khushbaht

31. *
• Purpose of your
affiliate
program:
• why does it
exist?
• Set Goals Based
on Your Purpose
• Measuring
success (KPIs)
source flickr: BMclvr

32. *
• Affiliates Recruited
• Total affiliates vs active affiliates
• Clicks/visitors
• Orders & AOV
• Conversion Rate & Outliers
• Revenue & Profit
• New vs Existing Customers
• Commission Trends

33. *
*Historical Trends: M/M, Q/Q, Y/Y

34. *
• Google
• Forums and Review Sites
• Social Media
• Conferences: ASW, SAS-TT
• For Attendees Only: shhh…

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*Download the detailed version here: goo.gl/fyc57t