Forum Moderators: skibum
It is an under developed market and with several 1000 programs there are probably only a few hundred good AM's. Many companies throw affiliate management in with everything else (I speak from experience). About 99% of affiliate programs fail because the company has failed to insure that the site is converting. And that they have something that affiliates are seeking.
If you have business in hand then you are ahead of the game, if you have a group of loyal affiliates onboard then you are a winner. If you are planning to solicit for business then it takes months to convert a client to a contract and then they better have a 6 month budget to achieve ROI!
Chuck, I'd venture to say that that's kind of a high figure for *really* good ones. And IMHO there's a big difference between in-house AMs and OPMs.
Ian, being great as an affiliate doesn't necessarily take quite the same skill-set and personality that being a great OPM takes.
And in commission-based sales management scenarios, over-rides on commissions can be mighty sweet - in the B&M world, anyway. Personality factors can be a big element in developing and maintaining a "following" - which OPMs have to get, whereas affiliates don't need to; so aside from negotiating skills, affiliates don't need personality factors working for them.
