Share
March 13, 2023

Myth Busters: Managing Client Expectations and Success

If you paid attention in middle school you might remember Sisyphus from Greek mythology. He’s the one who got forced to roll a boulder to the top of a hill only to have it slip and roll down, repeating the loop as eternal punishment from Hades.

Moral of the story is that meaningless tasks, although time and energy consuming, get us nowhere. Similarly, creating a plan to reach success, without any experience in the field, is bound to be futile. While we all know mythology isn’t true, just stories that teach us life lessons, there are a lot of modern myths we do believe and let inform our decision making. 

Every client that comes to Advertise Purple wants at least money or recognition, most often both. They want increased brand awareness and conversions and have a path to success mapped out in their heads. They make this plan based on myths about affiliate without understanding the industry fully. Our team works with clients individually to develop an exceptional understanding of the client’s wants and needs, but managing client success often requires debunking a lot of these myths in order to move forward and actually hit the client’s objectives.

MYTH NO. 1 – THE CLIENT IS ALWAYS RIGHT

When a client has an idea in their head of what their affiliate program will look like prior to going into it, rarely is their concept the reality. Affiliate is still new to marketing and it’s highly unpredictable to those on the outside. But a decade in the industry teaches you a few things. Our team knows best on how to navigate each channel and adjust strategy to hit client targets. And (spoiler alert!) it isn’t the strategy the client made for themselves. If it was, we wouldn’t have a job! While we accommodate as many client requests as we can, sometimes the vision has to shift in order to drive performance.

MYTH NO. 2 – IF I DON’T SEE PERFORMANCE, AFFILIATE ISN’T FOR ME

First off, you won’t see $1M in your account overnight with affiliate. It takes a couple months to build out an affiliate portfolio and that’s just the start. But if it’s been a while and a client isn’t seeing as high performance as they wanted it’s back to the drawing board. We scope out top-performing affiliates that aren’t in their program and find short term promotional opportunities to drive additional traffic. And if push comes to shove, in order to really drive conversions we might present a client with publisher types they previously weren’t considering with the data and examples to support it.

MYTH NO. 3 – CONTENT IS KING

The top client request overall is content. Everybody loves the idea of exposure to millions through mass media publishers. What most clients don’t realize is that content only accounts for about 4% of total affiliate performance. While content is great for brand awareness, it isn’t what’s driving conversions. Content might spark a purchase later on, but if a user isn’t using the affiliate link there’s no way to track that conversion. 

MYTH NO. 4 – SHOPPING SITES CHEAPEN MY BRAND

Loyalty and shopping sites get a bad rep but they continually outperform any other affiliate type. Client’s might think being on a coupon site will water down their brand but in reality, millions of consumers need that promotion in order to drive their purchase decision – and we have the data to back that statement. Communicating this to clients is extremely important when they aren’t seeing the level of performance they want, but have been hesitant to onboard anyone outside content.

MYTH NO. 5 – BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS ARE ONLY A TRANSACTION

Sure, business relationships have give and take on both sides – the client pays us and in exchange we manage their account. But that isn’t where we stop. We build our client relationships on the same foundation as any other relationship – trust, respect, transparency, and active listening. If our team didn’t genuinely understand the company and and care about the person on the other side of the phone call they would not perform as well as they do. 

Our team does so well because they listen to the client’s concerns and take the time to understand who the brand is so they can choose affiliates that fit that image and target. There are thousands of affiliates with the potential to reach millions. But they won’t all be the perfect fit for most brands. The art of building a brand-affiliate relationship is understanding both parties, what they represent, and being able to identify compatibility. Our recommendations come tried and true because every strategy is backed by over a decade of affiliate campaign data.

A special thanks to Account Director Emma S. for sharing how she personally navigates managing clients. She believes benevolence and communication are the key to any successful relationship. We pride ourselves in the bonds we create with our clients. We aren’t only proud of what we do as an agency. We’re proud of what our clients are doing in their respective industries and want to share those accomplishments on every platform we can! There is no universal mold for building an affiliate program. That’s why it’s so important to consider the client as an individual with a unique story, goals, and path to success.

Are you getting started in affiliate marketing or looking to improve your current program?

Contact us
Recent Posts
Categories
Tags

INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE?

Submit your email and a partnership coordinator will be in touch.
We promise we won’t spam you!

Wait, before you go!

Enter your name and email address for instant access to our
Free E-book
Page load
Exit intent