Running a successful Affiliate Program requires more than a good network and software. The overall success is based on the combination of two things: First, the capability of a program manager to recruit, motivate and communicate with their affiliate marketing partners in order to achieve the objective of driving programs forward. Second, the efficient allocation of resources for creative and programming development. Affiliate marketing is not a stand alone system. It requires an integrated approach.

AMWSO's Award winning affiliate marketing management team has a proven track record in supporting, design and development, and affiliate marketing management. We offer a turnkey solution to provide companies with an instant cost effective marketing channel. Our system allows companies to select from a range of support options depending on the size of the program and its projected needs.

The AMWSO Affiliate Management service can be broken down into the following processes, which, in the case of a co-managed program, can be divided between the in-house and AMWSO teams:

Scope of Service
AMWSO provides full service solutions for Affiliate Marketing Management and Development for our clients, which covers all aspects of affiliate management including:

1. Pre-Launch;
2. Launch Services;
3. Core Management Service;
4. Creative Development Service, and
5. Programming Development Service.

Pre-Launch Services
Prior to launching a program, your site and products are presented to a team of professional affiliates to get their input and opinion on whether your product should do well, what needs to be changed on the site, and what, if anything, they would like to see from you in terms of support tools and affiliate based features. AMWSO performs the following services:

• Conduct competitive analysis;
• Network review;
• Network competitor insights;
• Key target partner review, and
• Initial recruiting and commission structure recommendations.

Launch Services

• Initial recruiting and commission structure recommendations;
• Affiliate communication strategy;
• Development of Affiliate Support Site Design and Content;
• Development of Support Forum Design, and
• Completion of "Pre-launch" checklist provided by Affiliate Network.

If deployed a support site can include, but is not limited to, the following core areas :

• Welcome page;
• What's new / in progress section;
• Support forum links;
• Points of contact;
• Recommended product links;
• FAQs;
• Best sellers lists;
• Partner bonus section;
• Coupons updates;
• Content usage and support, and
• Links to other relevant in-house or AMWSO tools.

Core Management Service : Affiliate Recruiting

• Broad based and strategic affiliate recruitment "LinkShare," external new targets, external competitor targets, external position enhancement;
• Affiliate evaluation, and
• Manual affiliate application approval.

Core Management Service : Affiliate Management

• Affiliate Manager ;
• Affiliate communications;
     * Daily replies;
     * Activation;
     * New Affiliate welcomes and 'get rolling' suggestions;
     * Template Sites;
     * Feature / Marketing Strategy Launch;
• Ongoing "Super Affiliate" account management;
• Daily affiliate support;
• Handle affiliate's technical and program related questions;
• Affiliate segmentation;
• Campaign development;
     * Incentives;
     * Contests;
     * Themes / Seasons;
• Daily presence and activity on the core affiliate forums;
• Daily presence on dedicated forum - If applicable;
• Payment management - If requested;
     * Payment Approval;
     * International manual payment holds (High Threshold Requests);
     * Potential fraudulent commission payment holds.

Core Management Service : Network Management

• Work directly with the affiliate network support contacts - if applicable;
• Program analysis and optimization;
• Affiliate segmentation and promotion analysis;
• Updating and maintenance of affiliate resource/support site;
• Suggest improvements or report problems with the program;
• Write and send a monthly affiliate newsletter;
• Maintain the content of your affiliate FAQ and support pages;
• Generate ideas for new links, banners and affiliate marketing materials;
• Develop ongoing promotions and incentives;
• Strategies for activating affiliates and retaining existing affiliates.

Creative Development Services
Affiliates have demanding requirements when it comes to the creation of custom banners, full page HTML marketing, templates, and other supporting creative. AMWSO supports all creative development in-house as part of our affiliate management service, meaning that clients never need to create banners or worry about the extra support required, it is fully catered. Furthermore, all creative material developed by AMWSO may be used by the client outside of the direct affiliate marketing channel as required.

Copy Development Services
Most affiliates are aware that quality web sites are dependent on the content they provide; however, many affiliates do not posses the creative skills necessary to produce unique and accurate content for their own sites. When an affiliate approaches a network for relevant content, many respond by allowing access to content that resides on the network site. This is a quick and easy solution, but it is only a superficial solution. Deploying content, or using content, on a large-scale basis only serves to devaluate the content in the long term. The content is no longer unique to a specific site. It is no longer a value-added service when content is utilized to this extent. In actuality, it becomes stale and has a negative affect on the site's search engine positioning. AMWSO maintains in-house copy and content development services capable of providing unique and fresh content.

Affiliate PPC Brand Compliance Management
The bigger your brand the easier it is for an affiliate to make money from you by doing little more than targeting your brand through PPC keywords. The more deceptive methods of domain targeting, traffic interception and cannibalization of your natural traffic are prevalent. AMWSO can add an extra level of service and security to ensure that affiliate programs are clean and fully focused on value added sales, not cannibalized sales. Ensuring compliance enforcement can help a company save a lot in fraudulently claimed commissions.

PPC Management Services
One of the largest challenges faced by a marketing team is ensuring that all marketing channels "complement" each other rather than "compete" against each other. This is especially true in the area of PPC and Affiliate Marketing where affiliates and merchants often end up bidding against each other for the same key words, resulting in the division of profit for everyone. Even within a company, a channel manager's desire to succeed can come at the cost of another channel instead of benefiting the company. As a result, there is limited impartiality when it comes to enforcing compliance.

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