1- Although so many skills required for affiliate managers, the most important one is to be have a good relationship with affiliates. Be a good communicator and account manager. Do your best to be problem-solver. If you don't enjoy dealing with people, you better reconsider your career.

2- Make sure you know your product inside out . No matter what product you are promoting (casino, poker, bingo, sports betting), register and play ALL products at least once. Also, make sure you try out competitor products (Don't worry, it doesn't mean you'll become a gambler). Tell your affiliates about your experience playing at your site. Be honest and POSITIVE about it!

3-       Organize your week! Keep a note about each of your affiliates. You’ll have four types of affiliate and you need to remember which affiliate is in what stage, as well as what you last spoke to them about. 

                   -  Prospect* Affiliates

                     - Lead* Affiliates

                     - New* Affiliates and

                      - Existing Affiliates

*These names could vary with different companies, but they all in the same structure.

- Prospect Affiliates are the ones that you find through search engine or links. These are the affiliates you will need to cold call and persuade to sign up. Make sure you consistently add to your prospect list and set aside some of your week for this task.

- Lead Affiliates are the ones you have sent the initial email - most of the gaming affiliates will not have a phone number to contact, so you'll make the initial contact by email. Once you send them email, don't forget to send them follow up email. If they don't get back to you for your first 3-4 email, stop sending email but go back again after 4-5 months, as they may want to have a fresh breath air on their website and give you a try. When you do speak to them, have your ‘sales’ pitch organised and ready. You will need to educate them on your product and persevere. However, if they get back to you with a straight answer ''NO'', you may not want to bother them anymore. 

-  New Affiliates are the one who have agreed to sign up after you have contacted them, or have found the site and registered themselves. Once they register, make sure you check their website to make sure they have put your banners live. If they haven't, send them a quick note to chase them up and always ask if you can help, or if there is anything they need anything from you. Also, make sure you find out the way they prefer to be contacted, as many affiliates rather messenger or email.

-  Existing Affiliate: Check existing affiliates websites to make sure they have your banners up (they might remove your banners after a while, or have out-of-date creative in place), and if they have the latest information about your product. Always cross-sell… if they are promoting one of your product (poker, for instance) and if they have a page to promote casino as well, ask them to put up your casino product as well. Providing you have a good relationship with them and the commissions are right, they will usually be receptive. However, DO NOT call up your affiliate after not speaking to them for 2 years and speak to them like they signed up yesterday. Maintain the relationships you have, nurture them and make sure you KEEP NOTES on what you have been speaking to them about.

The Affiliate department in every company is different. Some have search and sales people who do the affiliate search and recruitment and you deal with affiliate relationship after they have signed up. However, it's good for you to have the skills to manage all attributes of the relationship.

         4- Carefully check an affiliate's website. Check which banners are used on the website, what kind of information they have on the website and check the review content they have written or used. Remember, it's not only you contacting them. They will generally be in contact with numerous affiliate managers. You can stand out in the crowd by adding value – meaning, if you know about their site, what they do and can be helpful on new additions, new creative etc and let them know that you take an interest in exactly what they do, they will be more inclined to work with you then another affiliate manager who does not provide this service. If what they need is not instantly at hand you should be able to send it via email immediately.

          5- When you check one website, check their Links section as well. You may find more prospect affiliate links there.

          6- If you don’t already have one, create a document of contents that covers all the useful information about your product, which you can send to affiliates as a tool to help them. This document should includes at least:  

   -1 long description of the company and products ( More than 250 words);

    - 1 short description and

     - General information about your product (What software you use, bonus information, number of players, when the company was established, customer service number etc:  http://www.thequeenspoker.com/content/view/30/67/).

       - A selection of screenshots of your product. If it is Poker, send them one screen shot from table and one from the lobby.

Prepare this document, as it will help you when you are recruiting new affiliates, as a point of reference. Also, you can then send it out to affiliates as a professional presentation and description of your product and why they should join your program.

It often takes time for an affiliate to visit your website and get banners or links live. If you have collected information and can show content immediately for your product, this will speed up that process. If you want to see your banners up and running immediately on affiliate's website, make sure you make it easy and quick for affiliate to do so. Remember: content is the key for website traffic, so send them as much content as they need.

       7- Get them on your MSN. You are their account manager, so let them contact you whenever they need you. Remember, affiliate management is all about relationships. Be nice, kind, understanding, helpful and informative about your product.

        8-       Do your competitive analysis! Know your rivals, what they pay in commissions, what languages they offer, what tools they offer, how easy to sign up for affiliates etc. You can even create a free website and test how quickly they respond to their affiliate. It's not difficult! Try it!! Also, when you speak to a prospective affiliate and they tell you something about one of your competitors, you should be ready to say: ''oh, yes, I've seen it. It's great, isn't it! We do the same but it works like this… ''. For example, an affiliate might say, ''I can get content from Titan directly from their system!'' and you could say, ''we send content as well but because we want to talk to our affiliates, we prefer to send by email''

         9-   Attend networking parties… and don't be not-worker! Meet as many affiliate as you can with your beautifully smiley face J It is important that you understand what type of affiliate you are talking to. Be a face, not a voice – relationships work better that way!

       Some affiliates are real webmasters… code experts!  As they spend most of their time with their PC, they might not like talking. Don't give negative reaction when that happens! Smile and be down to earth and talk to them. Get to know what drives them - some affiliates are good at business and use someone else to create their website, or buy an existing affiliate website. When you speak to these people, it may be better to approach them from a business perspective.

         Some affiliates are bloggers. So, these will either be real, or professional, players who give accounts of their play across various sites and live tournaments. They understand the sites, games and rules and they make money while they share their knowledge using blogs. They can also be more social sites, with groups of friends who share information between themsleves. These guys displays the latest bonus information and banners. They are less interested in the structure of the website or SEO. As long as they have a tracking code, they are happy.

          10-  Know your system and commission structures inside out. Make sure you explain clearly what you commission structure is. If you are new to the business, work hard, learn and practice until you feel confident about it. -Nothing is wrong talking with mirror as long as no one sees you.

         11-  Learn basic rules for how to increase traffic for websites. Learn basic tips for SEO, email marketing and social bookmarks. Affiliate will respect and like you more if you feed them information that they need and if they realise you understand their business as well as yours. It would be very interesting to talk about SEO rather than talking about how great your company is. Internet marketing is not only about affiliate marketing! One good link to suggest is http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com

           12- Newsletters:  when you inform your affiliate of the latest bonus offer or tournament details, send them a short explanation as well as a link to online details.  You’ll be surprised how quickly your latest bonus information is on their website. Remember, content is vital for them and fresh content will allow the affiliate to drive more traffic. Webmasters need content but they are not always the editors. Help them with the content!!

            13-  Make sure you have a good, reliable and updated RSS feed for poker tournaments!

            14-  Lastly and most importantly, make absolutely sure that you send your affiliate payments on time. Affiliates rely on these payments to re-invest it back into their business and so send you more traffic. Prompt payments help create a snowball to bigger volumes, more players and more profit.

We hope you’ll find our information useful.

If you are looking for affiliate managers job – in anywhere-, contact us on This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and we’ll do our best to find you the best suitable job.

The Queen’s Poker