Some skills of an affiliate marketer

 Affiliate marketing itself is not something you learn at university or business school. It's what you might call learning on the job. However, there are a number of skills that are required to become an affiliate marketer. Find out about them here.

Technical know-how

To get started as an affiliate manager, it is imperative to have some basic technical knowledge. If you want to know how much an affiliate marketer earns, look at these guys. Whether it's deep link generation or tracking implementation, affiliate marketing is first and foremost, besides the people business, a technical business. Technical problems of varying magnitude occur regularly, at the advertiser, the publishers or the networks. You must be able to handle everything.

Social skills

Social and communication skills are essential in affiliate marketing. The industry and the number of players are quite small. We know and like each other, we meet regularly at conferences and roundtables. The point here is to get involved, to start discussions, in order to remain positive and competent in the minds of as many players in the industry as possible.

Negotiation skills

If one were to sum up affiliate networks in a picture, they could best be described as a potential wholesale market. Wholesalers (merchants) enter into cooperation agreements with a large number of intermediaries (affiliates), through which products are to be delivered to the end customer. As it should be for a proper marketplace, there are hardly any fixed prices. Whether it's publishers' commissions, subsidies for advertising costs or placements, nothing is set in stone for all time. With a good sense of negotiation, it is often possible to adjust the terms.

Decisiveness

Almost every day, promotional offers from networks, publishers and merchants arrive in each other's mailboxes. As an advertiser, do I book a placement with a publisher? As a publisher, do I offer an action for the advertiser's end customer on my site? Final decisions have to be made constantly, often in a very short time frame. A good affiliate manager must not rely solely on his or her instincts.