AdCombo Affiliate Department: Meet the superheroes without capes!
It’s time to get to know the workflow of AdCombo better!
In the first article, we told you about the processes in our affiliate department, which are usually hidden from prying eyes: what happens when an affiliate manager quits or gets sick, stages of employee selection, building B2B relationships, their impact on affiliates, and many other interesting things!
If you haven’t read it yet,
now’s the time to follow the link!
We want to introduce you closely to our superheroes without capes, but with another ability – to respond to your messages from day to night! To those who bring you the best payouts and help pick the creatives with the highest CR – our affiliate managers!
We asked each of them questions and got very interesting and fun answers. Find your manager and meet the others!
What does a manager need to succeed?
I think the basic things are patience, being able to google, and loving to communicate!
Who is the perfect affiliate?
Affiliate who understands his/her traffic and knows outcomes (not expecting a 90% AR on pop-traffic). He/She doesn’t try to mix traffic, understands that managers are not robots, and they need a rest, and has time for it too. And of course, he doesn’t use forbidden creatives.
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
To be honest, I’m not particularly annoyed by anything… except those who don’t look for answers themselves, but instead rely on others all the time.
Stress can be dealt with in different ways, such as: spending time outdoors or doing your favorite thing. For example, if a person likes to sit in a café, they can take a laptop with them and work with a cup of coffee in the hand.
How do you keep a work-life balance?
Yes, I can keep it. Life is only one, you need to remember it. If you are not satisfied with your job, if you don’t like it, it’s time to change it!
If you love what you do, it becomes part of life. Life = work, and voilà, the balance is here!
Your top three work principles
1. Google is your best friend. Google first, then ask your colleagues. The more you google, the more you know;
2. Information is everything, but you must know how to organize it correctly and make it clear to everyone. Otherwise, there may be misunderstanding. For example, an affiliate may think that the “average AR on the offer” = “guaranteed approval rate” and claim for compensation;
3. Be quick and brief. All meetings and calls with the team should be held quickly, do not waste managers’ time on long negotiations because partners wait for them in chats.
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
I don’t have affiliates at the moment, but I am a member of almost all the chats with top affs. I used to have 200 affiliates.
I often see, for example, a manager is having a work call and at the same time an affiliate is asking for an urgent answer. Of course, affiliates are always a priority for us, but you need to understand that there are other tasks. For example, activating accounts, or communicating with other partners. To get feedback from advertisers we usually need to wait for some time, so, please, be patient.
And do not forget about the overall workload: each manager has at least 20 active chats every day. All your questions he or she will surely answer, so please wait a bit
Were there any funny stories in your work life?
There are a lot of such stories!
Once my affiliate chose another manager after he had found out I had a boyfriend ¯\(°_o)/¯
Plenty of affiliates don’t believe that a girl manager can set up the API herself, so they ask for tech support to be added to the chat.
Funny situations often happen at conferences. For example, three years ago, Ella and I flew from a conference in Bangkok. It was a long, eight-hour flight. I looked out the window and saw that another plane was flying right into ours! Ella was asleep, and I would rather not wake her up, I thought the end was near… When she woke up and saw my huge, frightened eyes, she asked me what had happened. I said that another plane was flying toward us. We looked closely, and it was just the light reflected from the wing! I was shocked （⊙ｏ⊙）
In my opinion, the most interesting thing about the job is the people. Realizing how different everyone is. There was an incident at the Posh’n’Porsche Party. My affiliate couldn’t come to the drawing because of a COVID-19, so he participated online. He was ranked 23rd in the Top-50 and didn’t have much expectation of winning prizes. On the night of the drawing, he went about his business, completely forgetting about the prizes, and he didn’t answer my call. I had to call him 100 times from Dubai to tell him about winning Porsche 718 Boxster S!
There is another situation. At our meetup, I came up to say hello to an affiliate, and he instantly responded: “My manager is Anna, I don’t want to change her”
That time I realized that it’s not easy for affiliates that many managers try to “hunt” them all the time, and it seems to happen even among colleagues from the same CPA network.
What does a manager need to succeed?
In my opinion, the crucial things here are eternal curiosity and the desire to discover something new, because the CPA niche is dynamically developing and constantly changing.
Who is the perfect affiliate?
The answer is obvious ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
The one who drives 100% of his traffic to AdCombo!
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
The inability to solve an affiliate’s problem quickly.
And then there’s the huge number of work calls. They can last for 1.5 or even 2 hours! This is very distracting from support partners, unfortunately.
How do you keep your work-life balance?
1. Focus on your primary responsibilities and tasks;
2. Limit the end of the day (although I often get back to work chats at about 9 pm, because of the inspiration to continue);
3. Make the most out of weekends!
What are your top three work principles?
Discipline, honesty, and teamwork!
* And as a bonus, here’s my fourth principle: work with your favorite music.
Here is a cool and energizing track – OVERWERK – Daybreak. Enjoy ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°)
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
It depends on the affiliate’s request. Some issues cannot be resolved immediately, like when you have to pass on a request to an advertiser or colleagues from other departments.
Partners need to understand that we are trying to end the problem with a win-win result, and this takes time.
We have over 130 000 partners and only 11 managers. It is obvious that it is physically impossible to solve a huge number of issues at once.
Were there any funny stories in your work life?
Of course! For example, once I celebrated New Year under anesthesia (⊙_◎)
What does a manager need to succeed?
He or she needs to be an extrovert!
Who is the perfect affiliate?
In my opinion, like this: the one who steadily runs traffic and who is polite and tactful.
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
I don’t like it when personal boundaries are violated. And Caps Lock in messages and question marks in a separate message (►__◄)
How do you keep your work-life balance?
Going out to the woods once in a while helps a little to keep that balance
Especially after noisy conferences
What are your top three work principles?
1. Suggest only really top offers;
2. Do the best to help affiliates (regardless of their traffic volume);
3. To communicate in a polite and friendly way.
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
Because the manager is a human, not a bot
And occasionally you need to wait a bit to get a useful response.
Were there any curious moments in your work?
When we raffled the very first car together with the CTR Network, someone decided that the mysterious id 170 – was mine. They wrote to me on social media congratulating!
What does a manager need to succeed?
I think the expression, “Start small, think big and go fast” is very suitable here.
Who is the perfect affiliate?
The ideal affiliate is a friend. It’s easy to communicate with him or her. We can find common ground and grow together.
It’s an affiliate that understands all the nuances of media buying, makes adequate requests, runs traffic when he or she promises, and gives feedback on the ad campaign experience.
He (She)’s not afraid of trying new verticals and GEOs. He (she) is not interested in having small volumes as the main aim is to scale up: to launch a higher-volume campaigns and make more profit.
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
Most of all it annoys me when we expend a lot of effort, time, energy, and nerves, and the result does not meet expectations.
Usually, we have to go back to the beginning, analyze, understand why we didn’t get the desired result, and then start all over again.
What helps me to cope with stress? The result! When you see the outcome of the teamwork, satisfied affiliate users, and constantly growing traffic!
Also, digital detox helps me get energized.
How do you keep your work-life balance?
I think it’s quite possible to combine life with work, but sometimes it can be hard.
Once I was getting ready for a concert, but I had to leave for a work trip to Dubai the week before the show. I didn’t perform that time. It’s all about priorities and personal choices.
What are your top three work principles?
1. Passion;
2. Sustainability;
3. Initiative.
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
Because many people write at the same time. If you try to answer all of them at once, you get a huge flow of information that must be processed immediately. Thus, this causes a quality loss and a negative impact on the number of requests processed.
To deal with it, I rank the incoming requests according to the FIFO (First In – First Out) principle. This helps me solve various issues quickly and efficiently.
What does a manager need to succeed?
I think the main things are desire to help, patience, strong nerves, and, of course, an interest in the niche!
Who is the perfect affiliate?
It’s great when an affiliate launches campaigns for all the offers he or she asks for. And even better when the aff gets a good profit (◔◡◔)
In general, it’s an affiliate with no problems in communication. And if he/she has questions, they try to deal with them and ask for help only in crucial moments.
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
It’s very frustrating when partners ask for a bump and don’t launch a campaign.
Another option is when you find yourself between two fires: affiliate and advertiser (e.g., when the advertiser doesn’t want to give lead caps), the manager should perform a miracle of diplomacy.
How do you keep a work-life balance? Are you good at it?
I’m not, so I can’t give any advice here, but I do my best!
What are your top three work principles?
1. Commitment to work;
2. Patience;
3. The ethics of communication.
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
Some questions take more time to be answered because you have to wait for feedback from another department or an advertiser.
Also, to solve some issues, you need to chat with several people at once, which also affects the response time.
Were there any curious moments in your work?
Once we were caught in a very terrible storm. There was a strong crosswind, the plane was shifting. Passengers’ were on the edge of nerves.
Ella asked me at the time: “Nina, are you afraid?”
And I said, “Yes, I’m worried about passport control!” =D
What does a manager need to succeed?
A sedative pills and a sense of humor (I guess)
And, of course, being a responsible person with nice communication skills who can easily handle difficult situations! (¬‿¬)
Who is the perfect affiliate?
The one who doesn’t ask for top offers on Friday or Saturday night! (◕‿◕)
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
How do I deal with stress? This is a question I haven’t found an answer to yet.
It’s very annoying to have disrespectful communication, and when some affiliates think the manager is a servant.
How do you keep a work-life balance?
You need to remember to take care of yourself and take time for yourself!
What are your top three work principles?
1. I trust my intuition
2. Hope for the best, but be ready for the worst;
3. If you don’t like something about your job, remember how you make impulse purchases and cheer yourself after receiving a paycheck, it gets easier!
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
In Indian mythology, there is a multi-armed God, Shiva. So we aren’t alike!
What does a manager need to succeed?
I think that the following skills are important: communication, interest in the niche, and the ability to choose a good offer.
Who is the perfect affiliate?
Someone who doesn’t ask questions without thinking. First of all, he/she tries to find the answer and only after failure asks for help. And, of course, the one who runs a lot of traffic.
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
Sometimes affiliates ask the same questions, the answers to which can be found in the chat history!
And it’s also unpleasant when they start arguing about payout rates. Affiliates compare them with other partners and teams, who have better payouts, and then say: “If you give us such rates, we’ll bring you 10 leads”. It is hard to explain that payouts may be different for numerous objective reasons.
How do you keep a work-life balance?
My recipe: to have clear boundaries of working hours. But in practice, this is not always possible, because there are also force majeure situations when you have to start work earlier or finish later.
What are your top three work principles?
1. Tactfulness;
2. Communicability;
3. Unobtrusiveness.
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
Sometimes partners ask for the information they can find in their personal accounts, but they ask the manager anyway. The AM begins to gather the information. Collecting all the data on just one affiliate request (usually you need information on several offers, not just one) takes a lot of time. So it is not always possible to respond quickly.
Were there any curious moments in your work?
There was a case when partners asked to raise the payout rate. It seemed like a normal situation, but actually they already had a higher rate. And the guys were asking for more. They requested a few more dollars to the payout that they already had!
What does a manager need to succeed?
Strong nerves! And count to 10 before answering （￣︶￣）
Who is the perfect affiliate?
Since I work mostly with Latin American affiliates, for me the perfect affiliate is probably an affiliate from one of the Latin American countries.
How do you cope with stress?
As I said earlier, most of my affiliates are from LATAM. They are ambitious people who work hard for a better life and their families. When they send me pictures of their new apartment, car, and their happy families, I get very excited about them!
And when things aren’t well, I know that our work isn’t just about money. It’s more about goals and ambitions, but it’s also about happy families on my beloved continent!
Making some people happier gets me happier in return!)
How do you keep a work-life balance?
Hmmm… I haven’t heard of it. Does it have a good CR? (´▽｀)
What are your top three work principles?
To breathe and to love people. And when I can’t love, I just keep breathing.
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
We try very hard. But even managers sometimes need sleep and food breaks. We’re honestly trying to cut them
Were there any curious moments in your work?
In Panama, on a layover from Colombia, border guards were looking for drugs in parts of our roll-up. Let them search as much as they want since I had nothing to hide! But when all the construction tubes were being tapped… It was a bit thrilling.
At the border control in Colombia, I had to download a local app, which I could not download at once. In the end, the officer asked me to open the browser version of it. As you can imagine, when I opened Safari, of course, it was an adult landing page with gifs...
Last year, right after a meetup, everything in Columbia was closed for 3 days because of the quarantine. I arranged the meetup and was sure there would be no lockdown. Anyhow, I could buy food somewhere. But it couldn’t! Absolutely EVERYTHING was closed. Even the delivery service didn’t work. I had to eat one guanabana that my affiliate had given me. And a couple of chocolates from my favorite affiliates that didn’t let me die as a hungry worker! \^o^/
What does a manager need to succeed?
I think the base is friendly communication, diligence, and
an unlimited a bit of patience!
Who is the perfect affiliate?
The perfect affiliate is someone who is easy to communicate with. And if such an affiliate also has skills in affiliate marketing, it’s great!
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
I can understand everybody, so nothing greatly annoys me. Well, if the nervous system needs a recharge- chamomile tea or even dry white wine can be helpful!
Do you manage to keep your work-life balance?
Yes, luckily I do! ;-)
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
During my off-hours, my computer is out of my reach. As soon as I get to it, I can answer my affs even at midnight.
But during working hours, I always reply within half an hour.
Were there any curious moments in your work?
I don’t have, I think that’s good (◠‿◠)
What does a manager need to succeed?
To provide your team with quick and precise answers.
Who is the perfect affiliate?
The perfect affiliate handles quality traffic, brings in lots of relevant leads, and has a super high ROI!
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
I think the best remedy for irritability is kindness, respect, and patience.
And I handle stress with a nice cup of coffee.
Do you manage to keep your work-life balance?
After work, I usually go to the gym with my wife and also walk with my dog. It all helps a lot!
What are your top three work principles?
1. Punctuality;
2. Efficiency;
3. Responsibility.
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
It is not always possible to answer instantly because sometimes we have many chats with the affs at the same time. Some more difficult issues need a bit more time for getting a resolution.
Many partners ask questions at the same time, so it’s not always possible to answer immediately.
And some requests take quite a long time to be processed, thus, the response time increases.
Were there any curious moments in your work?
Once, a customer paid for a cream delivered to his house. And then he registered one more time to order two more products within the 3-for-2 promotion.
What does a manager need to succeed?
The manager needs to be aware of things that he/she works with. There is also a need to be flexible because of working with different people at the same time.
Who is the perfect affiliate?
I guess that the ideal affiliate is someone who is available at any time, knows about the affiliate marketing niche and understands what it is.
What irritates you while working? How do you cope with stress?
Repeating questions is a problem. Sometimes affiliates see a long text in the FAQ section, where everything is thoroughly explained, but they don’t want to read it, as it’s easier to keep asking the same question.
How do you keep a work-life balance?
Everything is possible if you have the right schedule. From time to time you have to sacrifice your free time in favor of work, but you can handle it.
What are your top three work-life principles?
1. Do what scares you;
2. Be responsible;
3. Always be on time.
Why is it not always possible to answer affiliates quickly?
It’s impossible to answer all affiliates at once as managers have other affiliates to work with. And don’t forget about the tasks within the department (reports, work calls, for example), they take quite a lot of time.
Were there any curious moments in your work?
I can’t recall any curiosities, but I can tell you what I do observe with great interest.
Sometimes affiliates choose unpopular offers. Usually, everyone prefers top offers, but some affs go against the stream and choose something completely non-mainstream. It’s the desire to try and take a risk, that’s what I like!
