Affiliate Marketing is all about referral sales … sales that are generated as a direct result of an affiliate’s efforts to market the merchant’s product or services.

Affiliates do all the marketing up to and including, leading the potential client to the merchant’s website. But, it’s 100% up to the merchant to convert that lead into a sale.

If the merchant pays affiliates based on the actual sales they generate, then be forewarned that affiliates will be looking at the merchant’s website for its sales conversion potential.

An Affiliate Manager’s job is to keep the merchant’s affiliate program active, updated and thriving. Their job is to keep the affiliates motivated on the merchant’s behalf and to keep the affiliates informed of all new ad campaigns and any changes to the merchant’s program.

Typically Affiliate Managers are the ones who write the newsletter to the merchant’s affiliates and distribute that newsletter to the merchant’s email list of affiliates.

I’ve seen most outsourced affiliate management companies assign as many as 10 affiliate programs to one Affiliate Manager, but typically 4-5 is a full workload for a good Outsourced Affiliate Manager.