Senior Affiliate Manager

Reports to: SVP of Distribution

Location: Remote USA, excluding Colorado

Position Overview

The Senior Affiliate Manager is responsible for managing the day-to-day activities involved with affiliate publishing of Digital Media Solutions advertising campaigns. This role will work closely with the Affiliate Director, Sales Team, and Management to ensure success for both the affiliate and advertiser.

Responsibilities

Communication:

• Develop strong relationships with publishing partners, inquiring about their promotional channels and business success needs
• Communicate with publishing partners to properly match up campaign inventory to available traffic inventory.
• Communicate with publishing partners via email, Skype, phone, etc. to document crucial communications such as immediate campaign expirations, caps and other time sensitive items
• Respond to publisher requests in a timely manner (preferably same business day)
• Effectively relay the goals, values and guidelines of DMS to publishing partners, representing DMS positively
• Utilize compelling sales tactics (stats, conversion, EPC, brand highlights) to encourage publishers to test DMS campaigns and once tested, determine what is needed from publishing partners to scale traffic
• Daily communicate regarding top campaigns, new campaigns and O&O campaigns
• Provide clear guidance of publisher portal including subid reporting, Tipalti, and individual campaign details
• Effectively communicate all campaign restrictions and guidelines to publishing partners, including caps, start and pause dates
• Identify key strategic partners and traffic opportunities, relaying information effectively to the sales team and management while developing an ongoing strategy to solidify priority publishing relationships and maintain traffic volume levels
• Communicate to the sales team and management about publisher traffic trends, source changes, successes and traffic fluctuations partners are experiencing
• Relay payment terms, requirements for payments, dates of payments and process for expedited payment terms approval
• Teach and mentor junior/peer level team members
• Monitor affiliate activity, analyze performance, identify areas of improvement, and recommend ways to increase affiliate-generated revenues
• Understand affiliate traffic sources & user engagement process
• Develop top tier accounts and develop affiliate contact management strategy
• Recruit new affiliates through research, referrals and other avenues
• Set an example for others, establish a leadership attitude amongst your peers

• Provide ongoing support for publishing partners including optimization information, seasonal trends and network highlights
• Effectively communicate with support departments including but not limited to tech, product and finance for client inquiries and immediate needs, especially needs that can impact revenue
• Implement initiatives that enhance publisher productivity, create new growth opportunities and increase ROI
• Provide feedback and ideas for new incentives, bonus and contests to further increase revenue targets
• Participate and provide pertinent information for morning distribution updates
• Learn proper implementation and placement of all traffic source pixels and testing of pixels for publisher tracking
• Occasionally develop content and copy for quick advertiser and compliance approval

• Monitor affiliate activity, analyze performance, identify areas of improvement, and recommend ways to increase affiliate-generated revenues
• Execute optimizations (sub ids, rate adjustments, quality checks with AM and AE, Taking appropriate action on QC)
• Utilize company provided tools to ensure compliance
• Effectively communicate to sales team and management regarding affiliate traffic generated, while matching affiliate traffic to appropriate campaigns; Ensure the target demographic of affiliate traffic matches and aligns with advertiser demographic criteria
• Understand the difference between subprime and A-paper traffic, matching up subprime traffic to advertisers able to monetize subprime traffic and working with the sales team to right price subprime traffic
• Monitor and vet new affiliates, while refraining from permitting promotion to specific verticals or sensitive campaigns (e.g. insurance) until publisher quality and history is proven
• Evaluate publisher compliance history to ensure proper matching of campaign inventory, including but not limited to sensitive brands and lead gen campaigns
• Research publishing partners compliance history utilizing company-provided vetting questions, company-provided CRM, and third party tools such as LinkedIn and Secretary of the State lookups
• Documenting all compliance history in designated company CRM
• SMS (Obtaining signed SMS addendum from publisher that wishes to engage in SMS, audit and document SMS publisher business practices, communicate SMS promotion to advertiser sales team, ensuring end advertisers understand and agree to the traffic they are receiving, obtain all SMS creative copy prior and receiving approval from compliance and advertiser prior to SMS publisher going live)

• Utilize company provided tools, social media and other sources such as industry trade shows and networking events to prospect and recruit new publishing partners
• Actively recruit a pipeline at all times with at least 10 new publisher prospects
• Conduct at least 2 outbound publisher phone calls per day to jumpstart new business
• Recruit publishing partners based on priority company inventory needs, particularly for O&O campaigns, exclusive campaigns and AOR campaigns

• Generate revenue within 90-100% of set monthly margin goals
• Average $100k (approximately) in margin over 3 consecutive months
• If affiliate manager expects to fall below goal, effectively communicate with management what their goal should be and their action plans to improve overall margin over 90 days
• Consistently maintain a diversified portfolio of a minimum of 45 publisher accounts
• Recruit a minimum of 25 new publishers a year
• Maintain healthy profit margins (avg 18% or higher) with a balance of volume and margin; communicate to management before offering margins below 12% with volume and revenue opportunities
• Consistently growing monthly profit margin while diversifying affiliate book
• Use best judgement for daily decisions pertaining to quality, quantity, compliance, payouts and overall traffic viability and performance
• Maintain minimal miscommunication errors or losses due to negligence such as poor judgement with traffic decisions or mismatch of publisher traffic and campaign inventory
• Proactive loss mitigation consistency
• Outreach to new publishing partners, maintaining a diversified traffic portfolio
• Strong knowledge of diversified traffic channels and details included in promotion methods include email, social, display, native, search, PPV and listicle
• Ongoing review and knowledge of publisher traffic, ensuring promotion methods are documented and communicated to sales team and management

• BS/BA degree in marketing, communications, advertising, or business
• 5 + years of prior experience in Media or Affiliate Marketing
• Excellent verbal and written communications skills
• Strong computer skills and proficiency in MS Office, especially Excel
• Self-starter and works well within a team environment
• Strong recruitment and negotiation skills
• Ability to effectively manage and build client relationships
• Able to succeed in and enjoy a fast-paced, quick-witted environment
• Able to understand and verbalize technical language involved in affiliate implementation
• Expertise in many forms of internet media and marketing, with knowledge of email marketing
• Has established contacts with publishers and media networks
• Possesses an understanding of media metrics, campaign tracking and optimization