Hi all, I launched my own site about six weeks ago and have been spending my time optimizing the pages, doing link exchanges, and promoting the site myself. After some trickling sales, we began using google adwords about three weeks ago. After spending about $1200 on different campaigns, we did about $2500 in sales and just about broke even. Joined shareasale about two weeks ago. Honestly, the stuff is all greek to me. I'm happy to find this forum because it seems a great place for info - but half the terminology I've seen so far has gone right over my head. Anyway, an affiliate manager named Greg Rice contacted us and offered to manage our site. On top of the 10% commission we're paying, he's offering his services for $2000/month + another 2% commission. I guess I have a million questions, but the main ones are as follows: * Do I truly need an affiliate manager, or would I be okay proceeding without one? * Is the price I quoted above pretty standard, or should I be paying commission only? I don't mind a monthly stipend, but $2k seems steep (or does it?) * Should I continue my own adwords campaigns if I hire an affiliate manager or would I stop? * Seems to me that an affiliate would be unconcerned with my search engine positioning or my google PR... so I guess that aspect of keeping up with my site would still be up to me, correct? Right now I'll be brutally honest and say that I probably need to streamline my adwords - I'm probably paying too much $$ and maybe even selecting the wrong words. Can someone point out a thread or two that has some good tips on how to do this? And despite having a pretty-good looking site (at least I think so ) containing a lot of nice product, we've been getting 1 sale for every 400-500 hits or so. And that just doesn't sound good. Thanks in advance everyone, I appreciate the help.
My company dies affiliate management as well. You have to looks at his experience and the companies he is currently working with. His fees seem fairly good but it all depends on his experience and his track record with managing affiliate programs.
Greg Rice has built quite a name for himself as an OPM. I don't know about his overall success, but he has several clients and seems to be doing quite well. The $2000/month he quoted you is actually low. Most OPM's charge about $4000/month. I bill at cheaper rates personally, because I think it's a little high to be charging that much. As for PPC, it takes a very specialized skill set to do it well and you might want to outsource it if you plan to continue it, otherwise you'll have a steep learning curve. I could provide you with alot more information via PM if you want on affiliate program management and pay-per-click, I do both of those for a living.