An Affiliate Manager’s Worst Nightmare: Affiliate Ghosting

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At first, affiliates ghosting you might not seem like such a big deal. But, when you have enough to fill a haunted house, it’ll turn your affiliate program into a nightmare. For anyone not familiar with the lingo, ‘ghosting’ is a term for the sudden cut-off of communication from one party to another. Basically, that affiliate who you haven’t heard from for weeks with no explanation? They’ve ghosted you.

Why can affiliate ghosting have such a negative impact on affiliate programs? Apart from wasting your time on partnerships that are going nowhere, it can have a knock-on effect that impacts your reputation and eventually revenue. If you never find out the reason these affiliates stopped communicating, they could be out there spreading the word about the lack of support your program offers. When in reality, it was a simple communication error that could have been addressed.

The even bigger issue is that affiliate ghosting is often an overlooked issue. As I’ve already said, at first, it just seems like an inconvenience. But, if left unchecked, affiliate ghosting could have repercussions that will haunt your affiliate program for years to come.?

So, let’s address how you can prevent affiliates from ghosting in the first place.

Lead with strong communication

Communication is a two-way street. Sure, that sounds obvious now but a lot of people (even people with the best intentions) believe communication is effective as long as they are expressing themselves. This is only part of it. Effective communication involves as much listening as it does talking. It’s important that you - as the affiliate manager - communicate what you expect from the affiliate. However, it’s also just as important to offer the chance for your affiliates to communicate their expectations.

If an affiliate partner does not feel they are being listened to, then it’s no wonder if they ghost you. You’ve made it clear to them from the beginning that this partnership is not one that comes with open communication, so why would they bother to tell you that they are no longer interested in the partnership??

It’s mutually beneficial to ensure your affiliate's wants and needs are being accommodated.?

While your goals and their goals might not always align exactly, you need to find the common ground. Once this has been established, channels of communication need to be set up so affiliates can provide feedback and request support when they need it.

This is how you will make your affiliates feel valued and ensure they are always more likely to express any problems instead of going radio silent to avoid them.?

Set clear boundaries and expectations

An onboarding process can affect the trajectory of your program and set the tone for any and all future partner relationships. That’s why it’s crucial that your onboarding process clearly sets out what your affiliates can expect and what you expect from them in return. Education and insight should lead your onboarding so that the end goal is a mutually beneficial partnership. Without this, your affiliates could go ghost before you’re even able to detect any potential issues.

What do you need to make clear during the onboarding process? Well, the first (and likely most obvious) step is defining your business’s goals and objectives to ensure everyone is on the same page. From here, you want to ensure that you’re providing affiliates with relevant marketing materials and resources, along with explanations of how they can be used in campaigns. And, don’t forget to walk them through any processes they might be unfamiliar with such as tracking links and monitoring performance.

Offering your affiliates all the information they need from the beginning will prevent them from going silent if they feel they’ve lost their direction. Hopefully, this won’t happen at all but, if they do start to become unsure, they will be more likely to communicate this with you than ghost you.

Remain transparent

There are many reasons affiliates ghost program managers, and sometimes it won’t have anything to do with you. That particular affiliate might just not be cut out for the affiliate marketing industry - but then, them ghosting you will be a blessing in disguise. However, this usually isn’t the case. It’s more likely that you’ve failed to do one of the two things I’ve outlined above. Failing to do so will leave your affiliates feeling undervalued and not appreciated, causing them to return this treatment by ghosting you.

That’s why building transparent relationships with your affiliates is essential. It will mean - should issues ever occur - your affiliates will be more willing to work on the issues with you. Furthermore, it will also ensure you are only ever working with affiliates whose goals align with yours, making them less likely to suddenly disappear. It’s a lot harder to ghost someone you have built a strong connection with so make sure to keep your affiliates' best interests at the heart of your program.

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