Forget spring cleaning - the turn of the new year is a great time to audit your accounts and get them in order for the year ahead. Go beyond a basic “are the lights on?” check; now is the time to do a deep cleaning, looking over everything from account structure to assets to settings. Below, we outline how to prep your affiliate program for a strong 2019. Check Your Commission Settings Most commission structures in affiliate platforms have an option to select an expiration date. Now is a great time to go through your commission offerings and make sure any special commissions met the correct expiration dates, or set up an extension if an offer is still running. It’s also a good idea to check your base level commissions and ensure the right publishers are assigned to the right payouts. Review Pending Notifications Has it been a while since you’ve looked at the notifications and alerts for your program? These usually live on the homepage, and can range from publisher inquiries to messages to account warnings and alerts. Set aside some time to review and manage any notifications, and set up a recurring time for the months ahead to check in here. Make Sure Contact Information is Up-To-Date An affiliate program won’t be successful if you aren’t able to communicate with your publishers. Check the contact information on file for your top publishers; do you have email addresses for everyone, and not just generic info@xx.com addresses? Reach out to your top publishers to make sure you have the most up-to-date account representatives, and that they know how to reach you. Recruit New Publishers Pull a list of publishers who drove sales over the last 6 months, and compare it to the previous 6 months. Chances are, there are at least a few who were active at the start of the year that weren’t by the end (and, if you’re lucky, new ones popped up in the back half of the year). Actively recruiting new, quality affiliates throughout the year will help offset any that decrease or stop publishing entirely.   Audit Assets Most affiliate programs allow you to upload banners, text links, coupon codes, product feeds, and more. Check that these are up-to-date, and delete or mark inactive any assets that are no longer relevant or out of season. Is your current product feed pulling in to your program? Look for any errors, warnings, missing links or images, and make updates where needed. Check Coupon Codes Many brands prefer to set up customized coupon codes for top affiliate partners. Do some research into custom codes; did the code expire for usage on your site? Is the affiliate partner still promoting the code? Have any available offers changed since this code was created? It’s also a good idea to check that custom codes are being used by the correct publishers. Most programs have an option to set up exclusive codes for partners to avoid paying out commissions to publishers promoting a code that’s not theirs.
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