Written by Brook Schaaf

If a book is going to make me emotional, it’s probably something epic, like Lonesome Dove, so I was surprised when Greg Hoffman’s Think Like an Affiliate Manager: Stop launching links. Start building a program. left me feeling melancholy. We both belong to a select group of hundreds (dozens?) of old-timers who’ve been in the affiliate marketing space for decades. Moreover, we have both walked the path of an agency owner for much of it (2006 to 2017 in my case). This book brought back not a few memories. 

ABestWeb, which “taught the first generation of affiliate managers,” is mentioned early on. I remember sitting at my desk at Zappos and getting an email from Haiko de Poel informing me that I was aflame on a thread. Of course, I took the bait and jumped into the melee, giving the SOBs there what for, a pattern oft repeated. Throughout the story, my mind flitted back to many an Affiliate Summit we both attended. (Missy and Shawn held them in different cities for years until they surrendered to Las Vegas and New York.)

I was honored that Greg included me among many names going back to the formative years: Shawn Collins, Brad Waller, Rachel Honoway, Carolyn Tang Kmet, Wade Tonkin, Mike Buechele, Joe Sousa, Liz Gazer, Trisha Lyn Wawver, Stephanie Robbins, Geno Prussakov, Mike Nunez, Daniel M. Clark, Eric Nagel, and Tricia Meyer. The book is well-balanced with commentary on industry development, contemporary players, and management lessons.

Greg emphasizes pattern recognition, such as having an immediate horse sense for a site’s validity. As he says, “After reviewing many profiles over the years, I make approval decisions almost instinctively.” This may sound mundane, but, along with hard work, a sense for numbers, and the ability to network, it’s truly a trait that separates the mediocre majority from the excellent few and speaks to the undying value of “thin-slicing” expertise. Even if AI can come to recognize a pattern, it is constrained by the quality of referenced data, much of which is erroneous. Ultimately, a human must be accountable for decisions. People often speak of the dearth of quality of affiliate managers. I think this is true, and a part of the problem is a lack of comprehension on the part of the manager. (One of many good reasons to work with an agency.)

Based on the book title, I infer that Greg believes the role title does not make the man…ager, i.e., that excellence is being. There are, with some room for disagreement, proper and improper management techniques under changing circumstances. Along these lines, he shares several stories of changed relationships and perspectives, including (dear to my own heart), a reasonable position on coupon sites: “bottom-funnel partners are not a single cluster of ‘coupon sites.’ They represent different business models, incentives, and levels of professionalism… Rejecting them on principle, without studying the data, does not protect the brand.” He also notes that “When we investigated clickstreams and overlap between tagged content partners and bottom-funnel partners, we consistently found that fewer than 4% of overall transactions were affected.” This matches numbers I’ve heard for decades and should oft be repeated because bias based on misperceptions can damage partners and programs. 

Greg shares personal stories throughout the book, including his own unsuccessful foray into affiliate content creation for fishing. “The dream was honest. The execution was heavy. I meant well. I just never activated. And somewhere on the other side of those applications, a few managers probably had real hope that I would become a strong sales source.”

The grass does always look greener. Greg’s book reminded me that I do not miss agency ownership. While there is always value to create and new clients to find and excitement that plays out, the slings and arrows of outrageous politics (which admittedly cut both ways) can be tough to bear. I especially empathized with “the worst day” of Greg’s professional sales life, when, after a month of preparation, he flew to another city to present an audit but didn’t even receive the meeting. He reckoned the internal team feared for their jobs based on what the audit revealed, a plausible explanation to which I can well relate. As an agency principal, more than once, after much preparation, I flew out for a useless meeting that went nowhere for anyone. A variation on this is when another agency is pre-selected, but others are asked to do work for show. 

Toward the end of the book, Greg recounts a criticism whereby he was compared unfavorably to the third servant in the Parable of the Talents, who did not grow the money entrusted to him. I have no idea who said this to him, but I find it simply bizarre, given that an agency is a sound, if tempestuous, business model. At some point, every agency owner surely feels most like Job, beset by Satan himself.

I could go on. The book is a worthy contribution to the affiliate literature (such as it exists) and recounts the zeitgeist of eras gone by. It also reflects on recent changes in the industry, including the ‘Triangle’ convergence of creators, commerce media, and affiliates, while speculating about where an AI-mediated future may lead.

As in Lonesome Dove, even if you return to the same place at the end of a long journey, you realize that you can never really go home again.

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