Affiliate Managment Outsourcing / OPMs

Introduction
Recommended OPMs
Job Boards and Directories
Finding the Marketing Professional Who is Right for You

Introduction

If you are a merchant who decided to launch an affiliate program to expand the reach of your business and increase revenue have to decide if you want to manage the program yourself, in-house, via existing staff or newly hired personal for this purpose, or if you should outsource most or all of the management, monitoring, support and recruiting efforts that are part of managment a successful affiliate program.

Regardless which route you decide to go, in-house or outsourced, you have to make the necessary resources for the managment of your affiliate program available. Otherwise you would probably be better off, if you don't start a program at all. Not spending time on managing the program does usually not yield the results that were expected and sometimes worse, create unexpected issues, if rogue affiliates took control and abuse your program, which you left running on auto-drive without monitoring and policing your affiliates activities.

Damage to your brand might be one consequence, wasting money on unquallified transactions where you should not pay anything, could be another one. If you cannot find anybody for hire full-time, who has the necessary skills and expertise to do the job right and you also do not have anybody on staff already who would be up to the task, outsourcing is probably the best choice to make.

OPM agencies are specialized in manageing affiliate programs and bring most of the time years of practical experience in this industry with them. OPMs are often founded by former in-house affiliate managers or account representatives of affiliate networks, who decided to do this business on their own.

Below is a list of outsourced program management companies where I know the people behind the business well enough to personally recommend them to you in good faith. Contact multiple of them instead of just one, because they are often running out of capacity and unable to accept new clients, due to the shortage in qualified labor to expand their businesses quickly enough.

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Recommended OPMs

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List sorted alphabetically.

Logo	Description
	AM Navigator - Outsourced Affiliate Program Management Solutions. Founded by Geno Prussakov, Author or the Book "A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing" (Aff.Mkt. Books)
	AMWSO - founded by Chris Sanderson who is well respected and known among Affiliates and other Affiliate Managers alike. Now owned by PartnerCentric. AMWSO is based in Asia and does primarily business in the United States and UK.
	Andy Rodriguez Consulting - ARC was founded by Andy Rodriguez who was the in-house AM for TigerDirect.com. ARC also offers an Affiliate Manager Certification Seminar.
	Catalyst eMarketing founded and owned by Linda Buquet who also runs the Affiliate Marketing Forum, Blog and Resource Site 5 Star Affiliate Programs at 5StarAffiliatePrograms.com
	Converseon - eMarketing Agency founded by Rob Key in 2001, other Core-Team Members include: Stephanie Schwab (VP), Jamie Birch and Constantin Basturea.
	Forge Business - International operating Affiliate Program Management company that was founded in 2003 by Jonathan Miller with offices in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and South Africa.
	LinkProfits - outsourced affiliate program management, recruitment and consulting services since 1999. LinkProfits was founded by Jim Gribble and is based in Germantown, Maryland.
	NETexponent.com - a Performance Marketing Agency, founded in 2001 by Peter Figueredo and Chris Kramer.
	PartnerCentric - one of the larger OPM Companies founded by Linda Woods who is a former CJ Account Manager.
	PartnerPerform - Affiliate Management, Affiliate Marketing Analysis. Founded by Michael Payne
	PMG - Paulson Management Group was founded by industry veteran Heather Paulson in 2007. Heather is specifically strong in the areas of paid search/pay-per-click advertising and organic search engine optimization and offers services to advertisers in those areas as well.
	PepperJam Management - Affiliate Management, Search Marketing, Consulting, Certification and Media Management Services. Founded in 1999 by Kristopher B. Jones, CEO and president of PepperJam, Inc.
	Schaaf Consulting founded by the Brothers Brook and Forrest Schaaf, the former in-house AMs of top Programs like Zappos.com and Shoes.com.

For affiliates and advertisers with an affiliate program, check out the "Reporting Taxes" informational page for US affiliates and advertisers with affiliates in the United States.

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Job Boards and Directories

Return to Affiliate Marketing Resources Home

If you are considering to offer opm services to small business, have a look at the post Becoming an Outsourced Affiliate Manager of the "Ask Shawn Collins" Series at AffiliateTip.com.

Logo	Description
	Affiliate Buyers Guide provided by Affiliate Summit, category affiliate management companies / Outsourced Program Management Companies and Services.

Articles by Carsten Cumbrowski for Merchants, Affiliate Program Managers and OPMs

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Finding the Marketing Professional Who is Right for You

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