Staying Isn’t the Same as Choosing You Again: Alena M. at Titans on What Affiliate Programs Misread About Loyalty

Every affiliate manager has a partner who has been around for years and never causes any trouble. Alena M., Head of Affiliate Strategy at Titans, treats that as a reason to look closer rather than a reason to relax. She argues that continuity proves less than affiliate managers think, and that a partner’s attention can go long before the account does. 

Q: Retention is normally treated as proof that a partnership is working. You don’t trust it. Why not? 

Alena: I understand why we do. It’s one of the cleanest numbers in our line of work. Somebody has been with us for three years; the account is still open, and that looks like proof. A partner doesn’t have to leave to be gone. Think about two partners who both stayed. One stayed because we’re the best option they have. The other stayed because leaving means rebuilding tracking, relearning terms and three conversations they’d rather avoid. On the report, those two look identical. That’s why I’ve stopped using the word loyal. It describes a feeling, and I can’t see feelings in a report. What I want to know is whether a partner would pick us again today. Staying isn’t the same as choosing you again. 

Q: So if they’re not leaving, what are they doing? What does that partner look like? 

Alena: Completely fine. That’s the problem. They reply, but they reply last. They never say no, because nothing is being considered seriously enough to refuse. The questions have stopped. A year ago, they might have asked why a number moved. Now they don’t ask anything. When a partner stops arguing with you, it’s rarely because you won. 

Q: Where does interest stop and attention start? 

Alena: Interest costs nothing. Somebody can be interested in five things at once and lose no time at all. Attention is the part that turns into work, and there’s only so much of it. The two get confused constantly. An affiliate partner takes the call, agrees the fit makes sense, sounds keen, and that gets written down as commitment. Then nothing happens, and the explanation is that they got busy. They didn’t get busy. They were always busy. Anything you ask for has to displace something that’s already making them money. If I’m asking for hours of an affiliate partner’s time, I should know what those hours are currently worth to them. Working that out is uncomfortable, because it makes the ask look expensive. It is expensive. Setup is work, and learning is work. 

Q: Is there a point where the right answer to a partner is ‘not yet’? 

Alena: Yes, and more often than most of us like to admit. It has nothing to do with whether the opportunity is good. Most of them are. It’s about timing. If a partner would be starting something new while something else sits half-finished, the honest answer is not yet. That answer costs me something. One less launch this quarter, one less thing to report. I’d still rather say it. Affiliate partners tend to remember who told them to wait when the advice turned out to be right. The one thing I won’t do is leave it open. If it’s not yet, I owe them a when.  

Q: Let’s come back to where we started. If continuity isn’t the proof, what is? 

Alena: Somebody spending something on us they didn’t have to spend. Time on a call before a decision rather than after it. A test they thought of themselves. A hard question, or somebody telling us we’re wrong. None of that shows up in a report, which is why it’s worth watching. Some partnerships are quiet because they work, and I’m not arguing for calling people who are perfectly happy. The difference is between smooth and dormant. Smooth still surprises you now and then. Dormant never does. 

Q: Last one, and something practical. What should someone reading this go and check? 

Alena: Take a look at some of your oldest affiliate partners. Would they still pick you today, if they were choosing for the first time? Then the harder question. What would it cost them to leave? Mostly, their standing. They’d start again at the bottom of someone else’s list. If the honest answer to the first question is no, yet the cost of leaving is perceived as slightly inconvenient, you don’t have a partnership. You have a partner who hasn’t found the time to leave.