Avoid the Pitfalls of a Not-So-Global Partnership Marketing Agency

Partnership marketing is a powerful revenue-generating channel that can help your business tap into new markets, increase sales in existing ones, and fuel the continued growth of your brand.

Like most businesses, your organization has probably considered leveraging the services of a professional partnership or affiliate marketing agency to either build your program from the ground up or breathe new life into your existing one.

While an agency can help you expand your partnership marketing program, choosing the right firm can be challenging. Often partnership or affiliate marketing agencies claim to have a “global” presence, but in actuality, many of them have limited reach outside the region in which they operate.

As you embark on the journey of selecting the right agency, it’s crucial to be vigilant. Read on to discover our tips for rooting out those not-so-global agencies, and finding success with the right agency partner.

Look for warning signs

When vetting a prospective partnership marketing agency that purports to offer “global” services, here are a few warning signs to watch for:

Poor staff-to-account ratio

It is extremely rare for an account manager to oversee a single client account. Likely, an account manager and their team will be tasked with managing at least a few partnership or affiliate marketing programs. However, it is important that the firm you partner with does not overload its account managers with too many accounts.

Subpar agencies will often task a single point of contact with managing upwards of 20-plus accounts. As you can imagine, this can overwhelm the point-of-contact and make it virtually impossible for them to engage in regular reporting or conference calls with clients.

A lack of compliance or fraud monitoring

Fraud monitoring is critical to the longevity of your partnership or affiliate marketing program. Preventing fraud will ensure that your productive affiliates are paid appropriately for the traffic they generate while also preventing unscrupulous affiliates from taking advantage of your commission system.

You may be surprised to learn that fraud monitoring and compliance are not standard components of all affiliate marketing services.

Some affiliate marketing agencies give little thought to fraud monitoring when setting up and managing campaigns. This oversight can expose your brand and drastically impact your program’s efficacy.

No influencer services

Affiliate marketing remains an exceptional tool for driving growth and boosting sales. However, influencer partnerships have has become a critical channel as well. Despite this fact, quite a few affiliate marketing agencies don’t offer any influencer services – or they offer services that measure vanity metrics rather than actual outcomes.

Even if you do not want to leverage influencer services now, choosing a partnership marketing agency that can offer integrated program management is important. Doing so will better position your brand to adapt to changing market conditions and give you the option to incorporate influencer marketing into your growth strategy in the future, and in a way that is based upon measurable outcomes.

Limited global reach

Many affiliate marketing agencies throw the term “global” around a lot. But what do they mean by this exactly?

Only a select few partnership or affiliate marketing agencies that refer to themselves as “global” actually have a presence in a dozen or more countries. Many of them primarily operate within a single nation and manage one or two small remote teams located elsewhere. That hardly sounds like a global reach.

If you’re looking to expand your brand’s reach into new regions or markets, a truly global footprint can help ensure your program’s success.

How AP delivers optimal value to clients

Fortunately, Acceleration Partners (AP) is a truly global partnership marketing agency that can expedite the growth of your affiliate marketing program, introduce you to innovative partnership opportunities, and enable you to access worldwide markets.

Acceleration Partners provides optimal value to clients and delivers real, sustainable value by offering:

True global reach

Acceleration Partners manages programs in over 40 countries and maintains staff within each location where we operate. Cumulatively, our team members are fluent in more than 20 languages. Our boots-on-the-ground experience means that we understand the nuances of connecting with audiences in a multitude of regions and markets.

In addition to a global team, we also work with a worldwide network of strategic partners. These partnerships enable us to accelerate the growth of your affiliate or partnership marketing program, boost revenue, and introduce your brand to new markets.

High-touch service

Acceleration Partners manages accounts using agile teams of four—depending on the type of account. Our account teams will either manage 10-12 small-scale brand accounts in a portfolio with a senior lead, or for our large-scale brands our teams support around 4-5 accounts to ensure that we can provide high-touch service, conduct regular reporting calls, and keep clients in the loop.

Our experienced account teams are supported by auxiliary staff as well. These staff members can supplement the capabilities of our account management teams as needed, such as onboarding new clients or preparing for the launch of a campaign.

Better partnerships

At AP, we want to connect you with quality, long-term partners that will deliver value for your business for years to come. We carefully vet each active partner to ensure they meet our high standards and can positively contribute to your program.

In total, Acceleration Partners currently has 65K click-active partners in dozens of countries. Cumulatively, these partners enabled us to drive over 75 million conversions in 2021 alone.

Leading-edge technology

Acceleration Partners has leading-edge tech that allow us to manage programs in ways our competitors can’t, like our proprietary technology tool APVision. This robust platform leverages artificial intelligence and thousands of data touchpoints to enable our teams to stay ahead of trends and identify unique opportunities.

We also acquired Grovia by Acceleration Partners in early 2022, which enhances our ability to accelerate partner discovery, recruitment, and revenue activation. This exciting addition extends our global partnership prospecting and recruiting capabilities.

Want to launch a winning global partnership program? We can help

Acceleration Partners is the ideal partnership marketing agency for your business, regardless of whether you want to connect with audiences across your region or around the world. Our diverse teams have the knowledge and expertise necessary to help you tap into global markets.

We provide high-touch, client-centric services designed to deliver measurable, consistent value for your business.

Ready to expand your partnership marketing reach globally? Let’s connect!