OK, some do, but by and large most affiliate managers I've worked with or have attempted to work with are either a) lazy b) a few fries short of a Happy Meal or c) so uninterested in their jobs that it shows. Of course the same can be said for any segment of any industry but we seem to have an overabundance of this phenomenon in affiliate marketing.

Communication is increasingly becoming a concern for affiliates and affiliate managers because affiliate managers are, for the most part, unable or unwilling to move beyond the email only paradigm.

Need an example? Shawn Collins posted yesterday about his frustrations of affiliate approval emails from CJ landing in his spam folder. If you are anywhere near involved with affiliate marketing, you know who Shawn Collins is and you would be remiss if you didn't jump on an application to your program submitted by Shawn. That should be the case for any affiliate, in reality.

Nonetheless, one of the affiliate managers of the programs Shawn mentioned showed up on Shawn's blog and left this mind-bending comment:

Shawn,
I've been attempting to contact you through various channels. Long story short, I am unable to reach you. Will you please attempt to contact me via email. I would like to discuss an affiliate proposal.

Thank you for your time,

Matt Ziaja

CJ Affiliate Program Manager

Communications Solutions Integrated

AIG Travel Guard

Long story short? Matt, come on. Let's look at the long story:

1) Shawn's email address and phone number are on his blog. If you don't hear back from him after a few days after sending over an automated approval email, give him a call or send him an email personally. He's very good at answering personal emails as are most affiliate marketers.

2) Shawn is very active on Facebook. Ever heard of it?

3) Shawn is very active on Twitter. Easy to contact him there.

4) Shawn has a (very prominent) affiliate blog. Leave a comment there.

5) Shawn is on Pownce

6) Shawn is on Plaxo

7) Shawn is on MySpace

8) Shawn has a consulting site with all of his contact info.

9) Shawn runs Affiliate Summit. Again, lots of contact info on that site.

10) Ever heard of Google? I got 4 pages of sites that give me Shawn's contact info.

There's more, but I'll stop there. In this day and age, with our plethora of social networking tools and platforms, it is unreal that an affiliate manager or any business person would pull the "I am unable to reach you" card. If you can't reach someone, you're not trying hard enough to quote Peter Shankman.

So, the moral of the long story short... if you're an affiliate manager and you want to grow your program then perform due diligence and pursue the people who apply to your program if they look like good leads. That little extra effort you might have to make to contact someone via Facebook or MySpace (or God forbid the telephone) might actually increase your commission this month.

I've done and still do affiliate management... and it's the little things that make all the difference between success and failure in this business and every business.