Google Affiliate Network needs some improvement

As an affiliate specialist who is in charge of the entire company's affiliate program, I have always tried hard to focus my energy on the issues that requires my attention most. We have been on Performics , now known as Google Affiliate Network for a long time. Having been acquired by Google, the Performics interface has not changed as quick as I expected. I have noticed some areas that really need to be improved.

First, sending nicely designed newsletters has always been one of our most important methods to keep in touch with our hard-working publishers. However, I have not seen the possibility of sending HTML format letters directly from Performic's interface. This made me have to pass the newletters to our EDM team to finish, which requires extra time to be invested in scheduling the timetable of affiliate newsletter.

Secondly, sending coupons codes or launching any bonus campagins is also time-consuming. With a relatively large number of publishers in hand, I have to send coupons through e-mail message to inform a selected group of publishers to confirm. However, not every publisher is lucky enough to get the coupon, for that I apologize. By contrast, Shareasale has launched a new "Post your coupons and deals" function to make the whole process more cost-effective. Coupons now can be uploaded to Sharasale's interface and we can decide whether all publishers will get the coupon or some of them will.

Despite the problems mentioned above, however, I am still confident about Google Affiliate Network and is looking forward to see any possible improvements made. The tracking system has been accurate and it is one feature that we would recommend other merchants to try. The report provides both generic and detailed data that shows how each publisher or even each banner link perform within a period of time.

As a company based in China, we hope to apply many low cost methods to assist and communicate with our publishers. Maybe merchants in the US do not feel the same way as I do because they can make phone-calls to contact publishers anytime they want or even have a face-to-face meeting. For us, however, a well-developed interface with lots of functions to choose is vital to the quality of our affiliate program. Even if we can make international phone-calls, the time difference still brings a little challenge :)