Introducing Mike Smith

With over a decade in the marketing industry, Mike has found himself running all aspects of marketing, from in-person events to content creation to paid social. Always coming back to the affiliate space in one form or another, Mike has leveraged TUNE to grow the NerdWallet SMB lending affiliate program by multiple factors — and he has no plans of slowing down.

Now, please welcome to the stage our next Affiliate Rockstar, Mike Smith!

Rockstar Q&A with Mike

What are your day-to-day duties?
NerdWallet is organized by vertical, and I oversee all performance marketing within the SMB space. I have a great coworker who handles most of the day-to-day SEM responsibilities, but I still end up wearing a lot of hats. On any given day I’ll be running reports, communicating pacing, forecasting, launching new efforts, working cross-functionally on larger optimization opportunities, meeting with partners, etc.

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
Largely by accident. I majored in business administration and marketing in no small part because it’s such a large field with so many different areas to explore. After graduating, I was fortunate enough to spend some time mostly goofing off, working first at a ski area and then a mountaineering shop. But bills and health insurance premiums come for us all, and I landed an affiliate management role as my first step into the more professional world of marketing. Affiliate management has been an on-and-off part of my responsibilities since.

What are your most important KPIs?
Volume and ROAS. Understanding how much marketing efforts are really delivering is so important and, in my experience, often underappreciated. It’s critical that we assess the full picture, inclusive of all marketing costs and benefits like LTV and brand awareness.

What do you think is undervalued in marketing in general?
Data — I’m like a broken record with this stuff. Most businesses collect a ton of data points, from time on page to lifetime value, but seemingly few organizations utilize all of these metrics to improve marketing performance or report on true performance.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve come across in affiliate marketing?
Many of our partners advertise on Google and Bing search networks, which we do as well. Understanding how much our affiliate spend increases costs on our SEM efforts has been a challenge at NerdWallet and in other roles I have held.

What’s the next big thing in affiliate marketing?
Dynamic pricing, and dynamic landing pages for a more cohesive customer experience. I’m hesitant to say “AI” since it’s such a buzz word these days, but we should be able to use machine learning to understand and provide unique experiences to each consumer to improve results.

What’s your top tip when it comes to negotiating affiliate deals with partners?
Show your work. When we win, our partners win, and vice versa. I’m as transparent as I can be with how much revenue and margin our partners drive so that they understand why pricing is what it is and what’s needed from them to improve that pricing.

How important is following the journey of a user after you (or your advertisers) first acquire them, or after their first purchase?
For the SMB lending vertical, it is absolutely critical. Our funnel to initial conversion is long, and we hope to build lasting relationships where we continue to earn our customer’s business. By extending the time in which we measure our return to months, not days, we can more heavily invest in marketing efforts and grow our business.

How has your (or your advertisers’) affiliate strategy changed over time?
Our pricing model has changed as we have been better able to understand what leads are most valuable. Through a more thorough analysis of historical leads, we are able to better pinpoint what traffic drives the most revenue. From here, we’re able to increase our payout for the traffic that performs best for us. This allows our partners to earn more by sending the “right” traffic. It’s a win-win.

Introducing Kamile Kaselyte

Kamile Kaselyte is an Affiliate Account Director at Nord Security, a leading cybersecurity company valued at $3 billion, and is best known for launching cybersecurity products such as NordVPN and NordPass.

Kamile is a seasoned digital marketer, with over 10 years of experience in digital marketing and a strong entrepreneurial background. With a solid expertise in affiliate marketing, Kamile’s career has been defined by her strategic prowess and innovative approach to establishing successful organic partnerships with media publishers.

Now please help us welcome to the stage our main event, Kamile Kaselyte!

Rockstar Q&A with Kamile

What are your day-to-day duties?
As an Affiliate Account Director for new products at Nord Security, my primary focus is on building new affiliate partnerships and nurturing the already existing ones with our key accounts. My role also involves frequent monitoring of our results, helping the team set up initiatives related to new products, as well as bridging the gap between product and affiliate teams.

What’s the best thing you learned at the last conference you attended?
Networking can occur not only during scheduled meetings, but also in between them, during panel discussions or happy hours. I have learned that some publishers can be met or approached directly after their panels — sometimes a quick five-minute conversation can turn into a fruitful long-term affiliate partnership. That’s precisely what happened during one conference I attended this year, which was PI Live in Miami.

What are your most important KPIs?
At the end of the day, affiliate marketing is about making sure that key metrics, such as billings, ROAS, CR, and AOV stay at the desired levels. However, it’s needless to say that none of this is possible without nurturing transparent, long-lasting partnerships that create value for both parties. Besides that, for me it’s always important to see our products represented meaningfully and accurately.

What have you done in the last 6-12 months to improve your affiliate efforts?
I think that a lot has been done, but what really made an impact was looking beyond the scope of what fits into our target affiliate description — expanding our affiliate base by widening the type of partnerships that we make. Additionally, assessing the focus areas every quarter helped a lot since the landscape is constantly changing and it may be the case that SERP results have shifted, and hence, our focus affiliates.

“Affiliate” or “partner” and why?
Perhaps it’s subjective, but I’d classify “affiliates” as any partners that work purely on an affiliate basis and “partners” as those who would fall under the scope of more traditional partnerships (when affiliate links are used, but the nature of partnership is larger and can involve more teams and objectives).

What’s the next big thing in affiliate marketing?
I think that the next big thing in affiliate marketing is about being able to manage the emerging technology in the right ways.

AI and machine learning can be helpful in many ways, for example, by providing personalized recommendations and, thus, increasing CR. However, if overused, especially in terms of AI-enhanced or generated content — publishers can be drastically penalized by Google and, therefore, lose their positions in SERPs. For brands, relying too much on automatic fraud detection or using predictive analytics to optimize campaigns can harm results, if human oversight is drastically reduced.

So, for me the next big thing in affiliate marketing is about embracing these new technologies, while ensuring effective and balanced human-AI collaboration.

What is the biggest mistake you’ve made in affiliate marketing?
It may have been the times when I really pushed on a partnership that I believed in without noticing the signs that the other party won’t put in the required amount of work into the project. It’s always important to focus your time, energy, and other resources into partnerships where both parties are ready to be invested.

What’s your ideal partner mix?
Usually, a diverse affiliate program is best, in which you can find strong organic publishers, comparison affiliates, coupon and deal sites, affiliate networks, loyalty and reward sites, and many more. Ideally, all these categories diversify the affiliate program, avoiding the risk of relying on a single type of publishers.

What are 2-3 trends you are seeing in the industry?
More and more publishers are starting to work on and appreciate performance-based partnerships. Commissions are based on actual sales and performance as opposed to flat fees, which is a great shift in the industry. I see this approach as more sustainable and long-term in affiliate marketing. Also, attribution models are getting more sophisticated since there is a much more accurate cross-device tracking. Besides that, there’s a trend for social commerce — more and more publishers are able to integrate shoppable content across their sites, which could be a part of affiliate partnership.

What’s your top tip when it comes to negotiating affiliate deals with partners?
Closing a great affiliate means understanding your metrics and market rates well. Then, it’s important to ensure that clear objectives for the campaign and partnership are defined whilst agreeing on a commission structure that makes sense for both parties. Of course, there is so much more to it, but I’d say that reading your email with the final offer two or three times before sending out or leaving it for a day to rest — can really give you a fresh perspective and a more comprehensive understanding of the negotiation and partnership in general.

How do you think your strategy differs than other verticals?
Each vertical may have similar KPIs, but different ways and strategies to achieve them. In affiliate marketing, a certain niche in which the company operates already defines the best converting type of content. For some brands, it may be review sites, whilst for others, coupon and cash back sites. In short, the audience behavior sets the direction where affiliate marketing efforts should be focused.

Introducing Sean Ryan

Sean Ryan is the Head of Affiliate at Robinhood, a leading fintech investment platform. With over 20 years of experience, Sean has managed affiliate programs at Sling TV and DISH Network, in addition to running his own digital marketing agency. Specializing in performance-driven strategies, Sean excels at driving acquisition growth and scaling affiliate programs through innovative tactics, helping brands achieve measurable success.

Please help us welcome November’s Affiliate Rockstar and get ready to shred with Sean!

Rockstar Q&A with Sean

What are your day-to-day duties?
My duties change based on priorities, but generally include the following: create affiliate strategy, provide management and oversight, implement product campaigns, onboard new partners, analyze results, and execute media plans.

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
I had several years of business development and marketing experience, so I decided to set up my own boutique digital marketing agency. I created a toolkit for businesses and people aspiring to monetize their websites. These toolkit packages included web dev, unique content, SEO, affiliate marketing, and paid ads. I really loved helping people getting started on their own path to success.

What are your most important KPIs?
I’m very focused on lower-funnel performance. New customers or subscribers is always the most important KPI. After that, LTV (customer quality) is the next most important. Clicks are nice and I never care about impressions.

What have you done in the last 6–12 months to improve your affiliate efforts?
Before taking over the Robinhood program, my team and I grew Sling TV’s affiliate program by over 150% YoY. I believe in continuous improvement, so I’m always looking for ways to improve myself and my program. Being able to cut through the clutter and focus on what brings meaningful results has been my most meaningful achievement. Optimizing existing partners really helped us identify untapped pockets of opportunity to grow.

How do you think your strategy differs from other verticals?
I’ve worked in several different verticals including streaming, finance and investing, and e-commerce. The most important thing is to identify key learnings that can be applied across verticals. However, it’s also good to realize that not everything is going to work across the board and that different industries can require different strategies or tactics. You need to be humble and approach it from a place of openness to new ideas and approaches.

Do you have a specific strategy in place for influencers?
Yes, I definitely believe influencers have a strategic place, but it really depends on your objectives. I think they are fantastic for upper-funnel brand awareness. I’ve never seen them perform for acquisition, but if I was with a fashion, beauty, or apparel company then they would be one of my primary tactics.

“Affiliate” or “partner,” and why?
I really lean into partner, but sometimes I’ll use the term “affiliate partner.” To drive substantial growth, you need to have a partnership with those around you. Frequent and two-way communication is the only way to make an impact. Sharing key learnings, product messaging, upcoming events, and other important details is the way to make something great … together.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve come across in affiliate marketing?
There are so many different potential partners. Being able to identify and vet all of the possible affiliates is the biggest challenge I’ve faced. It’s helpful to have a team or agency to help weed them out, ignore the overlap, and onboard quality partners.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in affiliate marketing?
My biggest mistake in affiliate marketing is thinking I could be a lone wolf. No one can build anything substantial and sustainable by themselves. You really need a full team of people who compliment your skills and expertise. I’m always looking for ways to collaborate with internal stakeholders and new partners who can help me grow.

What are 2–3 trends you’re seeing in the industry?
Card-linked offers have made a significant impact and can provide meaningful results. Another trend is the need to validate incrementality — brands are starting to really understand how much volume affiliates can bring, so the need to prove incremental results is something that everyone should be focused on.

What’s the next big thing in affiliate marketing?
MMM and MTA. Many of the big brands are exploring or already on the path to implementing ways to identify multi-touch attribution. Overall, I believe affiliate marketing has been under-appreciated and these new initiatives will truly highlight how much value affiliates bring to performance marketing.

Introducing Jason Lilien

Jason has spent two decades working in global marketing, with a focus on affiliate and partnerships over the past 10 years. Having worked with nearly 100 brands and clients throughout his career, Jason has found his home in B2B, leading campaigns for top SaaS companies such as Google, Zendesk, and Notion. When not helping to grow leading B2B affiliate agency Partner Commerce, Jason also helps out as an advisor for B2B SaaS affiliate platform Reditus.

Rockstar Q&A with Jason

What are your day-to-day duties?
Building the team and leading client services at Partner Commerce, a full-service affiliate and partnership agency exclusively focused on B2B. We help to manage and scale partner programs targeting SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise audiences.

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
My first affiliate responsibility was helping to launch the program for TravelSmith in 2008. Back then we were expanding our digital footprint across many channels and launched an affiliate program on Google Affiliate Network.

What’s the best thing you learned at the last conference you attended? What conference was it?
The last conference I attended was actually an event that we put together in London for our client TikTok for Business. It was an event for TikTok’s top partners in Europe, and what was evident from meeting them all in person was that most of the affiliates were power users of TikTok’s ad platform. It highlighted to me how important it is in B2B to focus your partner recruitment efforts around the businesses, agencies, and consultants that are actually using the software, platform, or service every day.

What are your most important KPIs?
In B2B affiliate, most KPIs come down to the overall return on investment of the entire program, which is supported by several efficiency and quality metrics such as cost per lead/new subscription, or even conversion rates that reflect the quality of leads through the funnel. Every client’s partnership program aligns back to the business objectives that they are held to, and we work closely with them to ensure that each program has two to three main KPIs that drive most decisions, and several supporting KPIs that may be specific to support different recruitment, activation, and optimization strategies, for example.

How do you interact with other marketers outside of the affiliate/partnerships team at your clients’ companies?
We actually work very closely with many different teams at each of our client’s companies. Depending on the scope of our work, and how our affiliate strategy is able to fill gaps in their organization, we may in any one day have conversations with the creative team, influencer team, demand gen team, or even the PR team. Affiliate touches so many different channels, and marketing teams that we work with are always engaged in conversations across teams to ensure that we are complementing and supporting each other’s work, as opposed to competing with it.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve come across in affiliate marketing?
The biggest challenge I see currently in B2B affiliate marketing is that there is still a lot of education that needs to happen with potential publishers to get comfortable working on a performance basis. B2B media and content sites, for example, do not come from a performance model necessarily, and I think advertisers need to approach them with opportunities of mutual benefit, where the work that publishers put into something will be rewarded. When it’s the right two-sided partnership, a performance model is ideal, and we need to facilitate these win-win relationships, as opposed to some that are more based on whoever has the biggest budgets to throw at publishers.

How does seasonality play into your strategy or your advertisers’ strategies (if at all)?
In B2B, seasonality tends to be different for different verticals. However, it often aligns with business budget approvals and times when businesses are looking to invest. Early in the year always tends to be a strong period in B2B as budgets are released and those businesses working on a calendar year are inspired to hit the ground running, adding to their tech stack as needed.

What is your biggest challenge today?
The biggest challenge today is trying to make the recruitment, activation, and optimization campaigns as streamlined and efficient as possible. Building and managing partnerships is time-consuming, so the goal is always to figure out how we can do more, do better, but also be quicker with what we’re doing. When you’re an agency, there is not always a lot of patience for a slow ramp, so we’re always looking to find ways that we can grow our clients quickly but in a way that ensures that they are sustainable.

How important is following the journey of a user after you (or your advertisers) first acquire them or after the first purchase?
In B2B, which is often a subscription model, this is is critical, as publishers are typically paid out on recurring commissions for a period of time. If users cancel soon after their initial purchase, the brands lose customers and the publishers lose their rewards. Recurring commission is one of the key differentiators and biggest value-adds with SaaS programs, and therefore it’s important that customer retention is seen as part of the affiliate strategy.

Introducing Santiago Saenz Rozas

Santi spent a decade in the affiliate industry on the publisher, network, and agency sides. He has worked with brands in pretty much every category you can think of, like insurtech, fintech, retail, travel and entertainment, B2B, and more. He also has international experience, having worked with clients not only in the U.S., but LATAM, the European Union, and Asia. Santi is currently the Director of Affiliate Partnerships at Fiat Growth, a growth consultancy that helps emerging brands take the channel to the next level.

Without further ado, presenting Santi Rozas!

Rockstar Q&A with Santi

What are your day-to-day duties?
I manage a portfolio of clients, providing both strategic advice and operational support to grow their affiliate program. Lead the affiliate business for Fiat Growth, from pitching to prospective clients, to deploying services and retaining our clients.

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
When I finished my MBA in 2015, I joined the Sears senior leadership rotational program. My first rotation was with a team that was developing a loyalty program called “Shop Your Way” and leveraging affiliate marketing to launch brands in the marketplace to increase assortment and cash back options. I ended up not rotating at all, and have been working in the industry since.

What is your biggest pet peeve about the affiliate industry?
My biggest pet peeve is the perception on the publisher side that the affiliate channel is an easy way to make money. And along those lines, the few bad apples engaging in fraud, in order to make easy money.

What do you think is undervalued in marketing in general?
I don’t think a lot of people understand how important marketing is in assisting a company or brand to test and achieve product market fit, especially in the early days of any startup.

What have you done in the last 6-12 months to improve your affiliate efforts?
We have done two things:

1. Double down on meeting with publishers to strengthen relationships.
2. Rely on a strong analytical approach more than ever (especially during an uncertain financial time, when budget scrutiny is on the rise).

How do you interact with other marketers outside of the affiliate/partner team at your company?
I try to be active in industry forums, conferences, and regional or local events. I also try to consume as much content as possible (newsletters, LinkedIn news, etc.).

What are 2-3 trends you are seeing in the industry?

1. Budget constraints across the board
2. Longer lead time to close new partnerships (due to the prior)
3. The eruption of new technologies like AI

What’s your top tip when negotiating affiliate deals with partners?
One of the biggest keys is understanding both the CAC from the client side and what the partner’s expected CPC is, in order to have a clear BATNA (best alternative to a negotiated agreement) in mind.

How important is it to follow the journey of a user after your advertisers first acquire them or after their first purchase?
Very important for some partners in particular (like SEO or search), but less important for others (like bottom-of-funnel cash back or loyalty). In general, it is important to understand the journey to be able to optimize the partner mix.

How has your affiliate strategy changed over time?
We’ve been focusing more on maintaining a desired CAC as opposed to achieving more growth. I think that today, clients don’t have a “growth at all cost” mentality anymore, probably driven by higher interest rates and lower budgets.

Introducing Rob Schab

Rob Schab is our first former TUNEr to become a certified Affiliate Rockstar! Since his days at TUNE, Rob has co-founded two affiliate technology companies. In 2020, Rob started an affiliate recruitment platform and agency called Grovia, which sold to Acceleration Partners. Today, Rob is the Co-Founder and CMO of Levanta, an affiliate platform for Amazon sellers. Rob is also a University of Washington alumnus, a reluctantly obsessed Seattle Mariners fan, and an avid traveler.

Take it away, Rob!

Rockstar Q&A with Rob

What are your day-to-day duties?
As Chief Marketplace Officer, my day-to-day is a healthy balance of strategy and execution around anything that increases the value of Levanta’s Amazon Affiliate network. Whether that is onboarding more brands through sales and partnerships, or building a recruitment strategy to activate creators at scale, my goal is to maximize marketplace activity.

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
Following a couple of valuable startup failures in college, I was lucky to get my first real job at an incredible company called TUNE (I still call them HasOffers). I had the best mentors that an affiliate rookie could ask for in Nate Ivie, Nessa Voigt, and Connor Sliva.

What are your most important KPIs?
With revenue being the ultimate KPI, my goal is to grow both sides of our affiliate network to encourage more transaction volume, hence generating more revenue. At a high level, we look at the number of active affiliates, and the number of advertisers (i.e., sellers). Meanwhile, we keep a close eye on SaaS revenue growth and retention rate.

What is your biggest pet peeve about the affiliate industry?
The fact that the majority of affiliate programs are last-click and measure down-funnel affiliates (e.g., coupon, loyalty, cash back) right alongside content and influencer affiliates. These two groups have completely different levels of incrementality and should not be competing for attribution. With improvements in affiliate tech, such as multi-touch attribution, sophisticated attribution models are becoming more commonplace. But there is still a lot of work to be done!

What do you think is undervalued in marketing in general?
The use of LTV as a meaningful metric. So many brands (especially in affiliate) are aiming to profit on their initial customer acquisition. Affiliates aren’t just driving sales, they are driving new customers. If you truly believe in your products, your brand, and your ability to create returning customers and referrals, you should be willing to pay affiliates a percentage of LTV, not just percentage of sale! Same logic applies to setting a target CAC in other marketing channels.

What are some of the things that you or your advertisers might do differently during the holiday season?
Prime Day is a critical stretch and essentially a holiday for Amazon sellers, and consequently a massive opportunity for Levanta. During Amazon deal days and other big shopping events, we become very deal-focused. We provide tools for our advertisers to share deal details with affiliates, and conversely, for affiliates to obtain deal information at scale. Our marketplace provides a catalog where affiliates can browse product/deal information, drill down into specific product categories, and sort by commission/price/best seller ranking.

What’s the next big thing in affiliate marketing?
You probably saw this answer coming, but there is no doubt that affiliate programs for marketplace sellers will make a big splash in the affiliate world.

But I’d also keep a close watch on AI. I saw a really interesting article from Neil Patel on SEO for ChatGPT. When will we see paid ads in ChatGPT … or affiliate links?

What are 2-3 trends you’re seeing in the affiliate industry?
The impact of AI on content and affiliate marketing. No doubt that AI is going to change the way that we create and consume content. I’ll also be curious to follow regulatory responses around AI, content, and commerce.

I sound like a broken record, but I think the biggest trend will be affiliate marketing for marketplaces. Amazon alone accounts for nearly 40% of U.S. e-commerce. Until recently, the millions of Amazon sellers had no solution for tapping into affiliate marketing as a scalable revenue stream. Keep an eye on Levanta and the fast-growing Amazon Affiliate ecosystem.

What’s your top tip when it comes to negotiating affiliate deals with partners?
Be empathetic, open-minded, and analytical! Most incremental-revenue-driving affiliates will know their value and will not always want to work on a commission-only model (the same reason sales executives don’t work on a commission-only model). Be willing to be flexible on your payout model and find a plan that works for both parties. Do your best to uncover metrics like expected views/clicks, then factor in things like conversion rate and LTV to calculate the potential earnings from the affiliate deal. From there, finding a balance between CPA, CPC, or flat fee that will satisfy the needs for both parties.

How important is it to follow the journey of a user after your advertisers first acquire them or after their first purchase?
Incredibly important. If nothing else, it is absolutely essential to have a good read on customer LTV. This would help determine how much you are willing to spend to acquire a customer. You can also leverage your customer journey insights to get feedback and improve your product, increase upsells/cross-sells, and generate more referrals.

Introducing Frank Ravanelli

Frank got his start doing internet marketing back in 1995 before transitioning into the realm of affiliate marketing in 1999. Since then, he’s worked both at small internet startups and international companies, as a lecturer and brand manager, and as a few things in between. He has also lived and worked across the globe, calling places like London, Malta, Estonia, the United States, and Canada his home at one point. Frank now works remotely for FOREO, where he’s been for the last eight years.

See what insights and advice he has for brands, creators, and affiliates alike in his Q&A below!

Rockstar Q&A with Frank

What are your day-to-day duties?
I identify the main growth opportunities for our affiliate program. Ensure our program is compliant with our business goals. Work with affiliate networks and key affiliates. Monitor trends, opportunities, potential challenges. I lead both our affiliate and content marketing activities, the same applies to our influencer marketing investments.

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
A very long time ago, in the ’90s, as an affiliate. I promoted Amazon and CJ merchants. That gave me an edge when I started to work on the advertiser’s side, because I already knew other affiliates and what potential partners look for when selecting an affiliate program.

What was the best thing you learned at the last conference you went to? What conference was it?
I am a regular attendee and speaker at several affiliate conferences, especially at Affiliate World. There, I got some useful insights about what affiliates see in AI as opportunities and challenges.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve come across in affiliate marketing?
Tracking. I do understand the need to ensure users can set their own privacy settings, and I fully support that. However, some changes to privacy seem to be more guided by self-interest than a real concern for us, the users. Thanks to TUNE, we have always been able to be proactive when it comes to tracking.

How do you interact with other marketers outside your affiliate/partner team?
LinkedIn is my second home; that is one daily way to see opportunities and keep in touch with peers. To see when they get promoted, or where they bring their skills, so we can find additional ways to work together.

What have you done in the past 6-12 months to improve your affiliate efforts?
We introduced partial automation, so the team can focus on higher added value areas like servicing top performers and networking with new partners.

How has your affiliate strategy changed over time?
We are becoming much more selective. When the program started in 2015, the threshold to become an affiliate was much lower than now. Still, we also value potential, so even a small partner who shows a responsible approach is welcome to join us through TUNE.

How do you think your strategy differs from other verticals?
We are very similar to overall e-commerce trends. However, the price point is one key difference. The consumer psychology of low price point, repeatable e-commerce of consumables is very different from the behavior of our customers. That is where the overall affiliate and content marketing ecosystem comes into play — to educate and convert.

What are some of the things you may do differently during the holiday season?
We negotiate a lot of special placements with affiliates, even more than usual. The couponing approach is also customized, due to public discounts available onsite.

Introducing Lee-Ann Johnstone

Lee-Ann Johnstone started her career in the digital realm when dial-up modems were the fastest way to connect to the internet. Since then, she’s worked her way up from media buying to founding and running her own affiliate marketing agency, media, and training business. In addition to building global performance marketing programs and mentoring start-ups, Lee-Ann focuses on teaching new affiliate managers through a variety of mediums, including a 12-week training course and regular columns in industry outlets.

Now get ready to rock and roll with the CEO of Affiverse — take it away, Lee-Ann!

Rockstar Q&A with Lee-Ann

What are your day-to-day duties?
As the founder of Affiverse — I have a varied role because I straddle three businesses that operate in one. Primarily we are first and foremost a specialist affiliate marketing agency helping a variety of clients to launch, scale and grow their affiliate programs. However — we’re also a media, training and events company offering everyone in our community daily insights, access to expertise from around the industry on our podcast, content hub and newsletters.

We also host large virtual learning summits (AMPLIFY and ELEVATE), which offer in-depth learning with a cross section of industry veterans, which we livestream around the world to thousands of practitioners working within affiliate marketing. Our exclusive 12-week MasterMind for Affiliate Program Managers is our flagship training program, which more than 120 affiliate managers have completed from a wide variety of sectors. Through all of this, we offer training, support and services to deliver our mission: To help the world do affiliate marketing, better!

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
I fell into affiliate marketing quite by accident. About 20 years ago I was curious about marketing and the internet. I packed up my job as head of marketing for a financial services company and started my career all over again as an online media buyer, and then graduated into performance marketing and just stayed. Two decades later, here I am, still loving everything I’m learning and marveling at how big this industry has become. As a career choice — this was one of the best I made, and I have been fortunate enough to have some amazing mentors and teachers, but now I am working to pass all that knowledge forward to the next generation of digital marketers and trailblazers who are joining us at this exciting time.

What are your most important KPIs?
Depends on what you’re asking the KPIs about.

For affiliate programs: Clicks, sales, revenue — these are the things I look at all the time. Also keeping a check on the health of the relationships we’re forming with partners in programs that are scaling. It’s important to take some time to “talk” with your partners in person, and not just via Skype or email. I like to keep regular check-ins, as relationships really matter in this industry and form the foundations of success.

For myself: Physical health, mental health, emotional health — running a business is hard work, being responsible for a team and a roster of clients means you have to first be responsible to yourself. It’s easy to burn out working in affiliate marketing, as it’s fast paced and you’re really always on. Investing in taking time out early (as a habit) to focus on yourself when you need to, in your career is a very important thing I share openly and talk about with younger people coming into this industry who are looking to succeed.

What is your biggest pet peeve about the affiliate industry?
Misinformation.

There are so many myths about affiliate marketing being bad, scammy, loss leader in terms of ROI …

I’m literally here to tell you that for most of my adult life (20 years in fact), when affiliate marketing is done properly, strategically, and with the right intent and purpose, it can only ever bring success and revenue growth to your business. I’ve seen it growing affiliate programs from £10,000 in commission a month to £27 million a year. That kind of scale doesn’t happen if the myths are even remotely true.

The issue is everyone thinks they’re an affiliate marketing expert. It’s a bit like skiing and snowboarding. Anyone can learn to stand up and ski or snowboard in a day — but when you want to head down the black run and do some things off-piste — that’s when you need to focus on depth of skill.

Affiliate program management is a skill. You have to be a jack of all trades and a master of all traffic sources. You need to be commercially-savvy. You need to have great communications skills. Be analytical, be technical. The job attributes list goes on and on.

The industry hasn’t quite caught up to that fact, and still I see so many young account managers being thrown in at the deep end ill-equipped, ill-supported or ill-trained to deal with the complexity of different affiliate entrepreneurs’ businesses or trying to evaluating traffic sources for ROI.

It’s why we specialized in performance marketing for Affiverse — in all the things we do, from our agency service to content and podcasting and training and events — to help the world get insight and access to what really makes affiliate marketing successful. We are on a mission to educate and diffuse misinformation so that everyone can benefit from affiliate marketing, as it really can affect your business in a positive and impactful way!

“Affiliate” or “partner”? Why?
Partner.

We are moving away from what the constraints of the old term “affiliate” means. Everyone is an affiliate now, including influencers, other business owners, and app developers, as an example. “Partner” captures it all, and doesn’t differentiate.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in affiliate marketing?
Not valuing the traffic and opportunity properly before signing the affiliate’s IO and a CPA of £1,000 per customer, which was embarrassing! That was an early rookie error, what I thought looked good — didn’t mean it was good. As an affiliate manager, you have to do the correct due diligence on partners before you spend your budgets with them. I never made that mistake twice.

What’s your top tip when it comes to negotiating affiliate deals with partners?
Be clear and transparent about what your KPIs and outcomes are. Be specific about where you want to be seen or placed, and put a time limit to delivery. When you keep things simple it’s easier to get things done.

How has your affiliate strategy changed over time?
We take a much wider view on performance and what fits in here and what has to be passed on to other departments, such as media, or brand advertising. We have found that when you keep an open mind and work backwards from defining “Who is our customer?” you can open a lot more channels for engagement, and this helps you to scale.

Introducing Willis Nelson

Willis Nelson began his digital marketing career at the same company where he currently acts as Senior Director of Revenue, Mobile Apps: Fluent. Since starting out as Fluent’s first sales intern in 2014, Willis has continued to learn and hone his marketing skill set through years of developing partnerships with leading advertiser brands. Today, he focuses on growing Fluent’s mobile user acquisition business by building lasting relationships with new and current customers.

Take it away, Willis!

Rockstar Q&A with Willis

What are your day-to-day duties?
I’m focused on strategic partnerships and business development across Fluent’s mobile user acquisition business. This includes onboarding new advertiser partners and growing current brand relationships.

What’s the best thing you learned at the last conference you were at? What conference was it?
When I was at MAU in Las Vegas, I learned that marketers are focused on leveraging ChatGPT for producing and scaling mobile ads. Given the bandwidth constraints with the user acquisition space, this helps provide suggestions and optimize solutions for campaigns.

What do you think is undervalued in marketing in general?
Right pricing campaigns per source. Being able to bid efficiently by the affiliates sources allow brands to acquire more customers while still backing into their performance metrics.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve come across in affiliate marketing?
It can be difficult to secure enough test budget from brands to allow publishers to build big enough audience cohorts. Generating a large sample size and letting the data mature leads to more efficient optimizations towards performance.

How is your team structured?
Our team is currently structured by business units — we have four primary business units we offer to the market within targeted and scalable customer acquisition solutions. Each BU consists of its own account management and ad operations for efficiency.

What 2-3 trends are you seeing within the industry?
We’re seeing more and more brands become hyper-focused on ROAS as the economy shifts and every dollar needs to be accounted for. We’re also seeing partners more comfortable and excited to work with rewarded loyalty and incentivized traffic partners.

What is your biggest challenge today?
Our biggest challenge is navigating our partners’ internal team structures. We have many growth and acquisition solutions we offer to the market; however, our advertiser partners utilize different teams to manage those campaigns and hold separate budgets, which can make things disparate and inefficient. We’re getting better with solution positioning and pricing to be able to expand our partnerships across our various channels.

What’s your top tip to negotiating affiliate deals with partners?
It’s key for brands to be open to sharing as much data as possible with affiliates as long as they can leverage it for optimization purposes. Some brands can hoard this data, which makes it less incentivizing for the affiliate partner to be confident about the success of the campaign.

How important is it to follow the journey of the user after your advertisers first acquire them or after their first purchase?
Critical! This comes back to data sharing. The more performance and conversion data shared back to media partners leads to better optimizations towards users who are making purchases and achieving proxy events within their funnel.

How have you seen brands’ affiliate strategies change over time?
There’s been a great shift of large mobile brands adopting the use of affiliate tracking platforms. Many brands who rely heavily on mobile didn’t have integrations for tracking, which made it difficult for affiliates to build long-term partnerships with efficient campaigns. We hope the trend continues!

Do you have any advice for a smaller or lesser known brand to get noticed by a quality publisher?
Customize! If you’re able to customize your landing page, promotion, call to action, etc. to fit the affiliate’s inventory, it’s a win-win for everybody.

Introducing Elias Saad

Elias Saad is the Senior Manager of Global Affiliates & Partnerships at General Assembly, an education platform that focuses on providing courses for students interested in switching to in-demand tech careers. Before General Assembly, Elias managed strategic partnerships at Guideline, VRBO, and Acceleration Partners. Listen to his full set in the Q&A below!

Rockstar Q&A with Elias

What are your day-to-day duties?
They fall into four main buckets: activating new campaigns; reporting on insights and performance; compliance checks to make sure red flags are solved while small; and operations, including reviewing updates on all fronts (product, brand, tech, people, etc.).

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
By luck, 10 years ago I changed careers from investment funds analysis to marketing and found a similarity with affiliate marketing on measuring incrementality.

What was the best thing you learned at the last conference you went to? What conference was it?
The last conference I went to was PI Live. As far as what I learned there, it reiterated my belief that in time each brand/organization will train their own version of AI.

What are your most important KPIs?
ROAS and leads, and then from there:

• CAC, LTV
• Reviews/NPS
• Speed to sale
• % of cancellations
• AOV

What do you think is undervalued in marketing in general?
The results of a complete brainstorm session, with one day/week of prep, one to three rounds of brainstorming, one round of discussion, and one round of prioritization. Versus the usual one hour zoom call, which is much less productive.

“Affiliate” or “partner”? Why?
I actually use both terms:

• Affiliate: when a brand promotes with someone who already has a built channel. Therefore there is only an association or affiliation.
• Partner: when a brand and the advertiser build a new channel, each adding their own part, therefore “partnership.”

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve come across in affiliate marketing?
Convincing content-focused partners, influencers in particular, to work on revenue share campaigns. This is challenging when the attribution model is last touch and content partners are generating traffic at the top of the funnel.

To solve for this, we build a unique funnel with the partner, from the top-of-funnel awareness content like free webinars all the way to the lead generation moment where someone schedules a call with sales. In between, we bring in the necessary resources, depending on the audience: workshops, guides, articles, videos, stories, testimonials, rankings, etc. To make sure this is working, we track the percentage of leads that the partners are generating net new (meaning they were the last touch), and the ones where they contributed but were not the last touch. We want to keep this percentage as high as possible so that the partners’ revenue share is close or more than their target ROAS.

What’s the next big thing in affiliate marketing?
Growth without using discounts. We don’t need another discount site. Publishers that are working on business models that find the right user at the right time in the right place won’t need a discount to get the sale. Matching the right place, time, and person means the value of the product is worth it.

For example, if I’m planning a road trip and thanks to a car maintenance app I see that it is convenient to replace my car’s tires based on my current mileage, that same app can link to the best recommended tires for my car.

How important is following the journey of a user after you first acquire them or after their first purchase?
Post-purchase customer data can inform marketing strategy on the reasons why that specific persona group is interested in the brand. They can also become a great source for reviews, testimonials, and referrals. Going further, if there’s possibility for repeat purchases, we can reach out to the customer by a certain date to present a special price for repeat customers. As long as the tracking post-purchase fits the business model goals, there shouldn’t be any waste on data gathering and marketing efforts.

Introducing Mike Demopoulos

Mike Demopoulos is the Head of Partnerships at Codeable, the only platform purpose-built to connect WordPress freelancers with the customers who need their expertise. With years of agency experience in the digital realm and a passion for helping online businesses succeed, Mike has already left a mark at Codeable since joining in 2021. Drumroll, please …

Rockstar Q&A with Mike

What are your day-to-day duties?
As part of my role, I collaborate closely with our partners to provide them with all the necessary resources to promote Codeable. Additionally, I assist them in developing and integrating applications that prove advantageous for their business. Furthermore, I schedule trips to attend diverse events throughout the year to connect with our clients and partners.

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
For years, I volunteered in Open Source and worked at different web agencies. Later on, I transitioned to the hosting and product sector, where I took on an evangelist role. Eventually, my role evolved into Business Development and M&A. The rest, as they say, is history.

What are your most important KPIs?
The two most important metrics for us are the number of users who post projects on Codeable and the percentage of them who become paying clients. Additionally, we keep track of the percentage of our partners who have sent traffic over the past 28 days. We aim to maintain good communication with all of our partners.

What is your biggest pet peeve about the affiliate industry?
We require an onboarding phone call with each partner to build relationships. The number of no-shows is alarming. Collaborative efforts are preferred over just traffic.

What do you think is undervalued in marketing in general?
In this modern era of digital dominance, it’s easy to overlook the power of physical marketing materials. Direct mail, packaging, and promotional items offer a tangible connection with the brand that can leave a lasting impression. IKEA’s iconic printed catalogs are a prime example of this. As someone who’s passionate about helping digital businesses succeed, I’ve gained a reputation for sending unique physical items – from pitch decks on View-Masters to massive shipments of pasta. I firmly believe in the power of “lumpy mail” and its ability to capture attention and make a meaningful impact.

What have you done in your last 6–12 months to improve your affiliate efforts?
Over the past year, we have been conducting audits on our current partners to engage in more meaningful discussions about how to better promote Codeable. Additionally, we have developed new integrations through hosting control panels to enable our hosting partners to increase revenue and better serve their clients.

“Affiliate” or “partner?” Why?
On our website, we distinguish between affiliates and partnerships to avoid confusion, although I personally prefer the term “partner”. For us, partners are services that complement our own, and want to offer Codeable to enhance their value to customers. Affiliates, on the other hand, are more like traditional publishers. Our goal with partnerships is to provide additional benefits beyond simply sharing revenue.

What’s the next big thing in affiliate marketing?
The emergence of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) providers is transforming affiliate marketing by providing a new payment model that can enhance conversion rates. This alignment between affiliate marketing and BNPL services is revolutionizing traditional marketing approaches, especially for high-priced items and services that require recurring payments. To succeed, affiliates should tailor their strategies to the financial preferences of their target audience, particularly younger demographics and those who avoid credit cards.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in affiliate marketing?
I should have avoided trying to include anyone and everyone in my program. This approach is not advantageous and can only harm your brand if you end up on irrelevant sites that don’t cater to your target audience or niche.

How do you think your strategy differs than other verticals?
We focus on providing our partners with tools that enable them to give personalized referrals for their projects. We have dedicated much time to integrating forms and plugins that allow our partners to refer their users to Codeable while providing relevant context about their needs.