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 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 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 Tye DeGrange

Tye has been in performance marketing for nearly 20 years in-house at Fortune 500 brands and running his agency, Round Barn Labs. He has worked on brands like eBay, StubHub, ModCloth, Amazon, MetaQuest, Hatch, Future Fit, Atlassian, and Grammarly. When he is not helping his clients grow more efficiently, he loves helping his talented growing team and sharing learnings and insights on the Flywheel newsletter and the Always Be Testing podcast.

Rockstar Q&A with Tye

What are your day-to-day duties?
Dropping knowledge. I love education — both learning and teaching, and so much of our industry requires that. When I am not speaking to a client, at an event, or to a prospect to help them assess and navigate affiliate partner and influencer marketing, I am supporting our growing team ensuring they have the resources they need. I am setting the vision and plan for how we become the next great affiliate agency.

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
After working in direct response marketing in print and digital, then at one of the first VC-backed ad networks (display programmatic marketing), I was part of a great batch of talented performance marketers in the early days at Commission Junction managing advertiser clients like Bowflex and StubHub.

What’s the best thing you learned at the last conference you attended?
Deep dives with Levanta, Moonpull, and TrafficGuard. We are using all of them and find them to be great players to help move the industry forward in supporting improved affiliate marketing on Amazon, link tracking and auditing, and improving fraud protection.

Bringing smart people that are building world-class teams and products in once place is the core value.

What are your most important KPIs?

• 13-week cash flow
• Top-line revenue
• Net profit
• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• % to plan for each client (based on their North Star metric)

What do you think is most undervalued in marketing in general?

1. Brands are not running enough tests. They are not setting tests up correctly with appropriate documentation, and tracking and not memorializing the results and learnings to continue to improve their growth.
2. YouTube and TikTok for some brands are being slept on.
3. I also think that affiliate marketing (I say this a lot) is the most undervalued and misunderstood “channel” in performance marketing. If managed well, it can be your highest-performance CAC lever and can contribute 20% of revenue to your brand’s bottom line.
4. Defining goals and terms like attribution and incrementality — too many people call this something that it is not, or do not define it clearly as a team. If they do define it, they are not setting up cost-appropriate tests to measure it effectively and make the hard decisions that come with attribution and incrementality testing.

“Affiliate” or “partner”? Why?
Affiliate, ’cause I put the “old” in old-school

But I will say that some audiences (know your audience) have such a misguided or uninformed view of “affiliate” (after all, it is the most misunderstood lever in performance marketing) that I will use “partner” in some cases.

I have compared affiliate marketing to partner marketing light, in the way brands have partner teams internally that are working on large brand-to-brand partnerships.

These brand-to-brand partnerships have grown and become more important, and as affiliate tech has improved, more true brand partnerships can be run on strong SaaS tracking tools.

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in affiliate marketing?
Not investing in enough tracking rigor and resources upfront, and ensuring reporting is accurate and published in a timely way — while this was years ago and when I was an individual contributor, it is one of many lessons that informs helping great people perform and win to give clients what they need and when.

What are 2-3 (or more) trends you’re seeing in the affiliate industry?

• Increased scrutiny and requests to test and measure incrementality.
• Increased demand for data-driven attribution and insights.
• The decline of ease in tracking due to privacy changes increasing the need to improved tech and more reliance on first-party cookies and email rather than third-party cookies that are being deprecated.
• Cost increases in Google and Meta.
• Platforms like Amazon regarding brands to send traffic into their ecosystem and TikTok following suit.
• Continued growth in commerce content and influencers and brands chasing that with varying degrees of success.

What’s your top tip when it comes to negotiating affiliate deals with partners?
Put yourself in their shoes, genuinely think about what they want, don’t be afraid to be clear, and make the ask. Having some friendship rapport and trust with the partner helps and encourages you to invest in those friendships and relationships. Sometimes what is being said is not the whole story, so being willing and able to go a bit deeper or ask questions can uncover the true issue/need/challenge. Quid pro quo — if you are asking for something, be willing to give something in return.

How have your advertisers’ affiliate strategies changed over time? 
We are seeing more and more requests for commerce content and influencers as part of a diversified approach to partner marketing.

What’s your ideal partner mix?

• Commerce content
• Influencer
• Loyalty with emphasis on discovery and conquesting — toolbar is monitored carefully
• BNPL
• Media buyers on a CPA (Google, Meta, TikTok)
• Connected TV
• Deal and coupon
• Amazon — Levanta
• Technology partners

Introducing Mike Currey

Mike started his career in marketing in the music and entertainment industry before working in media sales and then on the agency side at Razorfish. He’s since been working with affiliates on the brand side at companies like T-Mobile and Blue Nile, along with his current role at Quince, where he leads their affiliate and display efforts. Mike was also recently a speaker at PI Live 2023 in Miami.

Rockstar Q&A with Mike

What are your day-to-day duties?
Oversee program strategy, finance, operational build-out, a team of three, and ideate product build-outs internal and external. Collaborate with other internal partners to build strategy and attribution. Manage a subset of publishers outside of content commerce.

How did you get into affiliate marketing?
I joined T-Mobile on contract to help launch their display retargeting and manage a dormant affiliate program. After three months, I came on full-time for an affiliate and passed on the display to another new hire. That gig lasted almost six years before moving into other consulting/brands.

What are your most important KPIs?
Focusing on retail — margin and then return rate. I can drive traffic and revenue all day long but at the end of the day, if the brand is not making money after media spend/commissions, then is the tactic working? Also, not all publishers are equal. Some have an audience that likes to return products but commissions have been paid out.

What is your biggest pet peeve about the affiliate industry?
Lack of upper leadership support. The affiliate strategy has been around since the early ’90s and helped launch Amazon; Amazon seems to have worked out okay. There is value in the effort but a lot of leadership only sees it as a lower-funnel discount channel. It does come down to affiliate managers and agencies, too. Many load up programs with last-click partners, so that is what leadership sees. We as an industry need to be more responsible and diversify programs that show the value of the channel. So much collaboration with other internal media and payment models can be done for the full funnel. We just have to incorporate it into our programs and have seen many moving into this with the adoption of PR into the publisher mix.

What’s your ideal partner mix?
The Quince brand is young, so getting the name out through product reviews is our current mix. I would say 80% of the partners are content and 20% are a mix of gated relationships through offers/rewards.

What have you done in the last 6-12 months to improve your affiliate marketing efforts?
The program I walked into was previously managed by an agency that loaded the program up with coupons, sub-networks, and toolbars. Leadership took notice and had the data scientists do a deep dive. The results showed most of it was not incremental and started to move away into a content-based program. I came on a couple of months later. Immediately I started to remove all of the toolbars lingering, cleaned up our promo code structure for the company, shifted away from multi-use codes, and cleaned up publishers that were hijacking links, codes, and content. That was the first three months, so now I’m focused on building service discounts and offline strategies.

“Affiliate” or “partner”?
I would lean towards “partner.” Affiliate has a bit of taboo these days and a Wild West meaning. “Partner” brings in the notion two people are working together to build a strategy together. Wild West versus one-to-one.

What is the biggest mistake you’ve made in affiliate marketing?
Probably not going to as many affiliate conferences over the years. So many relationships have been forged there and I know a lot of people over email, but this industry is so personable. In-person does make a difference.

How important is following the journey of a user after you (or your advertisers) first acquire them or after their first purchase?
The journey before and during checkout is important to me. I want to know the media mix and which flows offline drive the greatest conversion rate. Even onsite, understanding what funnel by the publisher by publisher type drives the best conversion rate. This really depends a lot on the affiliate platform used, though.

Do you have a specific strategy for influencers?
The Quince influencer team builds brand awareness through partnered campaigns and UGC for other teams to whitelist. The affiliate team focuses on the organic side through long-tail reviews. I wouldn’t say it is not much than other retail brands.