Profitable Performance Marketing

Today on our podcast, we have Cary Pierce, Manager of Agency Services at Rakuten Adverising. Cary brings a unique perspective to our conversations as he has worked at almost every different type of player in the affiliate game. From agency to network and everything in between.

Our conversation spans reactions to covid, changes in the industry this year to how to plan for Q1 when we know very little will be the same compared to Q1 last year.

Cary also gives some great advice for new publishers and advertisers that have come to the affiliate channel since the pandemic started:

Publishers:

• Get as much info as you can

• Have conversations - everyone is very helpful in this space and when you win everyone wins

• Have as many conversations as you can

• Reach out to your advertisers and work together to optimize your efforts

• Know your audience

• Share that knowledge with your advertisers

Advertisers:

• It’s really just one thing. You need a good and competent captain at the helm of your affiliate program. You can’t set it and forget it.

Get ahold of Cary at [email protected]

Also, check out Rakuten Advertising's Cyber Week Recap.

And don't forget to visit www.jebcommerce.com/strategies to get your 19 point guide (plus one extra tip) on how to survive and thrive in this current economic climate.

On today’s episode, I have a conversation with Chelseah Murphy, Business Development Manager at Wickire. Wikfire is a data driven digital agency that focuses on SEM work for their clients.

I really enjoyed this conversation and I think you’ll find it extremely informative. You may know this affiliate best for their trademark+ SEM bidding, www.buyersguide.org or www.coupon.co website. But there is so much more that they do.

This episode is going to be impactful if you:

• Allow affiliates to trademark plus bid in the search engines

• Are 100% against this activity

• Looking for cost effective ways to maximize your ROI through SEM campaigns

• Would rather only pay for SEM that produces sales

• Are looking to maximize your coupon results

• Think affiliates do very little work that they should be compensated for (this may change your mind)

• Want information on innovative affiliate partners

Wickfire does some amazing work in Trademark Plus, Product and Brand Review sites and Coupon area. I hope you find this podcast episode as informative as I did!

If you’d like to get in touch with Chelseah or Wickfire, email them at [email protected] or [email protected]

And don't forget, we put together a case study focused on controlling customer acquisition costs. This case study highlights the commission structure, technology utilization and promotional strategies we use for our clients’ affiliate programs to help them increase their overall revenue while reducing their cost of acquisition. It can be done, and we outline that in this case study. Go to www.jebcommerce.com/acquisitioncost to get your strategy today.

22 year digital marketing vet, Don Batsford Jr., is today’s guest on the Profitable Performance Marketing Podcast. I met Don while he owned and operated 31 Media, a search agency and one of the best known search affiliates in the space.

Currently Don is Head of Industry at Google, working with some of the largest advertisers in the space. He and his team help them optimize their campaigns across Google’s products.

Don and I talk about the 3 universal truths, action items marketers can take, the impact of machine learning on our world and on our marketing and some key leadership lessons he has learned over the years. You are going to love this episode.

You can contact don at Linkedin and Twitter.

And don’t forget, we put together a case study focused on controlling customer acquisition costs. This case study highlights the commission structure, technology utilization and promotional strategies we use for our clients’ affiliate programs to help them increase their overall revenue while reducing their cost of acquisition. It can be done, and we outline that in this case study. Go to www.jebcommerce.com/acquisitioncost to get your strategy today.

On today’s episode… An influencer! Yup, it’s one of the hottest topics in affiliate marketing and today we have one of the best on the show.

Terry Adelman is our guest today, and he is the Managing Partner of MENfluential, an influencer agency that manages many of the premier influencers in the men’s category. JEBCommerce has actually worked with Terry for many years and have seen great success for our clients. In fact, we have two case studies: Bodybuilding.com and Indochino.

If you are looking to learn more about working with an influencer, you definitely want to listen to this podcast. Terry talks about his career path and how MENfluential started. We dive into how it is to work with their agency as well as their influencers, how they judge success and what they actually do.

You can find more and reach out to Terry with his email and at MENfluential.com

You can also see Aaron Marino’s youtube channel which we reference multiple times here.

And don't forget, we put together a case study focused on controlling customer acquisition costs. This case study highlights the commission structure, technology utilization and promotional strategies we use for our clients’ affiliate programs to help them increase their overall revenue while reducing their cost of acquisition. It can be done, and we outline that in this case study. Go to www.jebcommerce.com/acquisitioncost to get your strategy today.

10 year vet, Jamie Tapia Barr, joins us today on the Profitable Performance Marketing Podcast. It’s a homecoming of sorts, as Jamie started her affiliate marketing career right here at JEBCommerce. Going from an assistant affiliate manager to leading some of our most exciting and fastest growing programs, Jamie established herself as an affiliate marketing superstar early and has continued that throughout her career.

Jamie truly has a heart for affiliate marketing and has personally managed and supervised teams that developed hundreds of affiliate marketing programs in just about every vertical on the agency side and in-house at several different advertisers. Her experience is impressive and I’m glad to have her on today’s episode.

Jamie and I discuss everything from the election and how it impacts our Q4 affiliate marketing plans, to career decisions, planning and unique partnerships in the affiliate marketing space. Jamie talks about the need and advantages of being flexible in times like we are experiencing, both because of COVID and this election.

If you’d like to get in touch with Jamie via Linkedin.

In today’s intro I offer you a case study in controlling customer acquisition costs. This case study highlights the commission structure, technology utilization and promotional strategies we use for our clients’ affiliate programs to help them increase their overall revenue while reducing their cost of acquisition. It can be done, and we outline that in this case study. Go to www.jebcommerce.com/acquisitioncost to get your strategy today.

Many of our clients and our listeners have been asking for a deeper dive into some of the technologies available to get better results, make better decisions and incentivize affiliates for the right type of orders. Well, today my guest delivers!

Today’s episode features the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for LinkConnector - Tara McCommons! Tara and I have been friends forever. And just last week she was named as one of the PerformanceIn top 50 industry players for 2020! And we couldn’t agree more. Tara is a driving force in our industry. Congratulations Tara!

In today’s podcast we dive into specific technologies available for advertisers at LinkConnector - Nake Coupons and Advanced Commissioning. Both of these technologies allow you to run more efficient and higher producing affiliate programs, reach out to non-traditional affiliates (influencers and content producers etc) and provide really unique commissioning structures in real time to ensure you are incentivizing the right affiliate behavior and paying for the right type of sales. It’s a deep dive into the weeds that I’m sure you will find a ton of value on.

Give it a listen!

And if you’d like to contact Tara directly - email, linkedin and www.linkconnector.com

In this episode’s intro I talk about a report that Tara and LinkConnector helped me put together last year titled The Truth About Coupon Affiliates. We scoured sources for actual data on Coupon sites, their orders and customers and what value they actually provide. Many networks provided actual data for this report. Go to www.jebcommerce.com/value to download this free report.

One of the greatest blessings I have from my career in affiliate marketing is to work with and get to know amazingly good people. Today’s guest is definitely one of those. Today I interview and chat with Alan Rapoport. Alan is currently the Datafeed Client Relationship Manager at FMTC and formerly the Co-Founder/COO/CFO and Director of Merchant Management at DealTaker.com. Alan has been in this business for 16 years and his background leads to some really great conversation.

In today’s episode Alan lays out the necessity of having an Innovator AND an Implementer in any start up and organization. You need the vision, and then you need someone who can execute that vision. We talk about the lessons learned from selling your business to buying it back and then selling it again and then we dive into the issues advertisers have with affiliate deal sites.

Alan has a tremendous amount of industry knowledge and experience and is one of the smartest guys I know. You definitely want to listen to this one all the way through.

Check out FMTC and find Alan on Linkedin.

In the intro and outro I talk about a free resource we have created for advertisers - our Affiliate Channel Accelerator Checklist. You need to scale your revenue and you need to do it profitably, but how do you know your program is set up to do just that? Well our checklist will help you identify the likelihood for profitable scalability. Check it out at www.jebcommerce.com/accelerator

Or 15th Episode! Today I talk with Brian Marcus, the Vice President of Global Marketing and Partnerships at TUNE. Brian and I go way back, we've both been in this industry for decades, navigated the same circles and have come really close to actually meeting many many times. But until we started this podcast, Brian and I haven't had the chance to actually meet. It's pretty crazy that we have so many common friends and acquaintances, been to so many of the same events, include TUNE events, and we hadn't actually met. Well I am glad we did, and I think the conversation we have will make you think that as well.

Brian and I dive into his career path and leadership lessons - Brian has worked at old school hundred year old catalogers, platforms, and one of the largest ecommerce companies on the planet. His experience both in breadth and depth is impressive.

We dive into incrementality of affiliate programs extensively and talk about some real interesting tests he has conducted with loyalty and coupon sites. You definitely want to listen to that section.

Brian brings a truly unique perspective to this podcast and I am so thankful he spent time with me this week.

You can find Brian on Linkedin and at TUNE.com.

Brian also wanted me to share TUNE's Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing, their comprehensive guide to running an affiliate program. Go grab it today!

Lisa Riolo is a 20 year vet of the industry and Co-Founder of the affiliate technology Platform - Impact. We had a great conversation that spanned my adaptation to a co-working facility, how we are both navigating our current social climate, leadership lessons (hint hint - curiosity, empathy and potential are touchstones for her and performance marketing and where it is going.

We often don’t get the opportunity to thank individuals who played pivotal roles in our career, and today I do, so don’t miss that.

You definitely want to stay till the end as we talk about where the industry is going, the rise of affiliates really recognizing and flexing their power and our focus on the customer’s buyer journey and how that fits in with the future.

You can find Lisa on Linkedin and visit Impact for your affiliate tracking needs.

In the intro I share about one of our services, Affiliate Program Strategy Roadmap. If you’d like to find out how you can leverage our decades of experience to create a strategy for growth in your affiliate program, check out our service here http://jebco.de/strategy .

Top Tips

Sales is about mindset. Lisa mentions that she often hears people say they don’t enjoy “sales.” She explains that we are all in a way selling something – selling to, retaining or interfacing with customers. Lisa says to think of sales as helping someone make the decision that’s right for him or her. It’s not about your agenda, it’s about their agenda. You are simply giving them information so they can make the best decision possible. It’s all about educating people, and this runs across every vertical.

Reminder: Affiliates are brands, too. Lisa discusses her work to balance the affiliate marketing ecosystem. Her focus is on creating a partnership framework and methodology, while remaining respectful to the fact that Impact is a technology platform, not a network. She also reminds us that affiliates are their own brands, too. Lisa believes that the industry has let the pendulum swing too far towards the brands’ needs, rather than the affiliates or publishers. A platform should be an ecosystem that allows everybody to be able to partner successfully. This especially goes for those that have never participated in the performance space until now (like CNN, Buzzfeed, etc.). Publishers are true brands on their own and they should be viewed as equal.

The consumer experience needs to become the focus. Lisa drives home that a focus on the consumer experience is where everyone must head in this industry. Reflecting on how you market, the touch points in the path to purchase and how to put the consumer first is important. Lisa emphasizes that we must think about the touch points of engagement while a customer is trying to decide to buy or participate. Are you adding value directly to the customer when they are engaged with your company? As they transition throughout the journey, is there enough consistency to build a partnership?

Cormac Jonas has come from civil engineering all the way through affiliate marketing to become one of the premier partnership marketers around, and although Cormac and I have only known each other a short time, you can tell we clicked right away.

If you are an advertiser who:

• Doesn’t think your affiliates really do much for you

• Are looking for innovation from your affiliate program

• Have said “my affiliates really don’t do much to drive the sale”

• Or you are wondering where innovation comes from

You definitely want to listen to this podcast. Cormac and I discuss his career path, his vital career decisions, how important landing at RetailMeNot was and how innovative they were while he launched their Travel section. So, we definitely talk about travel, so consider this another episode in our travel series. We dive into some of the most unique and innovative technologies and tactics that he was part of while at RetailMeNot. And yes, I said RetailMeNot. If you are thinking they don’t do much to generate the sale, this may change your mind. In fact, if you think you have a problem with your affiliates generating incremental revenue, you may really have a problem with your relationships. So we talk about some real innovative ways affiliates are building audiences and reaching them.

Get a hold of Cormac at Linkedin (we are finally connected, thanks Cormac :) ) - and at [email protected]

In the intro I share about one of our services, Affiliate Program Strategy Roadmap. If you’d like to find out how you can leverage our decades of experience to create a strategy for growth in your affiliate program, check out our service here http://jebco.de/strategy .

And don’t forget about our Affiliate Marketing Strategies to Survive and Thrive ebook that we have available at https://jebcommerce.com/lp/affiliate-marketing-strategies-to-survive-and-thrive-in-the-current-climate/. We outline 19 strategies and tactics you can take now to be sure you’ll make it through and find more success through this pandemic than you did before.