Profitable Performance Marketing

Affiliate marketing, a high school radio show, the stodgy world of publishing and affiliate marketing is good for democracy? Yup, I talk about all these things with my guest today on the Profitable Performance Marketing Podcast. Michael McNerney, Publisher, Martech Record, joins me today to talk about those subjects and more.

Mike’s career spans the old world of publishing in the dawn of the digital age at McGraw Hill and we talk about how that unique experience, combined with his many years working in the partnership, strategy and business development areas of SaaS companies and affiliate platforms, positioned him perfectly to launch his industry publication, Martech Record. Martech Record, just this past December released a pretty solid and incredibly useful affiliate network and platform buyers guide as well as multiple webinars.

Want to find out how affiliate marketing is good for democracy? I’ll give you a hint, it has to do with journalists and media companies finding a stable model to earn revenue.

Want to know why Mike and his panelist, and now myself, think affiliate marketing is only in the top half of the first inning of this digital marketing game? It may open your eyes to a new way of looking at the channel. Give this podcast a listen.

Mike is also looking for more panelists for his buyers guide. If you manage affiliate programs and have worked with multiple networks, contact Mike at Linkedin. Let him know you heard about this on our podcast!

Check out the buyer’s guide here.

And sign up for the Martech Record newsletter to stay up to date on everything in the affiliate industry.

Seahawks football, biscuits and cinnamon rolls and affiliate marketing? Yes, that is all on today’s show. Today I have a conversation with Joe Sousa, Manager - Affiliate Marketing - North America at Fanatics, Inc. Like many other guests, I’ve known Joe for probably 10 years or more and I’m excited to have him on the podcast.

Today we talk about all things affiliate marketing. We dive into his time as an affiliate, successfully for 15 years, and his transition to managing affiliate programs. Joe’s career has spanned being a publisher, working at an affiliate management agency and now working for one of the top affiliate programs in the Sports category, maybe in any category, Fanatics.com.

This unique history and perspective brings a lot of value to conversations around:

• Affiliate optimization tactics

• Content site development

• Why relationships are so important in affiliate marketing

• And much more

Give this one a listen today.

And if you need help with your affiliate program - [email protected]

Being in this affiliate marketing industry for as long as I have has afforded me the luxury of meeting some pretty incredible people and building a relationship with them that spans decades. And our guest today is just one of those. Long time friend, long time digital marketing veteran, Beth Kirsch, joins me on the podcast today. Beth is a legend in our space and has been running affiliate channels and all other digital marketing campaigns for over two decades. She has been so ubiquitous in the space that I have referred to her as the “Michael Jordan of Lead Gen Affiliate Marketing”. Her career has expanded so much beyond that now that now nickname does her justice.

Beth is currently the VP of Marketing for Pipedrive, a global sales CRM SAS company.

Today we talk all things B2B affiliate marketing and Lead Gen affiliate marketing. Beth and I talk about career, covid, travel and more. But we really dive into the following areas:

• Business to Business affiliate marketing

• Lead Gen affiliate marketing

• Choosing the right technology partner for your affiliate program

• The difference between subscription and B2B marketing

• The need for different technology for B2B than retail affiliate marketing

• The importance of aligning your affiliate compensation and payouts with your business model

• How vital true partnership is to affiliate marketing success

• And much much more.

If you’d like to learn more about becoming an affiliate at Pipedrive, please email [email protected]. And follow Beth on Linkedin.

Oh, and pipedrive is hiring! https://www.pipedrive.com/en/jobs

Today I get the pleasure of speaking with Wade Tonkin, long time friend and industry vet and Award Winning affiliate marketer. Wade and I met while he was on the sales team at Kowabunga and I was managing the Hilton Hotels affiliate program. Wade’s done quite a bit since then.

You are going to find this podcast very interesting if you:

• Are a sports affiliate

• Operate a fan site

• Are an advertiser looking to migrate platforms

• Are an advertiser looking for ideas to recruit affiliates

• Are an advertiser trying to increase the ROI from your affiliate program

Wade shares some of the biggest successes at Fanatics including one large affiliate revenue challenge that his partner ended up beating by 4.5X! We talk about using Facebook to communicate with affiliates, how to divide workload amongst your team, how to manage your team and your affiliates around huge spikes during “Hot Market Events” such as the Superbowl, World Series and more.

This podcast jumps right into the deep end of affiliate marketing. You don’t want to miss it.

One of my favorite things about the Profitable Performance Marketing podcast is that I get to sit down and talk with some of my favorite people in the industry, people I consider friends and have known for decades. Tony is one of those and he joins me today.

Tony Pantano is the CEO of IMWave. I've known Tony for over a decade and IMWave’s founder, Adeam Viener for two decades. Tony is a great guy, upstanding individual and the kinda civic leader that I wish I could say I was. Tony loves challenges, and we talk about one large one he’s taken on this year, that of School Board Member. The first few minutes we discuss his experience with the pandemic as a member of a school board in Pennsylvania. I think you’ll find the discussion enlightening. Great job Tony, and thank you for stepping up and stepping out to serve your community.

Then we dive into search and affiliate. Tony shares some big success stories and the difference between trademark plus and what IMWave does. Hint hint, they don’t do trademark plus search bidding.

If you are looking for a partner to augment your search budget, cooperatively help you and your search team drive new incremental sales through your affiliate channel, then you definitely want to listen.

We also talk about these misconceptions:

• IMWave does trademark plus bidding

• “My search program is hitting everything available”

• You can’t have a search affiliate and a search term work together

• A Search affiliate will cannibalize your current program

• And more

If you want to reach out to Tony, you can email him at tonyATimwave.com

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 .

Are you ready for a very bubbly and educational podcast episode? I hope you are because today we have one of my favorite guests on our podcast, and I think you’ll find her personality as joyful as I do. Diana Gee-Calingo is the current Sr. Affiliate Manager for Tailored Brands. You may have heard of their men’s clothing brands - Men’s Warehouse and Jos A Bank. I have and am also a customer. In fact, my first suit I ever bought to land my first job in the internet marketing space was a Men’s Warehouse suit!

Diana and I have a lively conversation about everything from cooking and baking (man I can’t wait to get some of her fresh baklava), to working remotely, to affiliate marketing and to working through a bankruptcy in the affiliate channel.

One of the highlights of the podcast is geared toward those who want to move upwards in their career. Diana lays out her strategy for advancement and it begins and ends with the word “yes”. Saying yes to just about every opportunity allowed her to take on projects, demonstrate success and get that next big gig.

She also dives into what she would want employers, leaders and managers to know about working remotely. Hint - it’s probably not what you think but it is a vital and may make a huge difference to how you manage your remote workforce.

And then for affiliates and affiliate managers. Diana and I talk about the nuances of managing an affiliate channel through a bankruptcy of the advertiser. There are some unique things you need to understand and rough waters you need to navigate, and Diana does a great job of laying those out.

You can connect with Diana on instagram - littled99, Linkedin

Today I get the honor and privilege of chatting with long time industry vet, Candice Noble. Cutting her teeth in the affiliate marketing world with Performics back in 2000, managing one of the most well known and vibrant affiliates programs in the space at Snapfish and Hewlett Packard, Candice has been one of the most successful digital marketers for almost the entirety of digital marketing. Her experience and successes have few peers.

During her 25 year career, Candice has pursued a journey to showcase her authentic self, and as a Black women, self described data nerd and tattooed marijuana user, she has a lot of experiences to share with us. And we dive into each one. Candice and I talk about her experiences with race, equity, diversity and the weight of racism and implicit bias on her career and daily professional life. She shares how she felt safe in our affiliate community, how things changed as she grew in her career and what it feels like to have that weight lifted.

It is definitely an enlightening and eye opening conversation. Please be sure to listen.

We dive into weed as well. Yup, you read that right. We talk about the marketing of it, the opportunities and difficulties and how people have responded to her coming out as a recreational and medicinal user of the plant. You’ll also hear me stumble as I try to say the word “marijuana” on this podcast. Listening again, it’s quite funny.

Candice is an incredible individual with so much to share and I can’t be more proud to have her on the show. It’s our longest yet, but I think you’ll find it worth every single minute. We are totally going to have her back soon.

You can reach out to Candice at candiceATpapersandink.com

Oh, hey traditional affiliates, you may be missing a ton of revenue opportunity if you are not promoting marijuana products. But Candice has a solution, promote hers! Reach out to her to find out about this opportunity.

Startups, acquisitions, technology affiliates and door to door sales? Yup, we talk about all those things on today’s episode featuring our special guest Dan Amarguaye of Envolve Technologies. I met Dan while he was still with the affiliate recruitment recruitment company he co-founded in 2018, Publisher Discovery.

Dan is a true, and successful, entrepreneur and he talks about leadership and the lessons he has learned throughout his career. Don’t miss out and listen through to the end. We dive into his resume and talk about how his time as a Door to Door salesmen on the streets of London allowed him to develop strong relationship building skills that allow him to succeed today.

We talked about lessons learned in acquisitions, why he loves starts up and dive into some misconceptions advertisers have about the affiliate channel and coupons specifically. Dan provides great insight into the channel and the importance of affiliates to your marketing mix.

If you’d like to find more about Envolve and how to work with them on a performance basis, contact dan at dan.2ATenvolvetech.com or go to www.envolvetech.com

My guest and I coined a new word, and a new marketing channel, on today’s episode, Spartnerships. Yes, Jacob Fu and I merged sponsorships and partnerships together. I think you’ll really enjoy this conversation. Jacob, along with his wife Esther, cofounded Localadventurer.com, a travel affiliate and content producer.

In today’s conversation we go over their origin story, what it’s like to learn how to drive an airstream for the first time as well as how they turned a simple idea into their financial success. Jacob and I talk about how to work with them from an advertiser perspective.

So, if you are an advertiser looking:

• To work with more content sites

• Understand how those niche content producers function

• To inspire your travel side again

• And work with more no-coupon sites in the future

Then this episode is for you.

It isn’t often that you get a chance to have a conversation with someone that has been at the very beginning of our industry and was a catalyst at two of the most impactful technology solutions in our space over the last 20 years. Today I get to do just that. Today I speak with long time friend, industry vet and the very first employee at Commission Junction, Todd Crawford!

As I stated above, Todd was the very first employee at Commission Junction and since then has established himself as a thought leader in our space and helped launch one of the most innovative technology platforms in our space.

On this episode we discussed the “other” marketing channel, Partnerships. Todd did a great job of explaining the difference and need for partnerships and how Impact, his current venture, empowers this channel to scale.

If you are an affiliate marketer or an advertiser that needs to find new channels for growth, has been pushed to go beyond the known affiliates and couponers, or you are simply looking to jump start your idea creation, then this podcast is for you.

You can contact Todd at his linkedin, Impact’s linkedin and Impact’s blog.