In this episode, the Media Buying Podcast hosts Jim Banks and Rob Adler welcome industry leaders Amanda Faris and Sara Malo of LinkUnite to unpack the biggest trends shaping the future of media buying and affiliate marketing events in 2026. The group reflects on Affiliate Summit and Lead Gen World, revealing how increased event costs, overlapping schedules, and a shift toward ROI-driven attendance are reshaping networking and business development.

Key Takeaways Include:

1. Event ROI & Attendance Trends: Discover why companies are sending smaller teams, how event organizers are adjusting, and what it means for the industry's future.
2. Relationship-Driven Networking: Learn how LinkUnite creates intimate, experiential events to foster meaningful connections—moving beyond business card exchanges to real conversations and partnerships.
3. AI in Media Buying: Explore practical AI applications for automating grunt work, prospecting, lead nurturing, and email copywriting. Hear how industry vets are using automation tools to free up time and boost workflow efficiency.
4. Industry Community & Long-Term Value: Find out how deep relationships in affiliate marketing translate to loyalty, trust, and mutual support across decades—benefiting both newcomers and veterans in their daily tasks.
5. Inclusive & Global Expansion: Get the inside track on LinkUnite’s 2026 event series across North America and plans for global outreach, including accessibility for women marketers from India, Israel, and beyond.

Episode Benefits for Media Buyers & Marketers:

1. Maximize the value of event attendance with proven networking strategies.
2. Stay ahead of new AI tools and automation best practices.
3. Build reliable, long-lasting business relationships to support your strategic goals.
4. Understand industry changes to better plan team deployments, event budgets, and partner outreach.

In this episode, you’ll get actionable insights on:

🔹 Meta & Google Q3 Financials

Get the inside scoop on Meta and Google’s latest quarterly reports—how increased ad revenue, AI investments, and tax policy are shaping their business models. The hosts break down what media buyers need to know and why it matters if you’re running Facebook or YouTube ad campaigns.

🔹 E-commerce & Real-Time Analytics

Discover how Shopify’s Black Friday live sales tracker gives a pulse on the global flow of transactions—perfect for e-commerce founders and digital marketers looking to time campaigns and understand trending buying cycles.

🔹 Media Buying Tools: From Lucky Orange to Klaviyo

Learn why tools like Lucky Orange and Hotjar are invaluable for uncovering site friction and boosting conversion rates. Plus, tips for using Klaviyo and other email platforms efficiently while managing costs.

🔹 Affiliate Strategies & Monetizing Every Lead

From leveraging short forms vs. long forms in lead gen to monetizing DQ (disqualified) traffic, Jim Banks and Rob Adler unpack smart ways to increase ROI—whether you’re an agency owner, e-commerce entrepreneur, or running local services.

🔹 Local Business Hacks: Turning Missed Calls into Revenue

Don’t waste leads! Hear practical advice for plumbers, HVAC companies, and other service-based businesses on how to partner locally and monetize leads outside your service area through affiliate deals and network collaborations.

This episode is packed with expert tips perfect for performance marketers, affiliate managers, digital agencies, and e-commerce founders eager to scale, optimize, and boost profitability. The insights will help you:

1. Make smarter ad buying decisions based on platform trends
2. Use analytics and automation to reduce friction and improve conversion rates
3. Increase revenue by monetizing every customer touchpoint
4. Build strategic local partnerships and strengthen your service business

Are you looking to transform your agency or in-house marketing team with cutting-edge programmatic advertising strategies?

Curious how AI in media buying is changing the landscape for independent digital agencies?

This episode dives deep with guest Mike Hauptman, founder of AdLib, as he shares actionable approaches for media buyers, ad tech specialists, and marketing agencies eager to elevate their campaign performance.

Learn how tools like AdLib offer DSP-agnostic programmatic access, empower mid-market agencies, and deliver game-changing transparency and scale.

Discover the evolution from faxed insertion orders to real-time bidding and how legacy systems can hinder growth compared to new, lean agency models leveraging API-first platforms and artificial intelligence.

You’ll also hear candid takes on client relationships, defining an Ideal Client Persona (ICP), navigating industry conferences, and the balance between automation and authentic strategy.

Whether you’re a tech-savvy marketer, agency leader, or digital media pro, this conversation is packed with practical tips, trends, and honest reflections that will help you future-proof your advertising strategies and client partnerships.

💡 Boost Your Agency’s Growth:

1. Practical tips for finding scalable solutions and maximizing reach with programmatic ads
2. How independent agencies can remain competitive—even against industry giants
3. The real-world impact of AI on marketing automation and client interactions
4. Strategies for building long-term, trust-based client relationships

🚀 Ready for more?

Subscribe for expert insights on media buying, ad tech, and agency innovation.

Welcome to another episode of The Media Buying Podcast.

Today, Jim Banks sits down with industry veteran Bob Regular, a true pioneer who’s been navigating the digital world since the mid-90s.

Together, they take a nostalgic yet insightful tour through the evolution of online media buying—from the early days of banner ads to the current seismic shifts brought on by AI and automation.

Bob Regular reveals what it’s like juggling roles as CEO of Infolinks, founder of Delivering Yield, and former publisher of Adotas, sharing the challenges and triumphs of steering companies through fast-changing digital landscapes.

The conversation dives deep into the realities behind programmatic advertising, the push for clean supply paths, and the rising power (and potential pitfalls) of AI in automating media buying.

If you’ve ever wondered how industry leaders are adapting to changes like privacy rules, declining publisher traffic, and the rapid emergence of new platforms, this episode offers both practical wisdom and candid behind-the-scenes stories.

Whether you’re a seasoned media buyer or just curious about where the digital ad world is heading, you won’t want to miss this one.

In this episode of the Media Buying Podcast, we discuss various topics related to media buying, industry changes, and the impact of AI.

Rob shares his recent experiences at Affiliate Summit and Mailcon, highlighting changes in event security and his presentation on leveraging AI in email marketing.

The hosts also discuss the importance of data management, customer engagement strategies, and optimizing ad campaigns for better performance.

They emphasize the need for personalized communication, effective use of custom labels in Google Ads, and how AI can serve as an equalizer in media buying.

They also touch on humorous anecdotes and past experiences in the industry, including the importance of understanding demographics and the challenges of maintaining lead quality.

Are you leaving money on the table with your media buying strategy?

In this episode of The Media Buying Podcast, hosts Jim Banks and Rob Adler are joined by Scott Shou, co-founder of Boardwalk Marketing, to dissect performance marketing’s most overlooked profit engines, recapture and decline traffic, multi-channel monetization, and leveraging AI for personalized revenue optimization.

Scott draws on over 25 years of startup and marketing experience, revealing how he transitioned from cybersecurity into leading data-driven media buying strategies, and how Boardwalk Marketing is simplifying and automating the complex process of extracting maximum value from every website visit.

Learn why most performance marketers only tap into a fraction of their true earning potential, discover actionable tactics for exit traffic monetization, and get the inside scoop on segmenting by state, device, and behavior to multiply conversion rates.

Key Takeaways:

1. Why media buying pros are missing up to 90% of potential revenue—and how to fix it
2. Step-by-step strategies for turning “dead-end” traffic into a steady profit stream
3. How Boardwalk Marketing’s AI-powered platform delivers hyper-personalization (no coder required!)
4. Direct buyers vs. lead aggregators: When, why, and how to use each for scalable growth
5. Essential verticals for performance marketers: finance, credit, subprime, and beyond
6. Real-world advice for agencies to diversify channels and add new revenue streams instantly
7. The new attention economy: How AI and changing platforms impact user journeys and media buying success

Perfect for digital marketers, media buyers, lead gen specialists, agency owners, and anyone hungry for practical insider techniques to boost campaign ROI—starting today.

Are you spending more on your call tracking platform than you should? Want to understand the real economics behind media buying, lead generation, and affiliate marketing in today’s landscape? This episode is packed with actionable tips, hard-won lessons, and top strategies you can implement right away to boost ROI and sidestep common pitfalls.

Key Insights in this Episode:

1. Understanding Call Tracking Platform Pricing: Get the inside scoop on major platforms like Phinexa, Ringba, CallRail, and more. Learn how number costs, minute charges, call recording, and transcription upsells impact your margins.
2. Cost-Busting Tricks: Robert reveals how to cut down your pay-per-call spending by bypassing telco middlemen, optimizing recording storage, and accessing cheaper number pools.
3. Managing Lead Quality & Hygiene: Discover why prescreening and underwriting knowledge are critical for both affiliates and advertisers—and how to bake these into your campaigns.
4. Affiliate Optimization & Buyer Rotation: Learn the best way to evaluate buyers, balance waiting and priority, and maximize your revenue per call or click.
5. Intent vs Demographic Marketing: Jim and Robert debate real-world examples of why the highest paying offer isn’t always the most profitable—plus, how demographic targeting can trump intent in certain channels.
6. Combatting Programmatic Fraud & MFA Site Drain: Find out how to blacklist low-quality ad placements and keep your traffic spend working for you—not the ad arbitrageurs.
7. Creative Compliance for Unusual Offers: From Trojan horse landers to personality quizzes, see how pro media buyers use lateral thinking to run (legally) on “prohibited” verticals.
8. Advanced Hyperlocal Tactics: Get inspired by device-based targeting at dog parks, luxury hotels, and more—plus, time-of-day strategies that actually work.
9. Affiliate Upsells after the Sale: Don’t stop at thank you pages—learn how to use surveys and welcome packs for repeat and ancillary revenue.

Unlock the secret world behind ad platform reports, attribution models, and performance optimization in this value-packed episode of The Media Buying Podcast. Jim and Rob pick apart the latest Alphabet/Google and upcoming Meta/Facebook earnings via the 10Q's, revealing how shareholder interests shape ad products and bidding ecosystems – and what that means for your business.

Key takeaways this week:

• Why reading quarterly 10Q filings should be part of your media buying research process. Discover overlooked insights on platform direction, product growth (like Gemini and Google Cloud), and future changes to ad products.
• How attribution settings (1-day vs 7/28-day) can transform your reported results, and how to avoid the most common tracking missteps in Facebook and Google Ads.
• Real talk on AI & LLMs: Are creative and digital agencies going to be obsolete? Find out how to leverage automation while keeping your unique edge, and why understanding data context remains crucial.
• Pro-level campaign auditing: Learn how to spot hidden issues with conversion tracking, mobile UX, browser compatibility, and more – often overlooked by both in-house teams and agencies.
• Tactical bidding strategies to protect your brand budget on Google Ads, including the best ad buying strategy that still outperforms target ROAS in many scenarios, and how to instantly reduce wasted ad spend on Google Ads.
• Pay-per-call goldmines & high-intent local services: Get actionable tips for finding evergreen verticals and matching bidding/timeframes to emergency vs research buyers.
• Debunking “broad targeting” myths and why trusting default platform recommendations without segmentation can tank your campaign (and job).
• How data warehousing (GA4 + BigQuery + Looker Studio) gives you a profitable edge for long-term reporting, attribution, and scaling.

Who should watch:

This podcast episode is essential for digital marketers, eCommerce managers, paid media buyers, agency pros, in-house media buyers and affiliate marketers eager to elevate their paid traffic performance, avoid costly mistakes, and future-proof their strategies in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

✅ Subscribe for more media buying insights and expert strategy breakdowns every week (and tell your friends about the show)

Resources Discussed in this episode

• Affiliate Summit
• Spades Media
• Boardwalk Marketing

Are you a digital marketer, affiliate media buyer, or agency pro looking to master the art of industry networking and maximize your ROI at conferences like Affiliate Summit, Mailcon, and Mailer Meetup?

In this episode of The Media Buying Podcast, Jim Banks and Rob Adler break down the REAL differences between major affiliate events, revealing how to turn every handshake, hallway chat, and session into long-term business growth.

➡️ You’ll uncover:

• Key differences: Affiliate Summit vs. Mailcon vs. Mailer Meetup—Which is right for your goals, and how can each help you connect with the right partners?
• Conference strategies: How top-performing affiliates and brands approach booth presence, meet markets, networking, and exhibition planning for maximum value.
• Relationship-building wisdom: Why trust, reciprocity, and vetting are more important than ever in digital marketing, and practical tips to expand your circle.
• Actionable media buying hacks: Reduce risk with better payment structures, offer selection, campaign data integrity, and optimize lead quality and returns.
• Real talk: Stories from industry veterans about the true ROI of conferences, cultural shifts in affiliate marketing, and giving back to the community.
• How to avoid common pitfalls: Guard yourself against bad actors, payment issues, and discover why some "secret" events can change the trajectory of your business.

Whether you’re prepping for your next big event, seeking new affiliate partnerships, or want to sharpen your media buying and networking skills, this episode is packed with honest advice, memorable stories, and actionable insights tailored for digital marketers, performance marketers, affiliate managers, and agency owners.

Jim Banks and Rob Adler unravel the complexities of seasonality in digital marketing, sharing proven strategies for weathering both the high and low cycles in paid traffic and affiliate offers.

Discover how to future-proof your media buying with robust workload planning, strategic pivots, and by always having a backup buyer for your leads.

They break down the crucial difference between targeting offers and targeting audiences, and why monetizing by demographic unlocks lucrative cross-sell and upsell opportunities.

Rob and Jim also demystify industry acronyms (IOs, pay terms), and share hard-won lessons on negotiating payout bumps, payment terms, and managing offer shutdowns or sudden pauses.

Hear real-world tactics on:

• Navigating advertiser restrictions on bidding and overcoming competitive challenges
• Email marketing monetization, including smart segmentation & suppression list strategies
• Attribution in post-iOS 14.5 environments: modeling, data integrity, and practical workarounds
• Affiliate pivots: From paid search to organic, and why knowledge of your target user journey can turn a failing campaign into a winner
• Little-known funnel tweaks (offer walls, upsells, insurance add-ons) that make a big difference to your bottom line
• Using screen recordings and heatmaps to uncover hidden friction points and fine-tune your landing pages
• The “Trojan horse” quiz funnel approach for gray or restricted verticals

Whether you’re seeking affiliate marketing tips, need help with seasonality in paid media, or want advanced media buying growth hacks, this episode arms you with actionable takeaways to improve your daily campaigns and long-term strategy.