Hi, and welcome to the Affiliate Insider Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston. This is a podcast for digital and affiliate marketers. Listen up as I explore the latest digital and affiliate marketing trends and give you the insider scoop on what's occurring in affiliate marketing. Join us as we explore affiliate strategies, host expert interviews with leading affiliates and tech entrepreneurs, and discuss the latest affiliates and digital marketing trends. If you want to stay at the cutting edge of affiliate marketing, you're in the right place. Join me for this week's episode and let's get started.
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SPEAKER_03Welcome back to Affiliate Insiders Affiliate Marketing Podcast. And this week I'm absolutely thrilled to have somebody who I've known for many, many, many, many, many years, not to make us sound too old. Um, Helen Southgate, who is the chief global officer at um one of the world's biggest um affiliate marketing agencies, um acceleration partners. But hey Helen, how are you?
SPEAKER_02I'm very good, Leanne. Lovely to be here. I'm surprised we haven't done this sooner. We've known each other for so long.
SPEAKER_03I know. Um I think to be honest, I've only just got my act together. So uh you can blame me for that. But yeah, I mean I'm absolutely thrilled to have you here with me today because I know you have a very rich tapestry of history in the affiliate industry. And we're gonna kind of dive down and get deep into that. But before we do, I want you to just introduce yourself a little bit to my audience and and tell us a little bit about your start in affiliate marketing and how you got to where you are today.
SPEAKER_02Yes, sure. So being in affiliate marketing now for 18 years, I think it's probably getting nearer to 19, which uh probably shows my age more than I'd like it too. People often ask me, like, how do you get into affiliate marketing? And I think like a lot of people, particularly back then, I fell into it. Um, because as you'll know, Leanne, it wasn't really like it's not something you ever learn at school or university or anything. It wasn't in any textbooks, it was still very, very early days. And I had just finished a degree, so this is back in what 2002. No idea what I wanted to do. To be honest with you, I didn't know what I wanted to do through most of my sort of early career. And um, a friend from college had set up an affiliate network, so probably like one of the first affiliate networks back in um Norfolk where I'm from. And he said, Look, you're finishing your degree, we need someone to come and work with us. Do you fancy it? And I was like, Yeah, why not? I don't have a job I am alone, I have money to pay off. Uh sounds really cool. So I essentially went over and and worked for them for what, probably like four and a half years, I think. But they were just learning as they went along, setting up an affiliate network, managing clients. I mean, we worked with Tesco in those days and Orange Mobile, which don't really exist anymore. That's that's going back a few years, but some really, really big brands. And essentially I was an account manager, I would sort of run affiliate campaigns and manage them and and sort of figure it all out as I went along. So I really did fall into it, but I mean, I I think I just loved it from day one. It's it was just such an exciting time, right? We were creating a new marketing channel, which nobody really knew anything about. I like to say we were always um flying by the seat of our pants, which is literally what was happening. Totally were yeah. I mean, it just even the partners in those days as well, you know, they were all one-man bands that had just done the same thing, sort of fallen into it, created a website, and thought I'm gonna figure out a way to make money from it. They weren't, you know, the big companies that we see now, like big global companies like Top Cashback Money Supermarket. They they were just one-man bands. That's how they started. So it really was quite entrepreneurial and exciting. And I think it probably had me sort of gripped from them, which is really why 18 years later I'm still working in the same industry.
SPEAKER_03You spent quite a lot of time. I mean, I remember those old days, and I had to bring this up like, do you remember the IAB Affiliate Marketing Council? There was like six of us around the table in a boardroom, yeah, somewhere in London, going, okay, like this is where we are, this is this channel that we're working in, and we need to get some best practice guidelines in place, and what do those look like? And you know, to find time. And I think it's important that we share those stories because there are lots more young, you know, savvy digital marketers coming into this industry. But literally, that's how it was. You know, it's it's way more organized today. So you've kind of started out by accident, which kind of most of us do, but your journey, you kind of went from uh network side and you've now added up agency side. If if I could be bold, can I say which side do you prefer? Or do you have a preference?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's tricky, isn't it? Because it's so funny being agency side, but there's a big difference being agency side, and like you all have the same experience, I'm sure, Ann is you're you're so agnostic to everything. So you don't really, you know, you don't take well, you do take the client side of speaking to clients, but you have to stay on the client side, you have to take the partner side, you have to work with the networks, you have to work with the platforms, like everyone's competing together. So you're very, very agnostic, and I I actually really, really like that. I think it's a sort of not always an easy position to be in, like it can be quite hard to navigate, but I find it really enjoyable because I just get to work with so many different people and sort of different sides of the business. But then honestly, I loved network side as well. You know, it it there's not a lot of difference, I think, in terms of sort of how you manage clients. You know, it's it's fast paced, it's demanding, it's hard work sometimes, but also really rewarding. But I think I just like the sort of idea of being able to work with everyone and being agnostic. I I think I sort of settled into agency life um quite well, but I don't see it as massively removed from networks.
SPEAKER_03It's actually a really good point as well for anybody that's listening to this and looking for a career in affiliate marketing. I mean, one of the things that I would encourage you to do is try a lot of different sides of the ecosystem out and see where you best fit because it's very different working on the network side, uh working client side, actually if you're an in-house you know, affiliate manager and then moving to an agency. And and I would say that you know the pace is very different in each. You know, so if you like being focused on just one thing, maybe you know, a career in affiliate marketing working at a client in a smaller team, you know, leveraging agencies and networks and things like that is better for you. But if you want to have like a breadth of exposure, an agency life, as you just said, is it's fantastic, you know, it's difficult because you have to please everybody because you're in the nucleus of it all, but also very, very exciting and fast-paced. So if you like, if you like living on the edge, like you know, definitely join an agency.
SPEAKER_02Totally. And I think as well, like you said, clients, so client side's really interesting. It was definitely a feeling at the moment that a lot of people want to move client side, and I get it. I think it's that control because I worked for four years at Sky doing sort of affiliates and other channels. However, it is very different to network and agency because you are working on one client, one customer base, one culture. Whereas network and agency, you just get everything. And for me, I loved my time at Sky, but I just knew I wasn't a client-side person. I had to have that sort of variety to work with different people.
SPEAKER_03That's the other thing I wanted to talk about because you and I have been around so long and we've worked kind of most areas of the coin, is that working with an agency doesn't necessarily have to be all or or nothing. Like you can bring an agency in for depth of pieces for project pieces if you want to run things in-house. Because I deal with a lot of clients that go, no, no, we're not gonna work with an agency. Uh, we want to run everything in-house, we want to own everything else. But the problem with that is that you're not getting the breadth and depth of experience that agency staff have working multiple channels, multiple verticals. And you really want to leverage that kind of knowledge in your business because it's only gonna help you. So, you know, think about doing that. Think about actually using agencies and and experienced teams that can leverage the knowledge that they're picking up in other areas or even across global expanses. Because, as you know, you know, what happens in Asia is very different to what happens in Europe, and use and leverage those agency relationships in your mix. That brings me to my next question, which is what are the big changes that you see in your career from then to now on? Touching on that point of we were really flying by the seat about pants making it up as we went along. Like, how do you see uh, you know, new people coming into the industry now? Like, you know, the fact that there is a best practice guideline, the fact that there are, you know, advertising standards and parameters that we're forced to work into. I mean, it's been a good thing in terms of you know setting the scene and making an even playing field for everybody. But do you think that people are missing out on some of the knowledge that we've had, having to kind of learn it and test it and grow it as we go along?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think there's two ways to look at it. So certainly more professionalized, which I think is a positive. I mean, even though those days were fun making stuff up, uh, you know, there was a point where it had to be more professional, particularly because for brands it was becoming a bigger part of their budgets and a marketing mix that really had to. So I think that's all good. And like you say, there was a lot of work, which you know, just thinking about those IAB means, I'd completely forgot about how much work went into all of that to make it a more professional industry, which which I think you know has helped it grow over the years. So I think that's all good, but there is definitely a balance, right? Because what I love about affiliate marketing, and I think you know, it's probably the same for you, Leanne, and most other people. I like that it's creative and innovative, and there's always someone thinking of another way to do things or a new technology comes up. And you just want to be careful that you don't go too far down the sort of policy process route that you stop that happening. That you sidefully. Yeah, I don't think we have, but I think you know, it's it's probably not as easy to be as creative and innovative as it was. And I think we need to sort of make sure that we can still do that. Because I mean, I have a lot of conversations with people, particularly partner side, where they sort of come with a new idea, and I get really excited about it. I'm like, this is amazing, right? We'll make this work, but then you know, there's a lot of people that go, Well, yeah, I'm not really sure about that. It's not really in our process, it's not really what we do, we haven't tried it, it's not proven. And I'm like, What? If we'd said that 20 years ago, we wouldn't have had we wouldn't be where we are. So I think it's sort of finding that balance. But at the moment, I think we have a good balance. I mean, there's lots of new things happening in the industry, there always is. So I don't think we've stifled it, and and we've probably got, you know, probably exactly the right balance between professionalism and and being able to try new things as well. And I think that's key going forward. So I think that's probably the biggest change. I think also the other area is affiliate marketing is truly global. And I mean it's still at different levels of maturity in different regions and countries, but I mean you can do affiliate marketing pretty much anywhere in the world now, where 20 years ago it was probably very sort of UK, US focused, just breaking into Europe. But now, you know, if you're a big global brand, you can do it everywhere, which I think is a big benefit.
SPEAKER_03And also across any channel. Like you don't even like back in the old days, you needed to know how to code in order to create a website that people could come and find you on, or you needed to be very geeky with like sort of keywords and understanding how the algorithms work, and even still today. But now you can become, you know, an affiliate really quickly with an Instagram page, you know, or TikTok or whatever. So it it's becoming much easier to embrace and enter the market. But again, you know, those channels are new that you know, everybody's testing new stuff again. So it's almost like a reiteration of history repeating itself from 20 years ago when we moved with websites into this kind of like influencer micro-influencer space. So we spoke a little bit about you know people being stuck with processes and and you know not being too creative. What are some of the other common things that brands get wrong with affiliate marketing today, still?
SPEAKER_02I think the the biggest thing still for me is brands think it's easy, right? Because we've always said, you know, affiliate marketing, low risk, easy setup. I mean, that has been what we've put out to market, and compared with most other channels, it is. But I think also we then sometimes give the wrong impression that you can just set up an affiliate marketing program, there's no costs, and it just will run itself. And we know it really doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_03That's so true. You should touch on that because I literally just shared on my Twitter account this weekend a fantastic meat. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's like this, you know, great yacht saying affiliate marketing plan, and then it's like an RN piled up against the ocean, going the budget, and then the expectation is a cruise liner, you know, and that's exactly what you're saying. It's like I I can count to my if I had a penny for every time a client had to say to me, you know, not to be an affiliate program, I'm gonna get sales overnight, I gotta be rich. I'm gonna be rich. You know, it's gonna be you know, it would it would be fantastic if the world worked that way. But actually, there is a lot of strategy that goes into building an affiliate program and an incredible amount of time because ultimately this channel is still based on relationship building and trust. Yeah, and you don't get that without actually investing the time. So good point. I think that's one of the key things that there is still a misconception in that we need to educate you know wider audiences about. What about some of the other common things that you've um experienced drinking in the industry this long?
SPEAKER_02I think sort of related to this as well, and I again I think it's sort of how the channel's been sold. Like I think it's been sold as a low-cost CPA channel. And what I think sometimes happens because of that is clients want to pay the lowest CPA possible, which you know, there's reasons why it is, which is great because it converts well, you have lots of different partnerships, but it you know, you still need to pay people fairly, whether that's your partners, networks, agencies. And I think sometimes there's this feeling that it's the cheap channel, but so you get out what you put in. And I think the more you invest, the like time as well as do you get more out. And I think that's sometimes forgotten. So it's a bit related that you know, you need you need to commit time and resource, but you also need to think about you know how much budget you put into it as well. It's it's not just your low-cost channel. You sometimes really need to think about how you optimize it, and I think that's where advertisers can go wrong as well. I think the whole world is changing in terms of marketing at the moment as well. And I think other channels are becoming more and more expensive and more difficult to justify the return on investment or even know what the return on investment is because transparency is getting harder and harder to track with a lot of channels. So I think people are turning to the affiliate channel as a sort of easier way to find customers or a cheaper way to find customers, but you you can't go too cheap. I think that's probably the message to give to clients.
SPEAKER_03Um, and so that probably we're gonna uh say, you know, you pay peanuts to get monkeys.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, yeah. 100%. Yeah. Anything in life, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So we're all focused on elevating our performance. But what are some of the key things you're seeing on a global perspective? Because I know you have a very deep insight on what's happening like the rest of the world as well, that brands can do to elevate their affiliates and partner performance this year, like what's what's currently trending and happening this year.
SPEAKER_02Well, this year's a very funny year. Although the last two years have been a very funny year. I think this year is probably one of the most hardest years to predict what is gonna happen. I mean, obviously, we didn't know what's gonna happen in COVID, but you know, some clients did really well over the last two years because they were online retailers, other clients just absolute bomb because they were in travel. This year it's just who knows what is gonna happen. And I think there's definitely an element where clients, agencies, everyone needs to understand that. Like we we are sort of just figuring stuff out as we go along again this year. But also, I think it's really, really important to understand like trends. So, what is happening in the markets, whether that's sort of macro or micro, what's happening with your customers? Are they spending money? Are they not spending money? Are they spending money in different countries, different areas? Like all of that insight, I think is so important, just generally, but even more important this year. And then taking that and sort of helping your partners drive customers. I think so many clients forget that you need to sort of put those things together, tell your partners who your customers are, what's selling, what's working, what are the best things to do over the next six to 12 months. I think that's gonna be really, really key this year and sort of going into next year while we're still navigating all sorts of different changes in in the marketplaces globally.
SPEAKER_03And also the knock-on effects of stuff as well, because I think we're still, you know, everybody goes, oh, COVID's finished now, we're out of COVID, but actually there's still knock-on effects to the economy that's happening. And totally and I always say that affiliate managers, I mean, uh, you know, their brief is so broad because they need to be almost like market analysts as well to understand, you know, why are affiliates all of a sudden all asking for tenancy deals right now? Because they want to secure their income, they want to make sure that their, you know, their deals are planned. So having a bit of a longer-term approach to your strategy right now is maybe a good thing to secure it on your side too. So I totally agree with that. And it does make the job of being an affiliate manager difficult because it's not just about, you know, the relationship and the administration of that relationship and you know, looking at your numbers and the ROI and the and the kind of marketing and the strategy, it's also about kind of navigating where we are in the world, probably why it's such an exciting career and why you and I always want to like evangelize everybody to it.
SPEAKER_02But totally, yeah. You'll never you'll never get bored in affiliate marketing, I can tell you that.
SPEAKER_03So for a newbie coming into the industry, what do you think the best piece of advice you can give them in terms of career driving and ambition setting for themselves? Because you and I have that almost similar, but also very different like career projectory. You know, we started in in it by accident, and most people do come into affiliate marketing by accident, or they come into a sales channel because they're really good at sales, or they're coming from a customer service channel because they're really good at relationship building. But like, what are the career paths that could lead you, lead you to become the chief global officer? How does that path look?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I mean this is the thing, like when we got into affiliate marketing, you sort of had one path, right? You were an account manager and you would sort of manage campaigns on behalf of clients, and there wasn't really much else. And like you say, you do a bit of everything else. But now, because the industry is so much bigger, there's so much opportunity, like you can like say go into a sales role, but aside from sales as partner development, which some people just love. They love finding new partners which add revenue to clients. You can go into that area, there's more strategy and strategic insights, which we're just talking about, like understanding what's actually happening in the market and how that affects clients, partners, all of those things as well. There's global expansion, there's launching new products, there's launching new programs, there's technical areas you can go into. I mean, it's so vast. Expansive now. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why I really love this industry. Like I was asked a question a couple of weeks ago about diversity in our industry. I think we're extremely lucky because there are so many different types of roles which require so many different types of skills and backgrounds. We are naturally more diverse than a lot of other industries. Like, I don't think we're perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but compared with some other industries, we really are, because you just need all of those different skills and different ideas and cultures and backgrounds, and that's really, really what makes it work. So I think there's so many opportunities now. I think my sort of advice to new people entering the industry, and I think there's probably you have to be a bit like this if you work in affiliate marketing as well, is just meet lots of people, like everything I've learned, I've just met whether it's clients, partners, competitors, like it's just so, so important. And this is coming from somebody that I think I'm quite introverted, so it's not always something I find particularly easy, but it's so rewarding. And you know, if that means sort of listening to podcasts like this or going to events or just like meeting up with people for a drink and chatting about what's going on in the industry, I think that's so valuable. And I do have concerns sort of with the industry at the moment and the market and remote working, we might lose some of that. And you know, I think that's fundamental to our industry. I don't think I would have got where I've got now if I hadn't had a good network of colleagues, friends, people and everything in the industry. Um, and I and I worry that may get lost a little bit.
SPEAKER_03And the other thing is, is everybody's so helpful in this industry. People really are. I mean, I'm you know incredibly approachable. If you contact me on LinkedIn, I'm gonna answer you. If you've got a question about something or you need some advice, or we're really engaged folk in the affiliate space, and we really like to welcome new people in because we want that talent to progress and to develop as the industry gets kind of older and more mature. Yeah. Talking about this though, because if people are listening to this podcast and I'm sure that there are a lot of people that are listening who either want to progress their careers or you know maybe do a a a sideways move into affiliate marketing because it's starting to become more popular and more attractive. How do you recommend that they keep up with the with the industry and the changes that are having what resources or tools or events do you specifically attend in the e-commerce space? Obviously there's there's different events for different industries but in your world like what are some of the key things that that people can look at and investigate to move their careers forward.
SPEAKER_02Yeah so I guess I sort of look at this two ways. So there's definitely sort of the industry insight so listening to podcasts like this, going to events, like PI Live, but even you know there's lots more sort of what I would call channel events now like influencer or business to business anything like that all of that stuff where you just like it's just about listening and learning. That's why I always think I mean you never stop learning however old you are and I think that's really important. And just sort of following people on LinkedIn and seeing what they're doing, meeting up with people like like you said everyone is so happy to help in this industry. I mean I meet a lot with people that we compete with and it's amicable and we learn a lot from each other and it's you know I find that really helpful sometimes as well just to see what other challenges people in the same position are having and so I think that's important. And then sort of on the other side of it I'm sort of really interested in you know businesses and growth and innovation how they develop so I'm so bad for reading books though. Yeah and I really am. I just don't I don't have a lot of patience and it's something that I find quite difficult.
SPEAKER_03I mean how do you echo you know an hour a week to sit and read a whole book and it does it's very difficult.
SPEAKER_02It just doesn't work. So I've tried to like listen to a lot more podcasts but also I don't want to sort of advertise but something like Blinkist is amazing. Like I listen to 10 minutes of that and I'll either get what I wanted or need or then I'll be like right I'm gonna go and read that book. So I think like developing your knowledge of business and culture and innovation all those things I think is hugely helpful in this industry because as we were saying it's so vast right like you just have to it's almost like you need to know every single sort of marketing and business tactic to work in affiliate. So sort of looking looking beyond our industry and listening to experts and learning from people I think is really important.
SPEAKER_03So I think what I'm going to do is I'm gonna get you to send me a couple of links and I'll put a couple of places that I hang out in and read and you know glean information because I mean there is no one stop shop for everything. Like everything is scattered all over the place and you have to be looking both in your industry and also outside of it in order to kind of learn and and that's one of the reasons why we are pulling together Elevate Summit in June which is taking place on the 14th and 15th of June which you're going to be very kindly speaking at. So thank you for doing that it's all about telling these stories and bringing these people together with experience so that we can help our community to learn and to grow.
SPEAKER_02So I'm really excited about that too actually I'm I'm really looking forward to design so many smart people in our industry I mean it is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_03It's a very high bar that yeah and they're not always people that will get up and kind of speak at big events. So I think that there's a place for virtual events and I think that people need to invest the time to actually come to them and do this learning, do this networking because we're not 100% fully back together yet. So I'm kind of a bit of a random question but what's the one thing you wish you could have done then knowing what you know now and I'll answer that question too so that it's a it's a two-way question.
SPEAKER_02Oh so many things yeah like I I wish I'd thought of Airbnb all those years ago but can you imagine it's so like I always think it's so easy to look in hindsight and go, oh wow yeah I wish I thought that but there were a hundred other Airbnbs and only one of them made it which I always think is interesting like it the idea is one thing the execution of it is actually what makes it successful and they did it really well but I think the one thing I really wish I'd done and I I don't know why I haven't done it. I think I've just sort of got a bit of a barrier against it is learn how to build websites. Like I really wish I'd done that 20 years ago. Whether I'd like I've done anything with it or not I just think it's such an amazing skill to have and a number of people I sort of meet that have their little sort of side projects where they have their website and they like sell things they make or whatever and I was like oh that's such an amazing you know skill to have so I wish I'd done that and yeah well maybe become an affiliate and I'd probably be living in Monaco now or something.
SPEAKER_03Well I was just gonna say that is what I wish I had done is actually set up a side hustle at some point I was too busy helping everybody else build best. Exactly I think hindsight is an amazing thing and you know we're lucky to have had you know 20 almost two decades of experience in this industry but I think that the other thing is I wouldn't have changed a thing because when I spoke to a client last week they said Leanne you're a bit of a unicorn because you know everything about everything online and I was like yes but I love affiliate marketing that's where I've specialized and they're like yeah but it's very rare that you have somebody in affiliate marketing that knows how to do SEO that knows how to do media buying that knows and I said well it's only because I've been in the industry that long sort of had to I had to learn it as I was going along you know and I'm not by no means an expert in those things I'm an expert in affiliate marketing but I agree I wouldn't I like wouldn't have changed anything to be honest with you like I mean it would be great to have thought of the next tube or Airbnb.
SPEAKER_02But I I think the other thing for me is I think we've been very lucky in this industry that it's very flexible right it's not your you turn up at nine, you go to an office you finish at five I mean really if you could do that many hours that'd be great. But it's not and that's where it's always been amazing. Like I've been able to travel the world doing my job but also I've been able to have that balance which I think has been really important. Like I worked hard and I've worked hard my whole career but it's also enabled me to do some other amazing things because it's very flexible. Like at the moment I'm learning to be a guide to be with British cycling so it can take people out cycling and I just think like any other industry it'd be very difficult to have that sort of flexibility to do things like that. Whereas this industry like you can you can you can work at 1am in the morning if you want to or 7am in the morning it doesn't really matter as long as you're you're doing your job well and I I think that is a huge bonus for this industry.
SPEAKER_03It's not your average nine to five no definitely is not if you're looking for an average nine to five job do not sign up for affiliate marketing because you will not be doing it. No so last question on this podcast which I really enjoyed having with you really really enjoyed like reminiscing with you on the on this pod how do you see the future of affiliate marketing what do you think is going to happen in five years from now and I'll answer this question not lightly but because history does tend to repeat itself in certain ways and because we have this knowledge I think it's gonna be it's a really interesting question to pose to you because we kind of read the past and know how the future trends might might work a little bit. So give us a little bit of your your kind of intel on what you think is going to happen in the next five years.
SPEAKER_02Especially in the e-commerce space which is where you get focused yeah so I think what is going to happen and I think we're already starting to see this is like affiliate marketing has always been based on performance and outcomes like it always has been and it's been you know the USP of the channel it's been why it's so popular why it's survived you know goodness how many recessions on market downtime etc yes grown every single year pretty much which I mean is unheard of right so I I think that is fundamentally what affiliate market is what I think we are seeing and what we're gonna continue to see and probably sort of develop more traction over the next five years is more and more channels focusing on outcomes. I just can't see any other way that the industry is going to go. And when I say outcome it doesn't necessarily mean paying performance CPA but measuring it and tracking it and understanding exactly what you're getting from your budget which I think is so important to clients. And if you think the big Coinbase advert that was at the Super Bowl like I think that's just a brilliant example of how things are changing because that's what a 14 million pound 60 second adds which seems ridiculous to most people on earth. And previously people would have just put that up and not known if they'd got a return from it but they found a way to do something smart and simple where they could actually track it and see what the return is absolutely and I I think we're gonna see more and more of that and we are as an affiliate channel we are in such a good position because we get that I mean that's what we've done for 20 years. We know how to track measure and work towards performance and I think we'll see see more and more channels doing that. Like we're already seeing it in media content influencers and now sort of offline online as well. So I think it's a it's a really exciting place to be it's almost like we've waited 20 years for it to become the most popular channel and I think it's now going to be to be honest.
SPEAKER_03It is but also it's it's the technology that's caught up I think you know like 20 years ago we didn't have this technology the layers of technology and the data and the insight so we were kind of flying blind and testing things and I mean I remember the the mantra that I had at one company was test optimize repeat. That was it that's all they cared. They just wanted us to test stuff optimize it and repeat it. And it's still a good mantra a very simple and good mantra to have today but we've got so much more data you know we know where customers are being tracked online we know what touch points they're having we know where they're dropping off we know how to optimize those things and there's so many I've got you know everybody knows I love a SaaS tool so there's so many tools out there that you can use believe me I use them all. You know so I think you're right. I think we are going to see more uh accountability and more forethought and planning with budget rather than just say of spending which has been kind of our remit for the last 20 years. So it's it's all good for us. But I think also we're gonna see um accountability we're gonna want you know brands, client networks we're gonna we're all going to be held more accountable because that data is there and can show us what is working and what isn't. Which is an exciting time to be in because I think that actually opens us up which brings us whole circle back to what you said in the beginning about not always doing things the way that we've always done them. We're gonna have to become more innovative. We're gonna have to think outside the box you know we're gonna have to bring in specialists and and talk about you know campaigns and promotions and and just get more creative about doing stuff a bit differently because attention stands are also a lot shorter than what they were 20 years ago online. So that's something that we need to navigate to Helen it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast with me today. I am very very grateful for your time I know you're a very busy lady but I really appreciate you sharing your story and the kind of history of of where we've come from and and where we hope we see we we're going to be going in the future.
SPEAKER_02Yeah no thank you loved it appreciate you having me yeah it's been it's been good to reminisce but also talk about the future so exciting lovely and that's a wrap for this week's Affiliate Insider Affiliate Marketing Podcast.
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