Now here's your host Award Winning Affiliate ProgramMarketForwards.com, Aphort Library and the Bronx Digital Stop for 50 Agency Owner, Affiliate Manager Market and Johnson.
SPEAKER_04Welcome to this first Christmas Hits series where I'm giving you the insider scoop on all the things we discussed at our Elevate Summit in June this year. It's not often that you get to meet with industry experts who openly tell you what you can do to spare her change in your programs. So listen in close and list down the best parts of the hours of content we've shared to those who are lucky enough to nav their ticket to this thought-provoking summit. First up, we look deeper into the partnership economy and discussed exactly how B2B programs are extending their reach and creating new partnerships using performance models to expand their reach along with Impact.com, Big Commerce, All Inclusive Marketing, and Partner Stack who came along to join and decipher the jargon. So I wanted to kick off this panel because there is a lot of uh confusion around what B2B actually means. And I wanted to kind of start the discussion around maybe just explaining the different uh you know B2B concepts that we bandy around in affiliate marketing. And just before we got on this um session, we were talking about the fact that when you enter this industry, you have to learn how to speak affiliate because there is so much jargon that gets pushed around in different you know places and companies. So maybe if I can um start with Jason, if you can give us a really quick um you know breakdown on what the difference is between B2B and brand to brand.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I think when you think of B2B and what we do, I I would really contrast that with B2C, so which is business to consumer. So that's where the business works with partners or affiliates to then target consumer or more personal users versus what we do on the B2B side, which is the brand or the merchant works with the partners or affiliates to target other brands.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And B2B in here in the UK is sometimes um also kind of mistaken for brand-to-brand partnerships. And I wonder if um you can maybe just explain that, Arthur.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, absolutely. So brand-to-brand partnerships can sometimes form part of a B2B program as well, but it is very important to make that distinction. So brand to brand is very much two brands working together to target their specific audiences or their respective audiences and ensuring that they have or they they incentivize purchases from one another. Whereas, as Jason explained, B2B is very much a business targeting affiliates that then target other businesses.
SPEAKER_04So it gets pretty complex, right? So today we wanted to talk specifically around the business uh-to-business affiliate programs because we've seen a huge immense growth and a lot of attention in the affiliate space in the last 12 months. Um, and so I wanted I wanted to open up this chapter some um context around what a B2B program actually really does for um different uh businesses. Maybe I could start with you, Robin, because you actually run a B2B program and then maybe go on to Nikita, who um has an affiliate network that runs these programs too.
SPEAKER_03Sure, yeah, uh definitely spot on in the last 12 months. We've seen a lot of growth, I would say, overall, especially in the SaaS space, just as more and more businesses are realizing how important it is to be online, to have that presence online, work with partners and get that trusted authority. We've seen that become a lot more lucrative, not just for us as a brand, but our partners are growing as well. Um, so just kind of I think that this is very timely to discuss at this point because this is a massive area of growth right now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I'm seeing a lot of um big partners come to the fore as well that are making literally millions in commissions. So let's kind of just break that down between you and Nikita because obviously you've got a really wide angle view between you. Like, are there actually publishers coming into the space and making that kind of money, or is it like few and far between?
SPEAKER_02No. I will go ahead, Robin. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, I would say that there are some top partners that are really owning this space. They're investing in their SEO or investing in their uh paid search strategy to get that traffic. There are um, there are smaller partners that are definitely on the rise, but I would say, at least from my point of view, in a B2B affiliate program, there's usually that top 20 partners, top 10, top 20 partners that are really honing that space. And it is highly, highly competitive as a brand to be working with those partners. So as their volumes increase, they can ask for increased commissions, and that competition gets harder and harder to keep up with as a brand.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Nikita, what about you with your view?
SPEAKER_02I I actually fully agree with Robin. I think it's a it's a space that's it's still very new, right? And so while there are definitely affiliates that make, you know, in in the millions of dollars every single year and and quite a lot of money generally, there's still kind of like a first mover advantage for a lot of partners. Not a lot of partners have realized that, hey, you know, B2B is a real, you know, it's a real interesting kind of path and a plan, right? But you know, what we've been encouraged at Partner Stack with is kind of seeing a lot of B2C publishers even spin off B2B brand, like B2B kind of publications or syndications, because they're starting to see the opportunity that's there. So I kind of agree with Robin that like maybe not today. Um, it's still very like it's very competitive to be, you know, a brand working with these publishers. Uh, but a lot of publishers are starting to see the opportunity more so now than they have in the past like five years or so, and really, you know, starting to be like, hey, this is a this is a business opportunity that could be that could rival or even eclipse uh what they're doing on the the consumer side.
SPEAKER_04After discussing the purpose and differences between brand-to-brand partnerships, we delved a bit deeper into understanding the nuts and bolts of what it takes to build a successful B2B program and the kinds of things that you need to consider when running yours. We also discussed how to accommodate multiple types of partners in these kinds of programs where a one-size-fits-all approach really doesn't work. I want to kind of talk a little bit about with the marketplace being so broad, obviously, it makes managing all of these different types of partners and content curators and you know, whatever stage of the funnel they're in, a little bit more um difficult in terms of setting strategies. So, um, you know, what top tips can you guys give to affiliate managers who are tuning into this session right now to help them elevate the performance and figure out how to manage all of these people effectively? What are you seeing as some of those trends in the programs and the and the networks that you're managing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I can first. I can jump in because I I am pretty dead set on flexibility being the most important thing for a B2B program to be successful. And when you talk about flexibility, it's flexibility in a lot of different aspects. So flexibility in terms of diversification of your publisher base, which we just mentioned, that's extremely important. Talk about flexibility and kind of the commercials. How are you setting up commissions and how are you incentivizing and paying out partners? That's another piece. If you've got a brand that's got different categories or different products that they think, well, we're going to go into the market, into the affiliate space with this. I think we would push them, you know, let's let's try what we can because what you think may work may not be what actually works. So I would really just encourage people to be flexible. And what you think you know, you probably don't know. So go into things as a test, learn as you go, and know that you're going to make changes and don't think about a 12-month strategy out of the gate. Think about a three to six month strategy and then make changes based on that.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so it's quite um a fast-moving, volatile market. What works now isn't necessarily going to work in 90 days' time. Um, we've actually just had a question come in, which I think is a pretty good question. It's um, what should you consider before starting a B2B program in terms of the technical integration? Maybe Nikita and and um Martha, you you guys can can talk about this uh as can the rest of you. What sort of things do you need to consider before you think about opening up an affiliate program as a B2B program?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, totally. I mean, basically there's a kind of a few things that I'd talk about. Um, but it actually all comes down to uh the first thing that I'd talk through is like what kind of publishers and partners do you want to work with? And then what are the commission structures that you want to offer? Because that ultimately will change uh what your integration setup is. But typically, you know, what you want to start thinking about is what is your offer structure for partners? Do you want to do you know top of funnel leads uh or recurring commissions on a lot of like B2B SaaS sales? So is typically what we see. Uh and then in terms of technical integrations, usually there's an integration either with your website page to capture signups, uh, an integration with your kind of CRM to manage signups that move down funnel, or if there's a sales team involved, and usually some kind of billing gateway to actually be able to track uh any kind of recurring commissions over time as well. So that's typically what we see at Partner Stack, where you know there's kind of anywhere to anywhere between one or three kind of system integrations that a vendor would actually have to go through to kind of fully set up their B2B program on the technical side. And a lot of that is really based on you know what kind of reward structure are they looking to kind of and and how are they looking to reward publishers or affiliates?
SPEAKER_04So let's talk a little bit about the reward structure now. Um, what are the typical rewards that B2B programs are offering? Is it lifetime revenue share? Is it cost per sale? What are you seeing as typical in B2B programs right now? Because there it is so new, there is no kind of basis that everybody's working towards. Everybody's just kind of flying blind and doing their thing right now. So, what are you guys seeing in the market as the experts?
SPEAKER_05I think from my perspective, we don't necessarily see one typical payment model or one typical way of rewarding your affiliate. I think it's a combination of everything that that you mentioned, Kian. So there's there's the cost polite model that a few affiliates will work on. We often also see when you're targeting more the top of the funnel, it's more based on a fixed fee basis, and then combined probably with with a CPA model as well. And just to touch on actually two things that we just discussed, I think, especially with looking at the more top-of-the-fund activations, the things that you really do want to have in place, especially for B2B programs where the consideration period is a much longer one, is additional insights around the customer journey. So anything that shows you the different touch points within the actual conversion path of that customer or of that business purchasing from your business. So anything that gives you additional insights on where your customer has been, and often that will show you that the B2B affiliates come in, especially with this type of these type of fundraiser activations, they come in at the very beginning, and you want them to think about how do you still reward that if you don't just do it on a last-like basis.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Um, I wanted to actually just go to you, Robin, because you obviously run a really big B2B affiliate program that's well established. We've spoken a little bit about the technical side now and we've spoken a little bit about the revenue side, but what about time? What about how long does it take to establish a B2B program? Because it obviously doesn't operate in the same way as a B2C program because it's not an instant sale. In some cases, B2B programs have a much longer lead or sale time before a qualified sale is um comes through. So, how long did it take to sort of establish your program into the BMF that it is today? But um, you know, was it kind of hard going at the beginning? Was it a slow rate of return? How how did that kind of model look?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I would I would say it's it's never finished. Um but um I would say at least a year to really get things going, get the relationship set, because you can recruit a lot of partners into your program, but it's really that engagement and nurturing part of the process to get them active and then and then seeing your return. That can vary from partner to partner. I would say my biggest tip is to chase, to be aggressive. Um, because you can get partners in your program in the B2B space quite easily. There are a lot of opportunities, but it's actually activating them, actually getting them promoting your product, finding that model that works for the both of you. Because, as you've all said, this traditional CPA affiliate model, it you have to have a little bit more flexibility with that in the B2B space in order to get that breadth of a program really established.
SPEAKER_04The most important thing to understand about launching an affiliate program is that it takes time to grow and launch a successful program strategy that really caters to your KPIs. So you have to be playing a long game, as our panelists go on to explain in this next segment. And it's just come from you, Robin, that it takes almost a year to establish a program. Um, and I think that's quite like pertinent for people to understand is that this is an investment in a channel that does not yield sales overnight. It's not like an advertising channel where you turn a campaign on and sales come in. Um, what are some of the key things that help to kind of fast track this? Because obviously you're dealing with multiple publishers that have different traffic sources, different needs. What are some of the key things that you can get right at the start to actually help your publishers activate quickly? And maybe Nikita, you can you know talk through that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Leanne, I was actually gonna uh uh anecdotally add some data kind of to your further point before. Um so you know, we we manage, we have over 400, 450 programs on partner stack. And so we did some kind of data analysis across like how long does it actually take like most of these vendors? On average, we saw a payback period at the six month mark, and you know, really kind of ROI positivity at like the 12 mark. Uh that was like really strong ROI positivity for the vendors that are really got there, right? And so yet like to Robin's point, yeah, like it probably takes most organizations close to a year to really kind of scale their you know affiliate program, you know, meaningfully kind of within the organization and start kind of just championing it internally and kind of uh talking to upper management about it. But you know, there's a lot of organizations that, you know, if they prioritize the right affiliates, if they know who they're going after, if they you know decrease the time to launch with the actual platform as well, can really shorten that six-month cycle to, you know, maybe four months, or even if they tap an agency like AIM, right? Like they can accelerate uh a lot of the work that they do or the partner recruitment that's associated to you know some of those longer lead times. Um, and so there's there's a lot that you can do in a lot of best practices. To Robin's point, I think it's really about you know, how do you get very clear about what you want out of the affiliate program? How do you work backwards from there? And then how do you set really aggressive and measurable goals for both yourself and the partners that bring that come into your program and hopefully you know keep everybody on the same page to keep moving forward towards a shared mutual goal?
SPEAKER_04So you touched a little bit there on bringing an expert agency in to help. And I'm a big believer um in doing that, especially if you want to leverage and fast-track things. Um, how much resource does it take to manage a B2B affiliate program? Because whilst the network can automate a lot of things, like do you is a one-person, is a one-man band still good enough to actually run an affiliate program to the scale that Robin's team does? I mean, how many people are you looking at to run a successful B2B affiliate program in your experience?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I I can I can jump into that and and speak to the work that you know at all inclusive marketing we do with BigCommerce and Robin's team. So Robin's got several people on her team, we have several people on our team. So, you know, you're talking, you know, five plus people who are very involved on a regular basis in the program. Um so certainly, certainly you have much slimmer teams of one person or half a person, but I can't stress enough that the folks that come to us and think that this is kind of uh I sign up and just let it go and it kind of manages itself. That doesn't actually happen. And and that's what we see is a lot of people coming to us and saying, yeah, we we we tried to do that. Now we have 300 partners in the program, we don't know who they are, what they're doing, and we need help. So I think you know, you really have to ensure that you do have the resources and the and the team set to be able to manage, whether it's an agency or whether it's internally, and know that that's gonna also go in your internal organization. It's not just the affiliate people, you're gonna have to be connected to the dev people, you're gonna have to be connected to product, marketing, content. Um, there's a lot of people that are gonna be stakeholders in this, and you have to make sure that those resources are available.
SPEAKER_04I kind of like to say affiliate market affiliate programs are not just for Christmas, they're forever because you've you guys have just literally hit the nail on the head and you've said, you know, it takes people, it takes resources, and not just maybe one person, but you know, four or five different stakeholders that actually make your affiliate program run. Then there's the technology stack that has to sit behind it and actually track it all, and there's an expense with that too. Then there's the commissions and the expense of what you're going to actually be paying your content curators. So when do you decide an affiliate program is for you? What kind of budgets do you need to start? Because I think that's quite important to share in this in this panel, that it's not just set and forget, as Jason said, it's it's it's a real you know business investment that has to go into this channel to really make it work. So, what what what are the sort of budgets that you would be looking at to start a program and effectively run it for the first year to then start seeing you know your six-month ROI if you've got your strategy in place? Is it 10 grand? Is it 50 grand?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I guess I I I I I guess I can jump into this, and I don't think there is a set number, but you do need budgets. And I think what you need more so than budgets is to have again flexibility with the budget. Because if you're going in and you're saying, okay, here's our projections, we're gonna drive you know 30 leads a month uh the first 12 months, and we're gonna pay out $50 per lead, you know, that won't end up working out the way that you want it to. So you've got to you've got to figure out ways where you have some flexibility with what you can pay partners, because at least on the B2B side, you know, there's there's partners that that are looking to get paid, you know, CPC or flat fees. Really, again, to Marta's point, depending on where they are in the funnel, there's different ways that they want to set up their kind of commercial model with you. So I think that's just important to think about and that you have that you have some flexibility in terms of a set amount. Again, depends whether you're going to work with an agency, whether you're bringing somebody internally, um, and really what your goals are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I actually echo Jason and and one something that he talks about really like a lot is just flexibility. I think we've seen across the board that uh maybe B2C, since since uh since in the B2C space, affiliate is much more common. Uh finance teams and CFOs are much more willing to accept a level of flexibility. On the B2B side, CFOs, you know, this is a new channel for them, right? And so when you look at projecting uh you know revenue or payouts for the affiliates, you know, sometimes you you might not really even have an accurate projection. You might say, hey, listen, we could pay these partners out you know ten thousand dollars over the year or a million. And that gives CFOs a lot of anxiety usually. But to Jason's point, right, when you're when you're doing a performance-based channel like this, you know, you you have to be you know flexible and and willing to work with those partners. And if it you know, if it does pay out a million dollars and that's not budgeted for, I mean, the hope is that they drove a lot more business uh you know for that million dollars in payouts.
SPEAKER_04As we close off this episode, I wanted to dig deeper into the advice that these experts could give to those of you who are running B2B affiliate programs right now. And hopefully this helps you get more out of your partners and performance and helps you to elevate your success in the year ahead. What's the one piece of advice that you can give to brands that are here with us today about future-proofing their affiliate program and elevating their performance with B2B partnerships? And I'll start at the top of the screen. If if you can each leave us with one nugget of wisdom that people can take away and actually implement to help grow and elevate their program.
SPEAKER_00So you're probably starting with me because you know my answer. And it's gonna be it's gonna be flexibility and test. And that's really the approach that you have to take. That this is new, there is no one set roadmap to success in this space. It's really taking a look at your goals, taking a look at the space that you in, that you're in, the vertical, the industry, and figuring out what the best kind of test approach. And I think when you start to communicate that too, and going back to Nikita's point, you start to have those conversations with the internal team, with the CFOs, you know, talk about It is as a test. Listen, this is this is six months. You should have an idea if there's legs for a program within six months. You should be able to get enough going um within that time period. So approach it as a test, make changes, be quick, and you know, at the end of the day, be agile.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03Robin, from your perspective, I'm pretty much along the same lines, but I would say flexibility and if I dive deeper, um flexibility and expectations. So whether that's for yourself, for your affiliates, or I would say most importantly, for your internal teams, don't box yourself in. Don't create hard labels of what that traditional affiliate model looks like for your brand because it will be really, really hard to wiggle out of that later if you see an opportunity you really want to take advantage of, and now you can't because it's not in line with those expectations.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05Martha, from a publisher and a partner perspective, for me, it would be very much bringing your B2B partners as close to your strategy as you possibly can, and really make them part of your journey and your effort. And that's the beauty of running a B2B program. It's likely going to be smaller than your B2C program. And what partners really value is to feel like they are a true integral part of your strategy and really having those more long-term conversations about them with them about what you you are looking to achieve. And on top of that, I would also say using additional insights and rewarding your publishers for things outside of like the standard KPIs, such as the last leg and the last click on version, really looking at what their contribution in that journey looks like and finding models with them whereby they're also rewarded for, for example, driving an impression or driving a first click that later on may lead to a conversion.
SPEAKER_04I love that actually. It's actually thinking outside of the box and bringing your partners closer as part of your marketing team, which really is how I think affiliate programs should be run. I mean, if you're working with all of these different diverse content curators and partners who are driving niche sources of traffic to you, they really should be brought in and treated as if they are an extension of your own marketing team. So thank you for that. Nikita, what about you? Because you've probably got the broadest view of what's happening in the space at Partner Stack.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I think everyone uh covered a lot a lot there. And I mean, I'll just I'll just continue to double down on you know flexibility, not boxing yourself in and really taking an ecosystem approach to your partners, right? So, you know, how do you how do you dive, how do you work really closely with your partners? And then additionally, how do we how do you you know work with other other vendors in your space that are complementary that can be publishers or partners for you as well? I mean, we're starting to see a lot of that happen is you know, publishers or sort of different vendors come together in the B2B space to either share affiliates or uh even kind of share traffic depending on uh you know the the sh like what the mutual kind of customer base that they have together. So really taking kind of more of an ecosystem approach to you know affiliate and partnerships and you know this kind of channel um is something that we're starting to see a lot of. So um kind of double down on everything everyone else said as well.
SPEAKER_04So for me, I think what I've learned from you guys today, which has been my pleasure to host you, is there is no one size fits all approach to B2B programs. So keep your eyes open, keep your ears peeled, and everybody can be a partner. It doesn't matter whether they're even a complimentary brand. So just keeping a very wide view of what's happening in the marketplace, and as Robin said, keep a checkout of what your competitors are doing too, because that's how everybody's learning in this space. And there you have it the lowdown of all the nuggets we shared at our Elevate Summit and building B2B affiliate programs. Tune in next week for volume two of our Christmas hits as we share more Elevate content and give you more advice from our CMO's playbook, where we talked about how to gain C-level buy-in for your performance program and a few other important pieces of advice.
SPEAKER_01This broadcast is brought to you by AMP. The Affiliate Management Performance Program is designed for affiliate managers, running programs and affiliate networks or with in-house tax-supported platforms. We've helped hundreds of affiliate managers across a range of industries get the best out of their affiliate partnership and build consistent skill. With just one hour per week for over 12 weeks, you'll learn more proven tactics and tested strategies gained from decades of experience running million-dollar affiliate programs. To put your feet on the next app course, visit our website and hit the training menu now. That's a wrap for this week's affiliate marketing podcast. If you love what we're sharing, why not head over to Apple IDs now and leave us a five-star review? Doing this helps us reach more people just like you. And we'd love to hear your feedback too. While you're there, make sure to hit subscribe, join our podcast channel so you never miss another insightful episode, and leave us a comment so we know what you're thinking. Want to amplify your affiliate program performance? Your calendar now, and book your free ticket. To come and join us as we explore all the latest digital and affiliate marketing trends. This is not a sales pitch virtual event. So you'll get nothing but great advice and a chance to network with agencies, networks, staff, and Martech to provide what we call an insider scoop on how to amplify your affiliate program and partner performance. Plus, you'll get exclusive access to expert-led in-depth master classes, group coaching, and ask me anything sessions with experts who will show and tell you how to implement tools and tactics helping you save time and money to get consistent results. Get your free ticket to join us at Amplify now. Visit www.affiliateinsider.com and click on events to register.