You're listening to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast brought to you by AtiverseMedia.com. The chapter and verse of everything you need to know about running a successful affiliate program for your business. This is a podcast for digital and affiliate marketers, publishers, networks, agencies, and ma tech providers who operate, support, or manage affiliate marketing programs around the globe. If you want to launch, scale, and grow a successful affiliate marketing program, you're in the right place. In this podcast, you'll learn how affiliate and partner marketing is constantly changing, and tune in to industry experts who are getting behind our mic to share tactical insights and practical knowledge to help your affiliate program grow. Here you'll discover what's new and trending in affiliate and performance marketing, how to run your affiliate program successfully and gain industry insights from experts and practitioners from around the globe. The truth is, you simply won't find this information anywhere else. Now here's your award-winning affiliate and performance marketing host, an industry veteran, your affiliate marketing guide and the founder of Affiverse, Leanne Johnston.
SPEAKER_01Welcome everybody back to this week's episode of the Affiliate Marketing Podcast. But welcome back. He's the director of the APMA, which stands for the Affiliate Performance Marketing Association. I'm absolutely thrilled to have you here this week. So thank you for joining me.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for having me. It's nice to be back.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're going to talk about lots of different things. But before we get started, for those of you who don't know who Kevin Edwards is, because I know a lot of you are tuning in from other countries around Europe and the US and everywhere around the world where you listen, tell us a little bit about your background and history in affiliate marketing and what's led you to lead the launch of the APMA this year.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I started affiliate marketing just kind of about 23, 24 years ago. And I kind of fell into it like most people do, fall into affiliate marketing. Certainly at that time when it was very, very small. I was working kind of in a sort of almost like publisher side to begin with for a short while. And then I moved over to what was at the time the largest UK affiliate network, was doing account management, came up through the ranks, advising customers and brands on how to run affiliate programs at a time when, you know, none of us, to be perfectly frank, knew what we were doing. And then off the back of that, I then moved over to AWIN, which at the time, or what affiliate window as was, which at the time was like very much like a challenger network. And grew and grew as they grew as a business. You know, when I joined there were 35 people, I left this year in February after 16 years. And when I left, there were 1400 people in the business. So that was through like natural growth and acquisition as well. And so obviously, you know, I think that that very much mirrors the growth and development of the industry as well, you know, the size and size and growth of that business. Did lots of different things in my time there. The kind of areas that I really enjoyed were things around data and insights. I kind of had responsibility for compliance. I set up the pub, the first publisher team that they had. So kind of wore very lot, lots of different hats. And then towards the end, I was doing a lot of kind of maybe newer stuff around like marketing automation, which I found particularly interesting and is now carried through hopefully into my new role.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's super exciting. And I think a lot of that has set you up for success right now because you have such a breadth of understanding of where we've come from in the industry with the years that you've been there, but also you've worked on a lot of different sides. So you understand the publisher viewpoint, you understand the advertiser viewpoint, you've also had that network viewpoint, and all of us together are working in this partnership economy, alongside lots of other tech platforms that plug-in and augment and support and everything else. So I think you've got a really great understanding of how this whole ecosystem like plugs together, and you're going to be able to dig into all of the different areas and help us to understand how we continue to build best practices because that's kind of how we've grown, is that we've flown by the seat of our pants from way back then to where we are now. And this industry just keeps on growing. So there needs to be some sort of body that controls best practices and starts thinking about how we should be promoting things, how should we be working together, what we can do to make better partnerships and support everybody in this ecosystem, not just the publisher or the advertiser, because there's lots of other players in that field too. So, in talking about that, let's talk a little bit about what some of the fundamental projects are that will be taking point as the APMA kind of embeds and launches and starts to develop some of the projects that you're going to be working on. Tell us what you're going to be focused on first.
SPEAKER_00So, to just to your point on that, it was very much something that when I was having initial conversations with you and with other businesses as well, it was something that came through very strongly that it needs to needed to be broadly representative. I've I've done work in the past, which was the old affiliate marketing council, which doesn't really exist in the UK anymore. But going back like a decade, and the consensus for a lot of companies was that it was prohibitively expensive to get involved, which meant that it favoured larger companies, or it typically favored networks as well. And whilst I came at it from a network perspective, I was very much aware of that and I tried to bring different perspectives and viewpoints in. But that is very much something that I have I'm trying to bake into the DNA of the APMA, which is that we want to be representative of those kind of four core audiences, really, which is the advertiser audience, the publisher audience, agencies and networks, or networks and platforms, depending on how you classify them. So that has very much um fed into the kind of development of the APMA to get it to the stage where we've we've just launched. So over the course of the summer, there were kind of various workshops with each of those kind of four customer segments. And we and actually to your to your question, that very much was the foundation of the projects that we're going to work on in 2024. So what I wanted to do was just make sure that we did as much outreach so anyone could join these calls, regardless of their kind of interest or inclination to join. They were open to everybody. We got really good attendance for the publisher one in particular. I mean, obviously the publisher audience is a much bigger, addressable audience than the others.
SPEAKER_01But even the agency one, I mean, I sat in on the agency call and it was really interesting, not only from my perspective, in terms of what I wanted the APMA to do for me, but also to hear what other agencies are experiencing as well. So there's this community feel that was built in that call that led the topics of conversation in terms of what we all want to talk about. It wasn't just one person's idea of, oh, okay, we're gonna we're gonna talk about just this. Everybody fed into that in those calls.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, which I was really, really pleased about. I think the way that it was fortunately, I have some amazing support in Julia Stent, who is kind of lending her expertise and support for free in kind of an advisory capacity. And she led those workshops really effectively in order to kind of get to maximize the impact of those workshops. And in essence, that I mean you you were in the workshop, so you know, but just the people that weren't. We asked people to come along with ideas. What would you want a trade body to do? What could we do that would benefit you, your business, and your and your customers? And we aggregated all of the feedback from that, and then we kind of clustered those thematically, and then we voted on them and anonymously, which I think was important. And what emerged from that, what we effectively took was sort of like the the three or four core things that came through, came through from each of those sessions. So we had four of those sessions. Now, invariably there was going to be crossover, right? So I know training's very close to your heart. Actually, training came through quite strongly from the agency one, probably more strongly than than the other workshops, but training is very is very much going to feed into the roadmap for next year. And what that looks like in terms of deliverables, I don't know yet. I mean, this is very much sort of like finding our way in the dark, working out what works, some stuff's gonna work, some stuff's not. What came through quite strongly from that conversation is a lot of training material exists, but a lot of it exists obviously within organizations. So if you if we have all of this great content that's out there, why not try and collate that into some sort of overarching training module? Can we build accreditation? Also, what does training mean? You know, training to a new starter is different to us going out and trying to train the market, or us going out to universities and colleges and saying, can we build an affiliate marketing training module? One of the things that I was very aware of working network side, which I don't think people really pay enough attention to, is trying to put yourselves in the shoes of maybe a more junior account manager client side who has maybe been given affiliate because nobody else wants it or knows what to do with it. Obviously, the the core advocate for that, but they kind of feel fairly sort of cast adrift and they don't feel that they have support. So one of the things I'd love to do is ask us to get to a stage where we're arming that person with all of the collateral they need to be able to go and make a really strong business case for ongoing investment within their businesses. And that might be us coming in and presenting to their brand. That might say, us get us saying to them, what collateral do you need? Do you need like a really kind of dummy's guide to tracking, a dummy's guide to affiliate? Is it that we we come in and present to your CMO or your CEO? All of these things. So there's a ton of discovery that we need to do, specifically just around that one topic, right? We could just focus exclusively on that. But it does go to the heart of really what a trade body should be. So at the moment, I'm speaking to some brands, and I've just been speaking to a really big telco client, and some of their feedback was trade bodies typically do one of two things. It's either you're kind of trying to raise standards, you know, professionalize, or you're going out and kind of advocating for your industry to external audiences. And they kind of said, which is it? And I said, well, to be honest, and other things as well. And really, if I had a team of five, ten people, we could do all of those things, but we're going to have to be very, very selective about wanting, not spreading ourselves too thinly to ensure that we deliver effective projects next year. Training will be one of them. I think we'll definitely do something around tracking. Tracking is one of those topics that now is not, it's not just an affiliate topic. For me, it's like a bit of an existential topic that if we don't really go out and hammer home the importance of good, viable tracking, then we're at real risk of potentially the channel shrinking just because we're leaving money on the more and more money on the table as kind of additional restrictions come in or different different tech technology changes come in.
SPEAKER_01Well, also, affiliates are being duped. Some in some programs where people don't understand tracking and they haven't set up their tracking properly and they're not monitoring what's happening with their tracking. Affiliates are doing all the top of funnel stuff and they're not actually getting any accreditation when it comes down to the sales. So I think that's a great place to start because it impacts everybody. It impacts the client who's leaving money on the table, but not actually investing properly into the channel. It affects the affiliate because they're doing a lot of the kind of groundwork to do the promotion, create the great content, and they're not actually getting paid for it in the in the short term. And that obviously depends on the types of partners that you're working with. I love the training thing because you know me, I bang my my drum about training all the time.
SPEAKER_00And and and we've we've talked about this. I mean, I'd love us to have a conversation at some point next year about how we kind of get involved. Because again, I mean you you've kind of very generously come on board as one of our initial members as well. You know, we're gonna launch hopefully, we're launching at the moment with around about 25 to 30 members, and they're drawn from across all four of those sectors. Really pleased that we've got some some good brands on board for launch, but agencies, publishers, networks as well. So it's yes, I'm sure that that's a common. You know, each of those companies are gonna bring different skill sets or areas of expertise or areas of interest. Um, and I know obviously training is very close to your heart, so it's something that you know hopefully we'll we'll get to work on next year.
SPEAKER_01Brilliant. I'm loving. So, okay, so we know what the APMA is, we know what the core focuses are going to be and who all's involved. Everybody's voice has been heard through these focus groups that you've just recently done. But why do you think the industry needs to lean in now and actually really invest in kind of coming together to make this work for everybody that's in this partnership economy?
SPEAKER_00So I I mean I guess I've alluded to it in some of some of the stuff I've said already, but the old affiliate marketing council doesn't exist anymore. And I think that I I'm fairly sure because we know, you know, we were talking before we we we started recording, because we know that so many new people have come into the space over in the last few years, you know, the channel has gone exponentially. According to the the UK IEB numbers, which I'm still a little bit skeptical about, even though my old company, A-Win, submitted a big chunk of those numbers. I'm still skeptical that they they said the affiliate channel would be by 30% in in 2023, which is actually bigger growth than it was during during COVID when you know we could have all sat on our hands and watched everything grow. But you know, when you consider those big, chunky double-digit growth numbers, we're gonna more and more people have had to come in just to manage those budgets. But really, what that means is that a lot of people have no awareness of a lot of the projects that were done by the old affiliate council, which really was really at its height in terms of effectiveness around about 10 years ago. And we did loads of really great projects at the time, and that was with very limited resources, to be perfectly honest. But a lot of those things now are outdated, very significant lack of awareness about any of those projects. So I think that that is one core reason why why we need to have this collective voice to be able to kind of reinvigorate standards to address new challenges that have come in. Because at the time we addressed a big issue with voucher codes, and I think we addressed it reasonably effectively. And because we addressed it reasonably effectively, I think people assume that the issue went away. And actually it didn't, it just morphed into a different issue, which which still hasn't been addressed. And for me, it's a bit of an elephant in the room. And we're gonna have to have difficult conversations about these things, but that's why I think that we can weight it with other things. So another reason I think that is good timing is because the affiliate channel is not great at telling stories. We're not a hearts and minds channel. People will say, well, you can count what the affiliate channel does on a spreadsheet. Whereas if you were a big brand agency, you would say, Well, you have to you have to watch my adverts. You have to what you have to look at my creative in order to see what I do. It's not about the numbers, it's about the hearts and minds. And I think that's and because because we are very measurable, I think that sometimes we focused in the numbers rather than the stories. So I'd love us to get, I kind of when I was sort of trying to formulate kind of how I was going to talk about the APMA, I kind of came up with this sort of idea, which I've always talked about it being kind of like a bit of a nuts and bolts channel, but I do want to turn it from like a nuts and bolts into a hearts and minds channel where we're going out and we're really kind of connecting with the creatives within big organizations, you know, really connecting with a CMO and not just on a on a performance basis, even though that's obviously baked within our DNA. So I think connecting with CMOs, connecting with C-suite, telling good stories. I also think coming to the tracking point as well, there are some real existential threats that are out there that collectively we're not addressing and we're kind of sleepwalking potentially into. I think the channel will continue to grow, but we're potentially stifling growth.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. We get stuck in a, we've always done it this way. I literally had a conversation with a client this morning, a potential client this morning, and they were saying, well, you know, we need to reduce our investment in this particular segment of affiliates because that's the best practices right now. And I said, Hold up. Who told you that's the best practices right now? The best practice is for you to make sure that you're reaching your KPIs. That's your best practice. And actually, that information that you've just fed back to me is stuff that we were talking about five years ago that is no longer relevant because this ecosystem is so much bigger. Ten years ago, we didn't have Facebook, you know, we were looking at content creators. So that piece of advice that you've just fed back to me is whatever it is that you were told to do is no longer relevant. And that is the thing that I think the APMA needs to step in and help everybody in the ecosystem with is to understand what are the upcoming trends and how are those trends impacting the decisions that you're making in your business. And it starts with tracking, it starts with understanding growth rates and getting numbers and insights together. It starts with then learning from the test cases, the case studies that come back from all of that, that everybody needs to contribute to in order for everybody to grow. Instead of us being siloed, and and really this is another reason why you work with an agency, is to get a breadth and depth of understanding of what's happening outside of your own space or with your network or whoever it is that you've decided to partner with. But I think if we start to learn to share as an industry, you know, it's that old a rising tide raises all ships. And actually, if you want to be in this industry and you want to work in performance and you want to be part of that 30% growth, you know, whatever the IAB council says it is, you need to be sharing what's happening and what's not happening and what's working and what's not working. And I think the APMA allows people to come to the table and actually have a voice and say, this is how we're doing it and it's working for us. Maybe it'll work for you too, but maybe it won't, depending on what industry or vertical or product you're selling. Because everything that we do in this channel is suck it and see.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, and I mean, um risk is a slightly loaded word because it depends how you risk. But in terms of potenti like financial investment for return, it is a fairly risk-averse channel. And also, the the flip side to well, not flip side, but but the other the the the thing that I think is is brilliant about that is that because you because you can have that low barrier, that that kind of low risk, and because it's low barrier to entry, you'll pretend you potentially get to work with brand new innovations and brand new pieces of tech way before anyone internally within your big organization has thought about doing it, and then fed that into a product roadmap that then has to jostle alongside a million other projects that try and get prioritised within your business. Maybe go and speak to a tech partner and then through the technology that that networks and platforms typically offer, which is you know these container tag solutions where it's easy to kind of switch on, switch on, plug and play stuff. Get to play around with that tech. And again, you know, typically a lot of them are on on a on a pure CPA basis, and if it doesn't work or you don't like it, within a you know, three, four months, switch it off, try something new.
SPEAKER_01But it's almost like we've become afraid of trying new things because we're afraid of failure. I'm really seeing a lot of this come through in the young, the kind of next generation of affiliates where all we ever did was fail back then to get to where we are now. Like it was your job to fail and learn from that and never do it again.
SPEAKER_00One thing I would say though is that yes, you yes, we failed, but it was on a much smaller scale. And so I wonder whether that sort of feeds into the fact that there's like additional risk of the fact that, yes, you know, it that there's a time investment. Sometimes you have to make these business cases internally. There's also, you know, the the the data implications, which I I can speak from an A-RIM point of view, a lot of time and effort was put into ensuring that um, you know, certainly if you were switching, if you were changing the complexion or you know, the functionality of a website, and ensuring that uh all of the checks and balances were in place to make it making sure that if if the publisher's tech failed, it didn't negatively impact the usability of the website. But you know, for me, the those tech solutions coming through have added like a real complexion. I mean, it it it doesn't really matter whether whether you think they're they're they add loads of value or no value or somewhere in between. The fact is it's another opportunity. And for some brands, in certain situations, then they know that they might want to do to test something around, for example, you know, increasing average basket sizes, and they know that this tech exists whereby it can potentially make recommendations based around stuff that's in your in your basket. But you that they would know that it they wouldn't, they would never get that tech, they would never get that tech project through internally. They can turn to partners who can do it kind of almost instantly. And actually, I think one of the big success stories has been how some big brands have really embraced that. I mean, I remember from my AWIN days, Samsung in particular, AWIN was able to kind of um issue kind of a number of really quite positive PR stories and case studies around the work that Samsung had done with with their tech partner to be able to drive up AOVs and things like that. And and that's where I think that it kind of hopefully gives us like um an extra of like professionalism, but also the tech innovation that's coming through, you know, the the diversity of opportunity. And again, that's another thing that I really want to bake into the work that we do next year, really showcasing the breadth and depth of publisher models. And the fact is that it is kind of this schmoggersburst of opportunities, and you can kind of pick and choose the ones that are right for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You kind of have to be like um what do you call it? A marionette, is it a marionette puppeteer or whatever? Where you kind of you you move in the strings. You you do have to be that, you know, and it's and it's moving ahead of just doing administration and relationship management, it's actually becoming very innovative in the way that you spend your budgets and where you spend your budgets because now there's so many opportunities.
SPEAKER_00And that's why reporting and and the ability to pull your data in and not just your at point of sale data, right? Again, we were talking about this before we started, but understanding lifetime value of customers is really, really important. And historically, that's been difficult to pull together, not because not through lack of uh willingness to want to do it, but it's just it's been difficult to pull in. Data, you know, you've you've effectively, as you know, from a network perspective, we would we would say, well, uh on a very basic level, the channel is very data-like in terms of the data that you have to capture, but we can capture more more data points if you want. But then it's a question of like, well, pulling in additional data points and then marrying it up with publisher data, and publishers have typically been quite guarded about that data. So you effectively kind of have three data sets. You've got the advertiser one, the network one, and the publisher one. So trying to connect those three data sets has always been been challenging. But again, that's if if you can do that in a way that really brings it to life and demonstrates value and helps a brand to optimize, you know, spend money in the right places, then that's the kind of really happy marriage if you can get to that place. It doesn't happen as often as it needs to.
SPEAKER_01No, and it should. All right, so let's talk a little bit about some top tips for future growth. Because I know you've got your hand on many pulses. Well, your pulses, you're you're you're on the pulse of many things, should I say? Where do you think future growth is headed from this? Because obviously you've you've had the conversations with agencies, networks, publishers, advertisers. What was like the common theme of of where they want to see growth and change happen from those talks?
SPEAKER_00I think it's impossible to kind of identify like pinpoint one one particular thing. I think you know it's like anything where it's I always say about the affiliate channel, it's not complicated, but it is complex. And it's about you know the complexity of that is because we are effectively all digital, right? If if you can make it work on a CPA, then you can do whatever you want from a digital perspective. But that does mean that you might therefore be working with dozens and dozens of different routes to market. You know, did did a publisher survey recently and found that on average publishers use four different methods to drive sales each. So, you know, you've when you when you kind of multiply that up by the number of publishers on your program, that that that's potentially offering you tons of complexity in terms of your routes to market. So there's a huge amount of complexity within there. I think that if you're looking at sort of where where future growth is coming from, I've mentioned the tech partners, they're heavily investing in their tech. They are reaching out, you know, they're they're doing some good, they're winning good brands. They're also they're also looking at future growth as well, where their future growth is coming from. I think some of them are looking to scale that up to be able to offer their tech out in a less manual way.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of integrations happening as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think, you know, I I remember again at A when we did some work with Intently, who've also come on board as a founder member of the APMA, and they created like a cut-down version of their tech for small businesses, which was great because individually that you know the numbers aren't gonna be massive, but if they can offer an automated scalable solution for SMEs, then it kind of stacks up the numbers. So, and and also that that points to another trend that we definitely seen, not just from an AWIN perspective, because I've seen other networks like Trade Doubler and Impact and WebGains do it as well, but trying to appeal more to small, small, um, small and medium-sized companies. And that is kind of through offering you know different commercial models, really highlighting the risk-free elements, making it very easy for them to break contracts if they feel that it's not the right time for them. And I think I think all of these things are positive because the companies go into it, they don't feel duped by it, they go in with their eyes wide open. We kind of used to say to them, you know, you kind of do get what you you put in. We recommend a minimum amount of time. If for you, for whatever reason, it doesn't work, you can just walk away with 30 days' notice. And that again, you know, that that's in complete contrast to how programs used to be sold on you know a 12-month contract, or at least sometimes 24 or 36 month contract. So small businesses coming through has just increased exponentially the number of programs that there are.
SPEAKER_01I do want to caveat something here though, and listen this is literally because I've had two calls like this today, and it's front of my mind. You do pay for what you get in the affiliate channel. If you pay, like the old adage, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Like that is really the truth because what you are paying for is expertise and experience and fast tracking, knowing that your program is safe with somebody who knows what they're doing and can actually advise you appropriately because and you actually said it. Affiliate marketing isn't well, I don't know how you said it, you said affiliate marketing, complicated, but it is complex. And if you don't have the right strategy, structure, partnerships in place, it can cost you money if you're doing it wrong. So whilst it is pay on performance, there are upfront costs that you need to pay for to actually get the channel, get into the channel, and just be cognizant, like ask the right questions of the partners that you're working with and that you're looking to work with, because you really do want to avoid that I've gone into the channel, it hasn't worked for me because I didn't actually know what I was doing, because that's sad for you. Because we know that this channel works, it works for multiple brands around the globe, from small to big, but only if you have a proper plan in place. So, like take that as a warning, your Halloween warning, whatever it is, you know, please don't enter into this channel lightly. Do get the right people in place and get the support.
SPEAKER_00One thing that we have seen is is kind of the growth of like affiliate specific agencies or consultants who are coming through to advise who who aren't those kind of big catch or media agencies and who for who they've just kind of stuck affiliate on as a bolt-on. So that's definitely gone hand in hand with that SME growth, I think. So again, I think the combination of those two things, obviously by now pay later. I mean, there was like I know you covered it on your on your site recently, but that Klarner interview was kind of mind-blowing, really, where they talked about affiliate being such a huge revenue driver. Again, how much longevity is in some of these things, you don't know, but they are clearly trying to build out a customer proposition alongside the payment model.
SPEAKER_01Well, having been there and done that in the payments industry, for those of you who don't know my background, I actually ran one of the biggest e-wallet companies, two of the biggest e-wallet companies in the iGaming sector. So the biggest competitors to PayPal. Payments is hot right now. That's all I can tell you. Like partner up with your payment providers, talk to your payment providers. They've got data segments that you never dreamed that they could, you know, leverage and use and help you with. So yeah, take that as a tip for your new trends for 2024.
SPEAKER_00And it's interesting. I mean, I I I don't know enough about it to really comment on any details. Just that I just remember a few years ago when the government was opening up banking, you know, the whole open banking thing, and people were looking around at what the next opportunity might be. And obviously, we saw the challenger banks come through off the back of that. But now, effectively, because data is so portable and it's so instant as well, that there's obviously data issues around that, which we need to be need to be mindful of. But I just wonder how much these two things are kind of you know go going hand in hand. But just on the point of payments, I that was kind of one of me, one, one of my final points on that, which is uh the I I know we've we've talked about this as before because you know, with your background, you're kind of surprised by how slow some affiliate payments are, particularly let's say the retail sector. I think that the payments is is right for disruption in this industry. And I think that again, if we can get behind a message whereby the faster you pay people, the more those companies have to reinvest in their businesses. And the more confidence they have to re-in, you know, if they if they want to continue to innovate and build new tech and new solutions for publishers, they need to have that cash in the bank or they need to have the ability to access funds quickly. And it's that we don't know what we don't know. You know, we have always done it whereby payments have typically been quite slow. Not everyone, not every brand, but overall payments are generally slow. And you don't know how much that is inhibiting growth of the channel. So so I think that that is right for disruption, and I I I don't know. I don't have any kind of insider dealings or information on this, but I just I just get a sense from speaking to various companies and and getting a feel for how people are feeling about it that next year could be could be a year where we maybe see networks in particular focusing in and trying to kind of be the be the be the quickest payer.
SPEAKER_01Love to see that happen. So if anybody's listening to this and they've got payments, product ideas or anything else, please hit me up because I'd love to tell you how it works in other industries that I've worked in. Okay, so let's wrap this up. How do people listening to this podcast get involved with the APMA right now?
SPEAKER_00So obviously, I mean, we're recording this just prior to the launch. So by the time you hear this, we should have been launched, we should launch. So the website should be fully functioning. We do want to bake in like some e-commerce functionality so people actually go and sign up and pay online. That's not going to be ready for launch, but there will be a lead form on there. There'll be details around the different membership tiers and what the cost of those tiers and what you can expect to get in return, the benefits. But it's the apma.co.uk, and you should be able to. And even if you're not interested in becoming a member, you can sign up for newsletters.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and just keep abreast. I mean, the whole thing is get connected into your community, learn from your peers. That's what this is all about. And it's really, really good advice. Right. I want to put you on the spot now and make you think of just one word that you leave all of our listeners with. A word that we should all be thinking about and of as we head into 2024.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I will give you a word, but can I just give you a quick bit of background as to why I thought of this word? Yes. So the old uh one of the old American justices on the Supreme Court was uh Ruth uh Bailey Ginsburg. And she, and when she died, there were obviously people were very kind of, you know, there were all of these tributes. And I remember seeing an interview with uh with somebody who said that that she was really collegiate. And I kind of obviously know that you know it's related to colleges and stuff like that. But actually, when you kind of look at the definition of collegiate, it's different to collaboration, in that collaboration is sort of the act of collaborating, like doing stuff with other people, whereas collegiate is more around how you do it, and it's sort of this atmosphere around sort of you know, friendly collaboration, working, you know, leaving your egos at the door, coming together to achieve something better and kind of respecting everybody in the room and all of that kind of stuff. So, my what very, very long-winded way of saying collegiate would be my would be my word for the APMA next year.
SPEAKER_01I love that. Well, I think collegiate should be the way it should be the word for the entire affiliate industry for next year. Let's all come together and collaborate. I mean, what we only all win.
SPEAKER_00Well, we it can be, you know how um, you know how uh Pantone always has their colour of the year.
SPEAKER_01We can have a word of the year. Well, mine would be amplify. I want to see everybody amplify all of their efforts and then come together and be collegiate to learn from them.
SPEAKER_00Yes, there we go, perfect.
SPEAKER_01I mean, together we make two halves of a great haul. Thank you so much for being on this podcast, Kevin Edwards. It has been a pleasure to have you back and really looking forward to seeing how the industry pulls together behind the APMA, which is another opportunity for you to get your voice heard and to come and learn with peers. And thank you just for being here today and giving us all of your insights from all of the conversations that you've been having around the industry too. It's been great to have you.
SPEAKER_00My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
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