Want to amplify your affiliate program performance? The Amplify Summit is the only affiliate marketing event you need to attend to stay ahead of affiliate trends in 2024. You'll get no sales pictures, just honest advice and answers from industry experts to the questions that you have about affiliate program marketing. Get ready to save the date in your diary as we bring you the biggest and best Amplify Summit yet. Taking place on the 19th and 20th of March 2024. We'll be giving you the inside scoop on how to amplify your affiliate program and partner performance. Plus, book an on-demand ticket for £49 and you'll gain exclusive access to masterclasses, personal group coaching sessions, and all important Ask Me Anything sessions with real live industry experts who will show and tell you how to implement new tactics that drive consistent results. Get your ticket to join us at Amplify Now. Visit affiversemedia.com and click the button marked Amplify Summit to register.
SPEAKER_06You're listening to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast brought to you by affiverse media.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 matec 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_03Hello and welcome to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast with me, your host, Leanne Johnston. I had a brief break last week leaving the podcast mic in Lianna's capable hands. Now, in case you haven't met her, Lianna heads up our agency team and she hosted a really special Christmas episode in my absence. Never want to leave good content sitting in the editing room floor. She dug out an interview that she'd hosted with Impact.com's Todd Crawford for your listening pleasure. If you haven't listened to it yet, head back a week and do the download to tune in. It really was an insightful episode and I wouldn't want you to miss it. Now this week, I wanted to bring you my favorite clips from this season's guests because it seems such a good way to wrap up the season and the year too, as we look forward to 2024 in just a few days' time. Now, if you know me, you'll know that I always aim to bring you the most current, insightful content in the affiliate marketing industry. And I firmly think that this season we did a great job in doing just that. We certainly did it by the look of the stats, as we've just rolled into the top 25% of podcasts worldwide, according to BuzzSpra, and have been listened to in over 116 countries this year alone. So if you're liking the podcast, give us a five-star review. Get in touch with me and tell me what you want to learn more about and how I can help you to do that in 2024. Thank you so much for listening and joining us each week. It really does mean the world to us. Let's get on with unwrapping this season and bringing you the best of each episode to review. Season 14 had to cover the most hottest topic that we discussed this year, and that is AI. In this first episode, we invited jasper.ai's head of partner marketing, Alec Bedricki, to talk about the impact of AI tools like his in affiliate marketing and to learn a little bit more about how to leverage them in your affiliate program to sustain growth. AI's human-like capability can write content as well as its ability to save time in an industry that's relying on human connections and manual tasks to service long-term partnerships was a hot topic too. In this clip, we hear what Jasper.ai, the first generative AI platform, are focusing on in terms of simplifying content creation.
SPEAKER_00So our pivot was more towards marketing teams. So if you look at ChatGPT or um, you know, some of the others in the space that just focus on copywriting, uh, we've really pivoted heavy into the idea of uh focusing on marketers and marketing teams. So solving for their specific use cases. So whereas like a you know a generative AI copywriting tool might help you make you know more content. What we care about is not just more content, but more effective content because marketers care about not just you know producing great content, but also making sure it performs well, learning from that and continue doing that. That's where we're kind of going and how we differentiate ourselves in the AI space.
SPEAKER_03So that must be one of the biggest reasons or one of the biggest areas that you think AI is going to disrupt the way that we market to customers and also to our affiliates, because content is a big part of everything that we do in performance marketing, whether it's working with traditional kind of SEO type or blogger type affiliates, or through even right now into the kind of influencer and creator economy. So, what do you think AI is about to disrupt in this particular space, both for the customers' benefits in terms of the end user that receives this content and the partners themselves?
SPEAKER_00So I think like AI has drastically lowered the barrier to getting content shipped, at least as it pertains to generative AI and creating content. So I think with that, and we're starting to see it, you're just going to see a ton of content proliferation. There's just going to be so much more out there right now. And I think it's going to be more important than ever for those who are producing content with the intention of having that content lead to a business outcome, to one, stay ahead of like where the SERPs are going in terms of how they're going to be, you know, grading their content that's published on the web to ensure it's ranking correctly. And then two, making sure that they are producing content in such a way that uh pieces with those guidelines. We're already starting to see it with like how Google is starting to introduce generative AI into their search mix, how they're starting to favor, you know, more uh novel, uh original ideas, and they're trying to combat this probably incoming wave of crap content, right? Because people are getting in using these tools and saying, hey, now it takes me one tenth of the time to create two times as much content as before, uh, but they're not really putting like polish on it. They're not putting the human element, they're not putting the strategy behind it, they're probably just putting the prompt and saying, give me a blog post on these ten things. Great, done, shipped. And I think that's going to lead to a lot of really bad content for reparation. So advice for marketers in this space is to, you know, stay ahead of, you know, where it the industry is going in terms of what's going to create successful content and really have a strong point of view on how you will leverage these tools to reach that outcome. Because AI is not just replacing it and you're done. You still need to incorporate that human element into it to ensure you're writing strategic, valuable, and original content that gets found and used.
SPEAKER_03You've touched on a word there that I just want to kind of dig into a little bit is the original content. Now there's a lot of talk happening about who owns this content that's created by AI. How do you kind of make sure that it's not copying or scraping from other places around the internet, whatever the case may be? Like, what are your thoughts on how we should be managing all of that or thinking about managing it?
SPEAKER_00If we're up to me, like I'm not, you know, the legislative power to be in order to like, you know, put these rules into place. And in uh if I talk about a little bit about how I'm designing some of the partner programs here at Jasper, I'm requiring partners to lead with transparency, especially those that are using AI to create content on behalf of their clients. I think there's a lot of folks out there that are starting to say, like, I can get a competitive advantage, and I'm not going to tell my end client that I'm producing it using AI, and you know, I'll get it done half the time, and they'll still charge me the same amount of money. I think it's more important right now, um especially as AI tools are taking off, to be very transparent about its usage and upfront, especially when you're serving a client. So to your point around original content and how you it's kind of murky. Like I think there's going to be a lot of thrash in these next couple months and years as people kind of figure out, you know, what is the right principle. You know, you see different regions around the world who kind of treat it differently. So it'll be interesting to see where the chips fall. But in my opinion, if our up to me, it's you know, being transparent about your usage of AI and being ethical about it too. Not, you know, trying to say, like, write this as if you are uh Stephen King, uh, right? Like, not trying to blatantly rip off somebody because of it. So that's that's that's generally my stance. Uh I I mean I can't enact the laws, but I generally think that AI should be looked at as a tool uh and not a replacement or a um sort of a means to copy something else entirely.
SPEAKER_03In this clip, we brought back onto the lineup for the affiliate marketing podcast a previous guest and affiliate personality, Kevin Edwards, who is now the director of the Affiliate Performance Marketing Association, or the APMA, to talk about what people in the industry wanted from a governing body and discuss the items that the body will seek to represent and address in the coming year. Listen now at how Kevin explains the thought process behind the initial workshops and outreach that he has created to build the APMA here in the UK.
SPEAKER_04We 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 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 the other workshops, but training is very is very much going to feed into the roadmap for next year. Now, what that looks like in terms of deliverables, I don't know yet. You know, 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 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 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, professionalized, or you're going out and kind of advocating for your industry to external audiences. And they say, I said, which is it? And I said, well, to be honest, they're both 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 as kind of additional restrictions come in or different different tech technology changes come in.
SPEAKER_03In the third episode of this season, I was joined by the lovely Naomi Barton, Portfolio Director for Clarion Gaming. The people behind events like IGB Affiliate, ESW, and Traffic and Conversion Summit. Event attendance has grown year on year in an industry where human connection and trust are key to building good relationships. A big part of where relationships start is by networking and having face-to-face interactions in person at both events and virtual events. Being in charge of such a massive event and multiple teams that come together to create them, it can be a little bit daunting, especially in this fast-paced industry. But Naomi takes it all in her stride and shares her tactics on leadership and effective management in the hopes that more talent can step up and step into and become beacons in this industry. Listen now to hear some of the really great advice that Naomi has shared for future leaders. What are some of the tips that you can give to like young affiliate managers coming into this industry who may be feeling a little bit, you know, not scared, but overwhelmed by, you know, the sheer fact that there are a few in a mass of many when they're walking to an 8,000-strong conference? Like what are some of the pieces of advice that you can give to women who are looking to get into leadership roles and actually take, you know, the next generation along with them?
SPEAKER_02I think, first of all, I think know that you know that you deserve to be there, that you deserve your seat at the table, you deserve your voice. When I look back at what I was like, uh, I love that the hunger and the energy that young people have coming into a market. You can you can feel it, you can see it. I think not being afraid to ask questions, like no question. I still say it now in most of the meetings that I run. There's no stupid questions, like none. And and the other thing is that you never stop learning or growing. Because if you're pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, you should always be asking questions that might make you feel a little uncomfortable. You're pushing yourself. So it's not like you get to a stage where you suddenly know everything because you don't, because life changes and and and sectors and work changes. So, and I think not being afraid to ask, if you hear somebody that inspires you, not being afraid to say, would you would you mentor me or can I speak to you? Like I have done that frequently in my career, and I have been mentored upwards and downwards. I'm I'm being mentored all the time by you know amazing people, amazing young women in their 20s, who are so much more tech savvy than me in certain areas, have a really unique and different perspective of marketing geniuses. You know, I learn from them all the time, but what I can hopefully give them is a level of experience and confidence to say, just ask, ask the question, ask why, don't be afraid to, you know, to make your mark and and not be don't be afraid to fail, which I know is quite a sort of cliche thing to say, but you know, I used to really take failure quite personally. I felt like if I got it wrong, I really used to take it personally, and I've had to really learn it. It just doesn't matter, and you only learn from failure. And all the things that you think sometimes you hear when you're younger, all the memes, they're true. Like you only really do learn if you mess something up. But also the world doesn't cave in if you said something silly, it doesn't. So learning to have a slightly less sort of yeah, it's not personal. I wrote that on my fridge really early on in my career. It's just not personal. No one's out to sort of trip you up or mess you up, you know. It's just just ask the questions and be wholehearted. Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_03So there's three things I took from that because it was quite a good like leadership speech, really, for women coming into this industry. The first thing is you already have a seat at the table. By being here, you are already here. So there's nothing that you need to prove to anybody, and there's nothing that you need to do other than continue your own personal development and learnings. Because guess what, guys? Like, as as you heard from Naomi, she's learning still, even though she's been running these huge events for many, many years. I'm learning still, even though I'm running multi-million dollar affiliate programs all around the world. Your learning never stops in this industry, and you have to be okay with that. Like, if you're gonna come into this industry and you're gonna want to build your career, you need to be okay with the fact that you're gonna be a continual student and you're gonna have to keep learning. The second thing that you need to be okay with, which Naomi said, is you need to be okay making mistakes. Because guess what? You're gonna make them and you can't be perfect all the time. And when you make those mistakes, that's when you learn from them. In the next episode, we brought you a two-parter featuring Declan Dunn, a true OG, and much like myself, there isn't much that he hasn't seen in the years that he's been working in affiliate marketing. However, that's not to say that we both aren't continuously learning. Declan has seen some of the biggest names in the industry being born and witnessed how the core of relationship building and knowledge of data has remained key aspects to success even today. Affiliate marketing was hard at the inception. We were all learning as we were going along. And it still remains a very competitive industry that we're working in today. We have always had to be ready for the changes that come our way and learn from one another. What has remained is making authentic personable connections with partners. So listen in to this next clip where we talk about outreach and remaining authentic in your affiliate program and recruitment activity.
SPEAKER_05One of the biggest pet peeves is not realizing that this channel is about communication. And so it's really easy to sit down, write a quick sequence, put it into your CRM, what have you, and let it go. That's just, I'm saying that's what we used to do because we didn't have anything you have today. And so we used to have to use persuasion because we used to try to like control you. And I want to say this is where I surrendered to it because what I hate with managers is that a lot of them, and they come out, it it's and it I just totally feel this. You really, it is really a hard job, okay? My gosh, you've got to perform, and then you perform, and that performance becomes the standard metric. It's like just this grind. So instead of making it a grind, don't pound people. Start realizing that you can have a couple of pre-written messages at the beginning, but your goal is to get a response. So remember that your goal is to open a channel of communication, not to close the affiliate deal right away.
SPEAKER_03You know, we always talk about call to action. We do. We talk a lot about call to action and having that relevant. But the call to action is actually the connection. And that's what I want you guys to listen to, what Declan's saying, is it's not about that six, you know, and I've seen some great funnels. I mean, I've seen some awesome onboarding funnels when I join affiliate programs and you know, when we sketch out what's happening in the industry compared to our competitors and et cetera, et cetera. And there's a place for funnels. We're not saying don't do it, but what we are saying is don't get into the trap of set and forget and expecting somebody to, you know, fall out the bottom of that funnel and be your new best friend because they haven't had that human interaction with you yet. And they haven't had that opportunity to have a conversation. Some of the best deals that you and I have probably ever made in this industry are the ones that happen at two o'clock in the morning at the top of, you know, a skybar somewhere after you've had a long day at a conference and you're the last people to remain. Like those are when connections happen and when you actually make the best business deals. And it sounds great. I mean, it sounds like life's a party in the affiliate industry, but it is also very, very hard work.
SPEAKER_05No, you made a great point though. Funnels are great once they know you and you're onboarding them. That's the other thing. Managers will close the deal and then it's like, okay, good luck, go to work. That's when you got to get the affiliate to actually do something. And giving them a sequence there is brilliant. See, they know you though. Okay, so now you're not trying to open the door, the door is open. Guide me how to do it and to actually get them to take action because that is part two of getting them to take the next step. So I don't say that you don't automate. I think that automation is really brilliant. But it's that up front, opening the door, being able to get in there. And my pet peeves for me, I'm a media buyer as well as a performance marketer. And I always looked at affiliate marketing as an ad buy. And this sounds really weird, but I am literally buying somebody's time for a specific performance. And if that doesn't go, that's why I look at my numbers and say, okay, if I was to spend this money, which would probably cost a lot more and it's a different audience, here's what I would expect. Here's my conversion when I know them. But when I do that, then if I look at their numbers, if I watch the conversion going, I might prompt them and say, hey, could we um do something? Could we do a special piece of content, a coupon, a discount? You know, if they're into that kind of deals. Is there something I can do for you? Reaching out proactively because I want your conversion to go up. And to do that, I need to be in front of your traffic in a way that might be better. Can I do this in a very supportive way? So what happens is you become the intelligence. And if you leave it up to the affiliate, by the way, there's some who are so freaking brilliant that I don't need to do this too, right? I listen to them and go, okay, I'll leave you alone, right? That's cool. That's what, but some of them really need a not only a push, but if their numbers aren't right, if you're not getting impressions, how can I get you to do this? And I've had some great programs actually do this with me and work with me on this, going, hey, could we we got a new product coming out? Can we give you a special promotion, not necessarily even a coupon, but a special angle, content, something that we can do together. What that shows is not only that you care, but you got to consider an affiliate. Once they sign up, you just planted the seed in the garden. And you need a little water, you need a little sunlight, and hopefully your soil's got some rich stuff and compost and things in it that's gonna help it grow.
SPEAKER_03So far, we have heard that making connections and building relationships and partnerships go hand in hand. We invited Ryan Kleezat from BrandSwap to talk to us about brand-to-brand partnerships and how his new venture, Building Brands Together, can help build B2B partnerships easier. Let's listen in to Ryan on this next clip where he explains what brand swap aims to accomplish.
SPEAKER_07So BrandSwap is a plug-and-play for partnerships platform which allows any advertiser or retailer to partner with each other and place rewards and advertisements on each other's checkouts. So we call it checkout marketing, and we're building a marketplace for that to make it really easy for both sides of the value chain to work with each other. And the plug and play thing is really important though, because I think that's the issue that hasn't really been solved, is just making it take five or ten minutes being really seamless and really quick to find the right partners. But in terms of my mission is plug and play, make it really quick and easy, but also make it more personalized and more relevant as well. So I feel for the consumers that they also need increased relevance and they don't want an awkward brand-to-brand experience that just doesn't feel right or it doesn't feel to have brand parity, and they want it to be you know convenient, a very short journey to purchase. So I think a lot of it is around the the consumer expects relevance and convenience. And so if you can't deliver that with a brand partnership, then I don't think it's gonna work. So my kind of long-term law star that I'm working towards is through making the brand partnerships incredibly relevant and real-time at scale to the user. You know, you're buying a dishwasher and you get an offer for subscription for dishwasher tablets, something like that. You know, it's all immediate. You're ensuring you're pet and you get an offer for a hair food subscription. And that's the kind of relevance I think ultimately all advertising is going towards anyway. And I think you won't even know it's there. It's like when it works, it's when it feels that it's almost invisible and there's no joint. So that's my mission is that it feels like that. It feels like it should just happen and it's right.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So for affiliate managers that are tuning in here and that want to perhaps explore partnerships as part of their performance ecosystem, what's the easiest way for them to do this? Because it's sometimes a little bit daunting when you go, Oh, yeah, I need to go build a partnership. Who do you contact? How do you start that conversation? Obviously, brand swap is the platform that will sit between the two parts or the two entities that are going to partner up together. But what's some of the advice that you can give that that you've seen work from some of the successful partnerships that you've maybe brokered?
SPEAKER_07Sure. So I think the most successful partnerships, there tends to be a really good parity of brand values. So I think really understanding that the partners have that have the same values as this. And I'll give you an example. What we often find is that all the B-Corp people that have ethical or environmental products, you know, do not want to be seen with someone that has any issue of being seen as not B Corp. So essentially their values are the same, and that can happen on many different levels. So I feel that that parity is really strong. The other thing as well is that if they are going to do brand-to-brand partnerships, there has to be a really clear value to the customer and a very strong incentive to the customer to participate. It can't just be an offer that they see anywhere else, or you know, they see on another publisher or this business as usual. So I feel like both sides of the partnership need to go a little bit further to give some extra value or reward to the customer, otherwise they're slightly missing out on the value exchange. So there's two sides of it. So you're either a host or you're an advertiser. But if you're hosting different advertisers, then thinking really carefully about the value proposition of the advertiser because some advertisers aren't easily understood what they do, so they might be understood within a niche. So let's say you're in a really small niche, and it's fine to offer an advertiser from another niche on your site, a smaller one, because people understand naturally what it does. But I think when you're offering advertisers where it's more generic, I think you need a really strong advertiser that has a decent strong brand presence because otherwise they can get a little bit lost, you know, and then you start to interrupt the consumer journey because it's like, what's this brand, what they do, and you know, and you try and think about it. So I feel it has to be something that the value proposition is so clear. You know, it's three months of Audible or Disney or something where everybody kind of knows what it stands for thinking really strong, unless they're in a niche and they truly understand that value proposition because they're in a certain audience. But in terms of the actual getting the whole thing together, I think strong execution is really good as well. When both of the brands are together, it needs to look really native, really natural and professional, and it so that both brands almost feel like they look they belong together.
SPEAKER_03In this last clip, we hear from Simon Kingsnorth, the author of Digital Marketing Strategy, an integrated approach to online marketing. Simon tells us what strategy is and how to apply it to affiliate marketing, from thinking of ideas to actual execution. Having a clear goal of what you want to achieve and the means by how to achieve them will pay off later and give you better use of your time and more positive results. Tune into this last clip as Simon explains what strategy is and how you can implement it in your program successfully.
SPEAKER_01I think depending on strategy can be a bit of a dirty word. I I think people often think of strategy as if somebody who's doing strategy is sitting around producing lots of PowerPoints that never really mean anything or go anywhere. And and I've been in those organizations, by the way. I I have been in a company where there is an entire strategy department of about 25 people. They spent the entire year producing PowerPoint presentations and presented them to people and nothing came out of any of it. So nice job if you can get it. But I find that most people and most businesses are on a scale of strategy at one end and execution at the other, right? And some are very heavily focused on the thinking and the talking and the powerpoints and not really getting a lot done. And others are at the other end of lots and lots of running around and doing stuff but without really thinking about what you're doing, which causes a lot of frustration, a lot of wasted money, a lot of wasted effort. And of course, as with most things in life, the sweet spot is in the middle where you know you need to go out there, you need to have a strategy, you need to say, What where are we actually trying to go here? What is it we're actually trying to achieve? And how is that different to the other people out there that are doing the same thing? Because I guarantee you there'll be other people doing the same thing. In fact, talking to a member of my team yesterday who went to a web summit in Portugal a couple of weeks ago, and she said there were there was a business there that was talking about how they were game, they were changing the world with AI, and there's a very specific proposition around what they were doing with AI. And the next four booths were also saying they were unique and changing the world with AI. So all of them thought they were doing something completely unique and wonderful, and they hadn't actually stopped to look at the market and say, actually, we're not unique, right? So we need to find a position that that makes us different. There will be other people in the market doing that, and you need to say, so what are we authentically doing? What are we doing to change the world? What are what's our our goal over the next five, 10 years? What's our vision? And how is that different? And how are we going to specifically deliver on that? So taking it from that, this is where we want to be, actually moving it along that line to and this is how we're actually going to deliver it. So it's ultimately what you end up delivering is feeding into your strategy rather than just running around doing a load of stuff. Because it not only does that waste money and time, but also in my experience, it really frustrates people as well. If you're working in a company and your boss is saying, hey, do this, and then the next month they're saying, I'll change my mind now, do that, and I'll cancel that over there and do this. You don't know whether you're coming or going. You get really frustrated. You get very high staff turnover from that situation as well, which is just not great. It's not good for anybody. So having a strategy is really important to have some way you're heading towards. I always start with every business I work with and with my agency, SQ work with a lot of companies, different, all sorts of different stages, from your massive global corporations to quite young startups who are just saying, look, we we don't know where to go next, right? We've got to a certain level, which might just be we've got some funding, or it might be we've had this fantastic growth, but it's dried up or something along those lines, or we want to move into a new market, we don't know how to position ourselves there. And we always start with, okay, so what is that goal? And often it'll be okay, we want to grow, but what does that really mean, right? You've got to break it down to the specifics of what do you mean by grow, right? Do you want to do you want to double in size over the next five years? Do you want to grow and own the US market? But actually, you don't care about the other markets? And if not, why not? Let's understand whether that's right. And that might be right, that's fine. You might be absolutely right to be focused entirely in your territory, your product is highly relevant to your audience there, or they're just going to understand it better or be better placed to buy it from you than someone in another country. So absolutely, you know, push that market as hard as you can first. But it's important really to interrogate that question very hard at the beginning of what is it we're actually trying to do here over the next few years and how is that different to anyone else?
SPEAKER_03And that's a wrap for season 14, as we've given you the highlights and unwrapped it for your pleasure. I really hope that you enjoy listening to our guests and most of all that you have learned one or two new things in this ever-changing industry. In this holiday period, take the time to wind down, sit back and really reflect on what you will want to achieve for the coming year. Let's get strategic on where and how you'll be focusing your effort to grow your partnerships in 2024. There is no doubt that this next year will challenge and excite us all. But remember to invest in yourself and your well-being, because without taking time to recharge your own energy, you can't be a great partner marketer that supports affiliates or clients either. Don't forget to tune into my 2024 predictions episode on the 4th of January, and then sit tight as we get ready to release season 15 of the affiliate marketing podcast, which has graciously been sponsored and brought to you by Alpha Affiliates, who are bringing you an exciting lineup of topics to learn from, including how to leverage the latest SEO tactics, looking into industry compliance, understanding how design works and how that can convert more customers for your business, regulatory updates on how to grow your program successfully in a global marketplace, and loads more. Thank you for your support and the massive shout out to all our AMPA students alumni who passed through our 12-week affiliate manager performance program training this year. I'm very much looking forward to seeing you all at various networking events and seeing how you shine bright in this industry and take the knowledge that you've learned forward. Seasons, greetings, and happy new year, one and all. The Affiliate Manager Performance Program is designed for ambitious affiliate program managers working at brands, agencies, or networks who want to scale their affiliate program and improve their partner performance. We've trained hundreds of affiliate managers from companies like Microsoft, Omnisend, AstroPay, IQ Option, Pokestars, Betson, Oxylabs, ConvertKit, and more. We help them build consistent sales and trusted partnerships. Dedicate just one hour per week over a 12-week period. This affiliate management performance program is unlike any other. Learn proven tactics, tried and tested strategies, and access decades of experience with industry veterans who have launched, scaled, and grown multi-million dollar affiliate programs around the world. Go to affiversemedia.com, hit the training menu, and put your seat on AP for 2024.
SPEAKER_06That's a wrap for this week's affiliate marketing podcast. If you're loving what we're putting down, why not head over to Apple iTunes and give us a five-star review? Make sure to subscribe to our podcast and our YouTube channel so you never miss another insightful episode or one of our free webinars ever again. Tune in next week for more digital affiliate marketing insights, trends, tips, and content to keep your affiliate and performance marketing fresh and your partners driving consistent sales.