Hi, and welcome to the affiliated product classes with media and 2020. This is the product classes for digital and affiliate markets and the eye gaming industry. Let's like blow the latest digital and affiliate marketing trend and give you the inside of the group on what the coding and affiliate marketing. So I left out we need to blow affiliate strategies host expert interviews with the leading affiliate and tech market and the test the latest affiliate and digital marketing trend.
SPEAKER_00If you wanted to delete the cutting edge of affiliate marketing, go in the right place.com and click on affiliate to find out more.
SPEAKER_03Welcome to Affiliate Insiders Affiliate Marketing Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston. And today I'm super excited because we are joined by Kevin Edwards, the Global Strategy Director of AWIN, which is possibly one of the biggest and most well-known affiliate networks here in the UK. So for those of you who don't know anything about AWIN and what a global strategy director is, I'm going to hand you over to Kevin Edwards to say hello and to tell us a little bit about his business.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so um hi Leanne, thank you for having me along today. So yeah, as you mentioned, AWIN's leading affiliate network. We have a global presence in roughly, I think it's about 12 different markets now on four continents, which gives us a sort of a really useful overview of what's happening across different markets within the affiliate channel because they are obviously all at different stages of maturity, different issues crop up, even though consistently there are the same issues that come up. Awyn's kind of what I would call a mainstream affiliate network. We work across travel, retail, finance, telco, and about half of the top hundred brands in the UK. So, you know, we're we are sort of quite involved with sort of the mainstream brands and what they're trying to do from an affiliate perspective. So just to give you kind of a little bit of a an overview of what my work entails, I kind of get to do a bit of everything. It's sort of a suitably vague title. I'm quite lucky in that sense, in that I get to work across lots of interesting projects, but I'm kind of helping define our content strategy, our company positioning. I get to work on quite a few industry collaboration projects as well, which is quite interesting. So I get to liaise with other competitor networks, so we talk about the sort of current issues, what the challenges are, whether there are any regulatory work that needs to be needs to happen. Um so so yeah, so I I get to sort of wear many hats really in it, and and it's it's quite an enjoyable role.
SPEAKER_03And that's quite quite interesting because a lot of the people listening to this podcast are starting their careers in affiliate marketing, and often I get asked, you know, where does my career progress from affiliate account executive onwards? And these are these are some of the people that they need to hear from uh in bigger organizations and the roles that they can one day maybe take on. So today we're going to be talking about some of that strategic stuff that you do in terms of what's changed and what's coming up ahead in affiliate marketing, especially delving into the rise of brand-to-brand partnerships, which is a new hot topic that everybody seems to be talking about, um, and how that should form part of your affiliate marketing strategy. Um, now I know that you guys have done um a really great report that gets released every year, and I do read it every year, and it's quite in-depth, um, even though it's not specifically around the gaming industry, but there's a lot of insight that comes out of that report, and I really wanted to start our podcast today just jumping into some of the questions around some of the learnings and the brand-to-brand partnership rise, if you want to call it that, um, and just talk to our audience a little bit about what you guys are seeing with this global view that you have.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so yeah, thank thank you for the plug. So the the Avon Reports in its its fifth iteration, uh, we we try and publish it every year. Um, and what we try and do is sort of encapsulate um the themes that we're seeing as a network, but also kind of more broader macro trends that we're seeing and how that's impacting and how the affiliate industry is impacting them, and vice versa. So every year we kind of sit down and try and understand, we look at what's happening from our perspective, but we try and understand sort of how we can focus in on a couple of key themes. And and obviously the pandemic was a really significant thing for 2020 for anybody working in digital marketing, uh, be it positive or negatively. Um so inevitably it was going to sort of focus in on that. We wanted to obviously try and avoid some of some of the cliches around it, I'll try and avoid some of them today. Um but really we what we did is is is we came up with two key themes which we felt really signified how affiliate marketing performed last year, which was and and continues to perform at the moment, which is um the themes of resilience and reinvention. So I I'll probably sort of come on to talk about some of the more reinvention stuff in terms of sort of some of the trending things, but just in terms of sort of focusing in on the resilience part. So actually, I don't know, don't know whether you've seen we're uh we're recording it in April, and the IAB have have released data for their ad spend survey, which which they release every year. Yes, and as part of that, they break down all of the different constituent parts, the different channels. And actually the affiliate channel grew 10% last year. Phenomenal. I mean, that's it.
SPEAKER_03Phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean it's it's incredible really when you consider that so many brands pulled their campaigns, certainly brand campaigns and ads, but so and there is obviously associated cuts elsewhere as associated with with those brand campaigns, but actually the digital industries as a whole shrank nine percent. Wow so for affiliate to grow 10%, which incidentally was the exact same percentage growth as the big five, so you know, Facebook, Google, etc.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So for us to be able to say we're growing as much as those huge big tech giants, I think is a really, really important statement.
SPEAKER_03Now it's also important though, because it just shows how much trust the affiliate channel is now having with brands. Whereas previously there was always a mistrust of affiliates, you know, that and especially in the gaming industry, we still struggle with that today. There's a misconception about what an affiliate is and what an affiliate does. So to hear figures like this on this podcast, it really is um, you know, just another sign that this channel isn't going away. You know, it's it's expanding, it's growing, it's developing, it's diversifying. And this is why I wanted to get you on the podcast because you guys are at the pulse of this and you can share what trends are happening.
SPEAKER_02So it's so what what one of the one of the reasons I think so I think that we have like this reasonably narrow window now to try and consolidate that and build upon upon that success, you know, really take take take advantage of that momentum. But one of the things that I think proved to brands last year and why that growth sort of happened was because I think the brands wanted like a sanity check. They wanted numbers in, they wanted sort of sales through through the door, the online door, as obviously their shops were closed. Um and they wanted that that kind of money in the bank. And and really, because affiliate is at the sharp end, you know, it's it's it's the the nuts and bolts, it's it's the sales through the door. I think that they really focused in on that and thought, you know, I I need the sanity check of the numbers. Like I can't really afford to invest in my budgets in things that don't necessarily have an ROI associated with them. So that that's really why I think that that we're able to post such impressive numbers. Um now you could say, well, inevitably that was going to happen with the affiliate channel, but I think when we looked at some of the other data, um, we saw things like new customer numbers. So again, affiliates are always challenged on that incremental piece, which I'm kind of I always sort of roll my eyes slightly because the the the idea is that if you're not driving incremental sales, i.e. sales that are um qualified, that you don't add any value. And as we know, affiliates add value across the whole purchase, throughout the entire journey, absolutely. Um but we were able to say, well, actually, we've seen new customer numbers increase by 35%. We saw we saw last year in in April. April was our kind of big new customer number month, and I think that was because a lot of people, if they wanted to buy anything that was non-essential, had to obviously shop online, and so we were seeing a huge influx in first-time online shoppers as well. So the affiliate channels did a really good job of being able to capture those those customers as well. Um obviously it wasn't universal. We saw some travel programs, some travel programs actually be suspended, but um because the people we were doing was bit had been furloughed. Um we saw other travel campaigns that continued dropping by 90-95%. But conversely, we saw sectors like DIY and gardening. They basically they hit their 2019 numbers in June for the whole year. So they they doubled their revenue. So it was kind of a little bit feast or famine. And really, one of the big logistical challenges for some brands was we just can't fulfil the orders. So actually, we had to suspend a few campaigns temporarily just because they could not cope with the influx of customers. So it was sort of really disruptive but really interesting year. Um, I don't know if you if you saw that there was a stat from the US that said that uh, which has been doing the rounds, which said that US e-commerce grew in six weeks. The previous decade of e-commerce growth was achieved in six weeks in 2020. And I think that what has happened as a result of that is brands are now thinking instead of doing things in two or over a two or three year period, actually let's see if we can do it in six months instead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's where I think it's really exciting for us. Let's take let's take that momentum and let's like really try and try and grow the industry. And that's where I think some of the reinvention stuff, which hopefully we'll come and talk talk about, has has come into play.
SPEAKER_03So let's talk a little bit about that because you did touch on the fact that, and I'm gonna jump around a little bit in in the podcast just to be relevant, but you spoke about some travel brands literally like having to suspend the program. But then there was another travel, uh, I think it was a travel company that you spoke to me about that actually did something quite ingenious with the brand-to-brand stuff that they've been doing. And I think the message here for for the people that are listening to this particular podcast is that affiliates are not just people with websites, like an affiliate is a term that can be loosely used for B2B partnerships, influencers, website owners, app developers, like the the spectrum of people that you work with in your affiliate program is so diverse now that um if you discount any of these channels, you're actually doing yourself a disservice in terms of growing your portfolio. So maybe can you talk through that um case study that you guys had um where you saw the growth where B2B partnerships came in?
SPEAKER_02Sure. So it wasn't actually a travel grant, but it was a restaurant brand. So it was it was restaurants, so effectively you're in the same boat where overnight, overnight you've gone from having from being able to do all of this fulfillment to not being able to do any of it. It's actually taste card, which that's it, that's it. For um for for for uh people in the UK they'll be familiar, it's it's a card that gives you 50%, very often 50% discount in restaurants. And um you pay an annual subscription fee for this card, and obviously their business model is premised on, as I say, restaurants being opened and that disappeared. So what they what they did instead was they knew that they probably wouldn't be able to acquire a load of new customers um whilst restaurants closed. But what they needed to do was ensure that their cut that their customers didn't churn.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02They were able to retain them. So what they decided to do was kind of build out like a customer loyalty portal, um, which is also something we've seen other brands do as well, especially in the fintech space. So companies like Revolute, you know, these kind of new online uh banks that are really disrupting the finance market.
SPEAKER_03Well, even if they're also I mean, we've seen loads coming in from Klana as well. They they are actually traffic drivers because of their customer base, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and and what they want the what they want people to do is is to continue being customers, so they want to give them value ads. And so what Taste Card did is they said, well, let's build out a customer loyalty platform of non-competing brands.
SPEAKER_03So fantastic idea.
SPEAKER_02Let's go out and speak to um a travel brand about getting an exclusive, or um uh a telco brand about getting exclusive on a handset. And then it's sort of you have that natural brand affinity, but you also then are able to um kind of build out that uh you're able to build out a really new interesting um customer model that isn't, as I say, isn't necessarily about the revenue that you drive from that, but it's about obtaining customers. Um so I think what this requires is this requires like a mindset change, as you say. You know, people have to can't think about affiliates as just being this linear one type of activity. And and something I've always said is that affiliate marketing is defined by the commercial model, not the actual activity that it's related to. So um, but but there were there were lots of other things that we saw happen last year as well. And and as you say, you know, um last year was very disruptive, and I think that the the affiliate mix that we now see is probably the most diverse that I've ever seen. And and there were there were a couple of other things driving that change last year as well. So the B2B thing is definitely something that that we're seeing. And instantly the the the bus the brand to brand stuff isn't isn't new. I remember setting up a deal with Travelodge um 10 years ago where Ticketmaster approached them and said, you know, we sell tickets for uh concerts that people travel to in our confirmation email. Can we have an offer to maybe get them to encourage them to stay at one of your hotels close by? So, and that's again that was sort of a really nice sort of symbiotic way of those two non-competing brands connecting.
SPEAKER_03Kind of similar to what train line used to do, because I used to book a lot of train tickets to get to London and um they'd hit me up with hotel offers for wherever whatever station I was going into. Um and I think it's just such a good idea, and and brands, especially retail brands, they can, you know, if you've got clothing you can and an accessory brand, they can partner up and actually, you know, earn revenue from that as well and increase their basket value almost because they're sharing customer bases that are buying similar, you know, products from all over the place.
SPEAKER_02Sure. And I think that um some of these brands as well, as you like you you say that they they can generate revenue, but as I say, some of them aren't necessarily interested in in the revenue piece, they're just interested in the value add for their customers. So um, so again, that requires us to think differently about what a publisher or an affiliate can do. Um, but a couple of other areas I just just wanted to briefly touch on in terms of other growth affiliate types that that we've seen over the last like 12 to 18 months is um we've really seen those kind of traditional publishing houses really embrace affiliate marketing. So future conde Nast. Um typically they've sort of dipped their toes with affiliate, maybe focusing in on just promoting Amazon and using third parties like Skimlinks, who do this sort of effectively as a plug-in and it will just monetize your links. Whereas I think that there's been a diverse diversification. I think those businesses now have started to restructure their e-commerce and their commercial teams internally to align them a lot more with their editorial teams, and we're seeing huge growth coming through those those types of publishers, which is quite encouraging because again, they're they're nice brands that you can talk to brands about, you know, talk talk to advertisers about. So that's one area of growth. And another really interesting uh way of thinking about affiliates is through new technology companies that are coming through.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02So they aren't necessarily affiliates in that they have their own customer bases, but they have technology solutions that they can give to either affiliates or to advertisers that help them optimize the sales journey. So a really great example is a business called Increasingly. And what they effectively do is they do you, you know, you must have seen it, you go onto Amazon, and Amazon will make product recommendations based around your previous browser. And they effectively do the same thing and they do cross-sell and upsell. So what they've been able to successfully do, uh, and they do it on a cost per acquisition model, so so the you know the it attracts all through the affiliate program, but what they're effectively able to do is is is to drive the basket up, the average basket value for advertisers that they partner with, which you know again is is is a is a win-win for the advertiser because the commission is tied to the uh basket value, so but they're but they're tracking more, they're they're selling more. So um that technology angle is a really interesting one as well, and that's something that we're investing in in terms of having a dedicated team now that look after those those technology partners that that we can integrate with our master tag tracking solution.
SPEAKER_03I mean, one of the other things that I've been looking at quite seriously is um, you know, native advertising's been around for a long time, but I think the numbers show that it is way more effective. And and you touched on this a little bit earlier when you spoke about brand affinity, and um I kind of wrote that down while you were busy speaking because I think a lot of brands, especially now with the result of COVID, they have never really invested in brand affinity, which makes a huge impact to customer conversion and affiliates that are picking up on that, and and I've seen this in in our industry in the gaming space, they're building brand affinity around their brand, and their brand then becomes stronger than the operator that they're actually promoting.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is something that um I've I've been really fascinated about because you affect, as you say, you effectively have affiliate brands. Yes. And when I when I started, you did not have affiliate brands. When you spoke to an advertiser, they had no idea who any of these businesses were. And and to to be fair, we you know at the early stages of the industry, there it was there was a complete lack of transparency about where sales were coming from, who was driving them, uh, what the traffic sources were like, and you kind of had to rely on the affiliate telling you the truth as opposed to knowing where to go and look for their content. Yeah. Whereas what you have now, you only have to think about some of the largest cashback sites that are out there. You have top cashback, which is the largest, probably the largest, certainly from our perspective, it's the largest affiliate on our network in the UK, and they do above-the-line advertising. You know, you you can switch on the television and see their ads.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02And they have, I'm not sure how many members they have now, but they have millions and millions of members, and and what brands have to kind of realize now is that, as you say, they probably have a more engaged and larger database than they do. So the idea that um the I think what what's been really interesting is like a recalibration of the relationship. The idea that if you would see it on scales, then the advertiser would be the heavyweight, and then you'd have all of these small, lightweight like affiliates. And actually, I think like those scales have really calibrated because actually they do now are they should now be seen as like true affinity partners.
SPEAKER_03And and I love that that phrase, affinity partners, because in our industry as well, um we are seeing some of the big streamers actually go to games publishers direct and get content before an operator does. Um and that's never been heard of before because their brand is has so much clout in the community and so much engagement in the community, they're actually opening themselves up to get content quicker than what an operator actually would. Um so I think I think 100%, you know, we're seeing the whole affiliate industry change. COVID maybe expedited that a little bit, you know, because people had to pivot, they had to change the way that they were thinking about their acquisition strategy and the engagement strategy with customers. But let's talk a little bit more about that reinvention piece that you mentioned earlier. And I want to talk specifically in terms of the diversity in tech, moving from last kick, the curculus tracking model, um, and supporting that purchase path that customers are having to take. I mean, how is Ava? In combating these changes, and what recommendations are you giving to brands right now to look at this?
SPEAKER_02So the last the last click conversation's obviously been around for years and years. Donkeys years, yeah. And I'm still broadly supportive of LastClick. I think that if there was an ideal payment alternative, we'd all be doing it right. Um that said it is obviously flawed. Um, you know, any any any metric is is flawed because it invariably has a I think a bias, bias within it. Um but I think we also need to recognise as well that you know the affiliate industry is what best part of 30 years old, and it's and it's been built up around last click, and you can't therefore come in and say, right, we're gonna do something different, which effectively pulls the rug underneath from underneath the industry. Yeah. Um personally, I don't think the issue is last click. I think the issue is a lack of understanding of the value that affiliates drive. Correct, correct. So, and I think that we need to recognise as an industry that we have done a we've done a poor might be it's too strong a word, but we haven't done a good enough job of connecting all of the data points together. And by that, what I mean is we haven't done a good enough job of if you were to kind of see it, if you kind of were to see a customer in terms of their life cycle, yes, we we we've done a poor job at stitching the different data points across that life cycle together. So, you know, then being having an initial interest in a product, then going through to buy it, and then what their post-purchase behaviour looks like. Yeah. And I think if you can stitch all those pieces together and then say break it down by your affiliates and say that affiliate drives me this type of customer, and that's the quality I get, that's the lifetime value I get for my customer, then that for me should be the decider of the value you that you apportion to them and and what you're what you're paying them. And it might be that, and it is going to be that some of those affiliates are very poor at converting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And by poor at converting, what I mean is they don't work well with the last clip model.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And if that's the case, then look for alternative ways to pay them. Um, you know, pay them CPC, pay them a tenancy payment. You know, a lot of brands now, because they will be managing big, big, um, big budgets across a whole variety of different activity, a lot of them can work to kind of like a blended CPA. Absolutely. There will be some that is more cost effective than other. And use the stuff that's really cost effective to reinvest in some of the stuff that is poor poor converting, but adds value earlier in the sales funnel. So um, but that all of that stuff um is kind of makes sense, but it's it's time consuming to do right. It it's sort of it's the stuff that you really need to have people in the weeds and in the data. And I think that's one of the reasons why behind our uh acquisition of um uh an attribution solution, which you know, attribution again, there's lots of solutions that are out there have been for years, but the one that we acquired was actually built by an affiliate management company, and so one thing that attribution solutions typically fail to do is drill down on a para affiliate level. So they're just saying this is what the affiliate channel does, this is what the paid search does, and that completely misses misses the the nuance of the affiliate channel. So one of the things that Singleview, which is the business that we acquired, enables us to do is really drill that down on a paraffiliate para affiliate level. So that that sort of has been been kind of a really important acquisition and important kind of development for us as a business.
SPEAKER_03Well, if it if it makes you feel any better, um attribution modelling is way ahead of what we have in in the iGaming space. I mean, we're not even looking at that yet, but some companies are, but um, it actually boils down to strategy, it boils down to making sure that the people that are managing your budget are actually strategic marketers, because in my view, affiliate management is you know 60% relationships, 40%, you know, the kind of admin and the data and everything else, but there needs to be another 10% added in. So you're actually 110% affiliate manager with the strategic alignment to the rest of your marketing strategy, because I still see companies managing the affiliate channel in a silo away from all of their other digital activity. And actually, an affiliate manager's job is very similar to a fund manager's job because they have a budget and they need to distribute that budget in the best possible way to get the best ROI. So, you know, education is a big part of what we do at Affiliate Insider to help affiliate managers understand that whole journey.
SPEAKER_02So I I I kind of have a bit of a theory about why why that's happened. And I think people typically think, oh, it's because the affiliate channel is seen to kind of like as a bit of the poor relation, and I think that is a consequence, but I don't actually necessarily think that that's why it's happened. I I think it's because um uh affiliate programs have typically been managed directly by brands without agencies being involved. And I think because agencies manage such a big sway the digital marketing budgets, that because it sits outside it, or because it's been seen as a fairly manual channel, which means that agencies want efficiencies, so that they'll they'll go for the low-hanging fruit rather than stuff that might be more time-consuming or resource heavy. So they'll think, oh well, I'll let the networks manage that, which means that sometimes there is a perception that we sit outside of that and therefore we're further down the pecking order. Um I think that it's beholden on um brands to invest properly within the affiliate channel. And by that, what I mean is give it a place at the top table and don't just give it to the your most junior member of your team. That's not a criticism of the people that we deal with, but it's a fact of life. It's a fact. Um, and that that for me is something that we need to address.
SPEAKER_03In my industry, it's exactly the same. I mean, we see the affiliate account managers and executives as foot soldiers. And if your foot soldier has the wrong story and is broadcasting that to the masses, there's an inherent problem in that. So training your team, you know, whether you use an agency, whether you build in-house, and in-house is the norm in in across the iGaming space, with networks being second. And I actually did want to touch on that quickly before we we kind of round out our um podcast. In your opinion, and and you've got years and years and years of experience in affiliate marketing, like why would you recommend a client use a network? Like, what are the key opportunities and benefits that a network brings to a client's affiliate program strategy?
SPEAKER_02I mean, look, every advertiser is different, every advertiser and every advertiser will will have their own um approach to how they they manage a client. What works for one doesn't necessarily work for another. I think that where there has been a bit of misconception about networks is that they offer account managed services, and if you don't want those account managed services, then it's not right for you. I think that if I take our own platform as an example, yes, we offer account-managed services, but our platform was always built as a self-served platform, yeah, which you could effectively never speak to us and hopefully start. And still run your program. Yeah and still run it. And you know, the vast majority of our programs are run like that. In fact, we launched a um a micro SME product last year that is that is based around the client never needing to contact us. Now we have to do other things to support them through like training programs and tutor online tutorials and all that, the rest of it to make sure that they're making the most of everything and they have the information at their fingertips they need. But um I mean, really, it it kind of boils down to the level of support and um the expertise of the network, really. You know, I yeah, I mean, as you say, I I've I've always been kind of the outside looking into the gaming industry because it is quite strange how it has grown up completely, almost completely independently of network in a way that that no other sector really has. Um, and so therefore it's probably developed its own uh culture, its own practices, um, in a way that some of which will be familiar and other areas will be unfamiliar. Um but really it sort of it boils down to is there a gap that a network, you know, if if you've reached a stage of maturity and you think, how do I take it to the next level? There's obviously no harm in reaching out to a network saying, is there anything you can do to actually add 10% on or um you know reach out to partners that I don't necessarily have access to through through my current um solution.
SPEAKER_03Well, isn't I mean in my mind there's a number of reasons why clients should look at networks. I mean, uh we've worked with clients that are actually in your network. So I know the platform quite well, but um you know it's it's either quick route to market if you're starting out and you don't have a big team and internal resources, a network can help help you leverage your your launch a lot quicker. Um, or otherwise, as you said, if you want to get to a new market and you don't have the expertise in that market, a network can help you actually reach publishers that can get you traffic sources there. But also it's the tech. I mean, the tech that you guys have that plugs and powers your network is far superior to other platforms that I've seen. I mean, there are other, you know, platforms like Impact Radius, and I can list a whole number of them, but we're not going to name drop here on this podcast. But um, in terms of networks, you know, there's there's a handful that I that I would recommend to clients at in the gaming industry to look at from outside the gaming industry, and yours is one of them, hence why you're on this podcast. Um, but um yeah, it's been, you know, this has been such an interesting conversation. But the the last thing that I want to kind of ask of you before I let you slip away and get back to your day job is what you know, from your view of the affiliate industry, where and how do you see our marketplace changing? What should affiliate program managers, agencies, and brands be looking to do to safeguard their program profits and sustain good growth for their businesses as we face a new era, you know, post-COVID? What's your one nugget of advice that you can leave with our listeners today? Try and condense it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, as people can probably tell, I can talk about this stuff for ages. But um, one nugget, I I guess um, I mean, the fundamentals haven't really changed for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, in in that it, you know, you if you launch an affiliate program, you're interested in acquiring sales. Um, I I guess the I guess the the bit that I would say is, you know, as as a program matures, you go from looking at volume to value. So you're you're shifting the conversation from being one based around quantity to quality. Yeah. And what I would say to anybody is if you're at that stage, then you really need to identify what quality looks like and what type of customer that you're after. And you really need to be reaching out to speak to publishers to work out a way of being able to segment them in a way that enables you to um to deliver that value for them. Um I think that there are certain tracking areas that there are gaps within the market that also we need to be paying attention to. So in-app is one that we are really focusing in on. Um so brands launching e-commerce-enabled apps that historically haven't tracked, and that can easily add 20, 25% additional sales on. I think that there have been certain things that have happened in the past. I mean, it's it's less relevant for your industry, I guess, but potentially not. But the kind of in-store, the online to in-store piece, which kind of blazed a trail or kind of shone very brightly very quickly uh for a very short period of time, about seven, eight years ago, and then didn't really go anywhere. And I think we're now at a stage where um brands are potentially looking at that as well.
SPEAKER_03So that's very key in our industry for the US market, where step-by-step legislation is coming in. So if anybody here is listening to this podcast, I mean that's something that you should be looking at for sure and seeing how that transacts with your venue to your online um platform as and when your state legalizes. So I just wanted to drop that in there for I gave us.
SPEAKER_02But I I guess just very finally, um, I think that people within Orange have to remain curious, but also flexible as well. Um, and I think that you need to recognize that the channel is built on test and learn. And the beauty of the channel is that if something doesn't work, it's likely that it hasn't really cost you anything other than your time. So scratch that up to experience and look for the next thing, and sooner or later you will hit a rich seam of new affiliate sales. So challenge your network about that, challenge yourself. If you're a brand, become an evangelist for the affiliate channel within your own business because we need those strong vocal advocates internally to fly the affiliate flags.
SPEAKER_03So we need more talent, you know, start attracting new talent into this industry because, like, I'm I'm getting old now, you know, 25 years in the game. It's like I need to find new new people that are going to come in and love this channel as much as what as what we do. You know, we've spent our careers in it. So if anybody's listening and they're in digital marketing, they're looking for a new career, hit me up. I'll talk to you about you know the progression models and and you know the exciting career that you can actually have in this industry.
SPEAKER_02Tons of variety as well, tons of variety.
SPEAKER_03As as we all know. And today you heard about a global strategy director. So look at all the stuff Kevin gets involved in. Um, but Kevin, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on this podcast today. And thank you so much for sharing all this information. We're gonna drop a link down to the AWIN report so people can actually look at the insights and and um thought leadership that you're sharing. So thank you very much for being here with us today. It's been a great pleasure to have you.
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