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SPEAKER_02Hi, and welcome back to Affiliate Insiders Affiliate Marketing Podcast with me, Leanne Johnston. And today I'm thrilled and excited to bring you my guest, Martin Slack, who works at More Niche and who is going to talk to us a little bit about the other side of the fence in terms of helping people to become affiliates and also how that trend is moving around the globe. Hi, Martin. How are you?
SPEAKER_01Hello, yeah, I'm great. Nice to be here. Thank you for inviting me on.
SPEAKER_02It's a pleasure to have you here today. So to get started on the podcast, tell us a little bit about your background and your history and how you rolled up into affiliate marketing.
SPEAKER_01Well, I started affiliate marketing probably around about 2006, 2007. We started basically at the time I was working for my brother, who he part-owned a supplement company selling food supplements and weight loss pills, those kind of things. And I basically worked in the call center in the evenings, spent a lot of time. He basically developed this in-house affiliate program for these supplements. Told me about affiliate marketing. I started learning about, spent about three years doing affiliate marketing in my free time, and then eventually joining More Niche as an affiliate manager. And then, yeah, been there since 2010 whilst still doing my own affiliate stuff and still learning as much as I can and sharing as much as I can.
SPEAKER_02Now, the supplement industry alongside the gaming industry are two of the most kind of uh cutthroat, I would say, industries to work in affiliate marketing. I mean, the competition in these two spaces is fierce. So talk to us a little bit about how affiliate marketing has evolved in this industry before we get into the nuts and bolts of some of the things that I want to talk to you about today.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I mean it is competitive, it is fierce with the legal side of things, uh, different restrictions, things like that. But it's still massively competitive. It's still one of those evergreen niches that you need to want to get involved in. We stay, we try and stay ahead of the curve, see what the next big supplement is, obviously offering the best high commissions that we can offer as well. And yeah, just working on improving brands and growing conversion rates.
SPEAKER_02So I wanted to talk a little bit about your side project, which is next to the kind of health and wellness supplement industry. You've set up a really interesting Facebook group, which we wanted to talk about today, or you've taken over the management of this Facebook group, and it's called affiliate ninjas. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that there were about 33,000 people joined to this. And this is a phenomenon that I've been looking at in terms of the theme of our podcast this season, which is affiliate marketing around the globe. And so I wanted to just start our conversation around how did this Facebook group grow? When was it started? And what are you seeing in terms of trends of people kind of joining the group to learn more about affiliate marketing?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I took over AM Ninjas in around about January, February time from Warren Wheeler, who initially formed it and did an incredible job at growing that. I think it's about four or five years old. And it literally grew. I've been a member there for about three years, and it's literally grown from very small numbers to huge, and it's just exploded. And I think a lot of the reason behind that is because there's you know there's no real sales there. It's not been produced to actually sell anything. It's not selling a course, it's not selling anything, it's just purely there to actually help share knowledge and encourage people to join and share knowledge as well. And I think that's obviously what's helped it massively and grow in a short space of time. A lot of the members, all the moderators, they they don't get paid. It's all because they love affiliate marketing and sharing that knowledge and learning as well. And yeah, so it's just really grown from there. And I think that as probably six, seven years ago, affiliate marketing more of a shady business from the outside. And I think more like over the past five or so years, it's becoming more of a more mainstream, more people are getting into it. So therefore, there's more people wanting to learn. And obviously, there's certainly Facebook continues to grow. So more and more people using groups and whatnot.
SPEAKER_02And I think the other thing to think about for affiliate managers that might be listening to podcasts today is the fact that everybody is a publisher. If you can use a social media channel, chances are you can learn how to harness the power of affiliate marketing within your community or to your your following, your social following. It doesn't surprise me that I see huge Facebook groups like this popping up where people are wanting to learn how to actually become affiliates. And I wanted to bring you on today to talk about it because we generally speak from the like sort of affiliate manager's perspective in terms of how to manage affiliates effectively. But I really wanted to bring somebody on the podcast who can talk from the other side of the coin. And this is why it was so interesting to connect with you. So, in this group that has established itself over the last kind of five, six years, what kinds of people are joining this group? Can you talk a little bit about some of your members and like the what channels are they looking to enter into as an affiliate and start learning how to affiliate with brands?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. So it's quite an interesting group because it is so widespread on nationalities. And we've got 50% of the group is from the United States. Next is India, Bangladesh, the UK. So it's it's a big it's people from around the world. And yeah, they generally join in. I think kind of the stuff that they're doing is the a lot of them are the SEO type affiliates. So obviously creating content, um, creating niche sites through Amazon, things like that. And then obviously, we are getting more and more different types of affiliates, paid affiliates. We have a few social influencers, but that's that's uh a completely different ball game altogether. So yeah, that's yeah, most of them tend to be SEO content-based affiliates.
SPEAKER_02And do they start with zero knowledge, or are you getting people that actually know how to build a website and then just want to finesse their skill set and learn from others in terms of what's working, what isn't? Or have you got a range of people that are joining this group?
SPEAKER_01I'd say it's probably 80% are new affiliates and 20% are established affiliates. So, yeah, there is a bulker amount of newer affiliates that are joining. And I think that's quite I can see that in the more niche side as well. So the same with people that join more niche is we get obviously a lot more newer affiliates that are joining with less knowledge, and whether that's because the entry level is low, we anyone can join really and and hopefully start learning and making sales.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And do they tend to veer towards any particular vertical when new affiliates are starting out? Because I think this is important for affiliate managers to understand is that when they're dealing with partners that are joining their program, they're not always going to be dealing with somebody who is already an expert at being an affiliate. They might have to handhold some of these guys. And and this is really the sort of conversation that I wanted to have with you is what are the sort of key things that new affiliates need handholding with? And how how are you guys helping that journey along in terms of education, which you you touched on a little bit before?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think a lot of affiliates, a lot of them don't tend to have a necessary idea of what they want to promote. They will start, and I find a lot of affiliates get stuck at the whole picking a niche and actually knowing where they want to get started. It's obviously always push people to promote what you're interested in because you're going to find it a lot easier for your first website. It's almost like picking a product or an offer to promote is secondary once you actually have started your website and you know what you're actually promoting. My experience as an affiliate in joining a lot of other affiliate networks is that you don't tend to get that much help, you don't tend to get that much support. It's very much sign up here, here's your link, yeah, kind of thing. And I think that's something that a lot of affiliate networks are or programmers are actually missing out on because these affiliates, they're they're your sales force, they're your army of promoters. So you need to give them as much knowledge and as and help as possible, whether that is helping them build a website, giving them the training to actually be able to build a website, be able to do keyword research within more niche. We as affiliate managers, we actually do site audits, content audits, all of that stuff to try and grow their sales, because ultimately the more you give an affiliate to generate sales, the more the yeah, biggest belief, really, because you think we're still operating to that old 8020 rule that has existed for the past goodness knows how long, which I totally dispel.
SPEAKER_02I don't believe in that methodology of managing an affiliate program any longer because of the fact that such diverse partners coming into our programs. We can't just rely on the SEO PPC guys anymore. Everybody is a publisher. So, how do you dispel your time? And I think that whole onboarding process is something that you just hit the nail on the head. It's not up to the affiliate to go live, it's up to the affiliate manager to actually help that affiliate go live. And that whole education piece is often something that's completely forgotten in programs. And if you're an affiliate manager listening to this podcast right now, do you have an onboarding life cycle for your affiliates? If not, go and build it now, because you've just heard it from somebody who's got 20 odd years experience being an affiliate and also an affiliate manager. And you're saying the same thing that I've been saying. How long does it really take for affiliates to start that journey and then become active where they're actually earning revenue? What are the trends that you're seeing from the network that you're building around affiliate ninjas?
SPEAKER_01It's completely varies, obviously, on the level that they come in. If they've already got an established website traffic, they'll they're gonna generate sales hopefully the same day, same week. Obviously, if it's a a new affiliate that's just starting a website, then you know, if you could go back 10 years, you could make a sale within a couple of weeks, but particularly with the SEO side, but with Google the way it is, if someone's starting a fresh website, it's potentially gonna be three, six, eight months before they start making sales, unless they get an expired domain, then it obviously can be a lot quicker. That's the beauty of trying to find publishers from different promotional angles, because if you've got a share of SEO affiliates, it might take them three months to make a sale. If you then have a portion of paid affiliates, they may generate sales quicker. Social influencers, they make sales relatively straight away as well. So it's finding a nice balance of and then every single type of affiliate has their place. So social influencers, paid affiliates can bring fairly quick revenue. Your SEO content affiliates, the revenues take a little bit longer, but they help to build that brand awareness so that your actual brand builds more with the typically with the SEO affiliates.
SPEAKER_02And I'm glad you've touched on that point because actually I think a lot of affiliate managers, especially if they're new to the industry, they're not really looking at how they segment their portfolios to that customer funnel, that research, and then eventually down the funnel three to purchase. So understanding that every different type of affiliate is important in your program as well, is not just focusing on the guys that can bring the volume, but spreading that risk so that you've got that brand reach alongside the actual sales as well. So it can take anything between three and say nine months for an affiliate to get up and active and start sending sales. But what are some of the shortcuts that you can share here for listeners who might be wanting to take that plunge to become an affiliate? And if you are thinking about that, come and join this community because it's really great and engaging. But if you are creating a side hustle to get into affiliate marketing, what are the more easy and niches and areas that you would suggest to affiliates to go and try first?
SPEAKER_01You know, if you've got a bit of capital that you can actually invest, you've got a bit of funds that you can invest into it, then you could always buy a pre-established site that somebody is selling and then improve on that and get the sales going up higher.
SPEAKER_02Where do you recommend people go to have a look at that? Like sites like Flipper or are there other sites that are a little bit more reputable?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'll I would probably the more I'd say established is like Empire Flippers. That's definitely a good one. There's a couple of Facebook groups, I can't remember off the top of my head, but there's a couple of Facebook groups. I think one is websites for sale where you can actually buy them and you can buy a fairly starter site, which is making about 60, 70 dollars a month. You can buy one of those for about three, four thousand pounds, you know, make a few changes, a few adjustments, swap the Amazon affiliate products for property in-house products, and sales can go up because commissions are higher. So that's that's obviously one kind of shortcut. If it's the SEO side, then expired domains, they tend to work well because they've obviously got the previous authority when they used to be in that can be quicker. And I think as well as if someone's trying to get into it and they're just trying to get a quick start, is just knowing the industry that they're getting into. So knowing the products are, what the niche is, and actually, this is why I recommend people get into a hobby because realistically your website is gonna have 20, 30, 50 pieces of content before it's really starting to grow. So if you know as much about that industry as possible, it's gonna be a lot easier and more enjoyable.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So having an interest in the subject matter is definitely like an A-plus point that you need to be doing first. Trying to affiliate in something that you're not really that interested in is always gonna be a little bit more difficult. It's kind of like when they tell you to write a book, you've got to write about something that you love and that you're passionate in. Otherwise, it's just not gonna come across as being authentic. So I guess it depends on where your interests lie in terms of where you actually specialize. There's no real simple answer for, you know, like if you're a starter affiliate, go and start out in the supplement industry. Or if you're a mid-to-senior affiliate, get yourself into, I don't know, retail or something like that. But it's more or less where your interest lies because that's what's going to direct the content. So we've spoken about some of the shortcuts. We've given some good tips to people that are wanting to become affiliates, but what do you think are some of the top tips that you can give to people that want to take the plunge in terms of starting an affiliate program? So, like, what do you look out for? So I want you to flip yourself from the affiliate side to the affiliate management side. But working in the industries that you have been working in, which are incredibly competitive, like what are some of the tips that you can give to affiliate managers that are listening to this podcast today in terms of working effectively with their affiliates in multiple regions. As you said, you cover, you know, UK, US, and sort of the Asian markets, which are all very big emerging markets in the affiliate space. So, what are some of the top tips that you can give to people listening that might be operating in those regions?
SPEAKER_01I think one of the biggest tips is just to be as proactive as possible and literally give the affiliate as much as possible as well. So creatives, resources, banners, keyword lists, as much resource as possible to make their lives easier, the better. In more niche at the moment, I'm working on providing an actual content plan which has 50 keyword article titles, the keywords, the word count recommendations, the actual structure of the articles as well, and just to literally give as much as possible so that they can join up, get that, create the content, put it on, and just start working on the next one. And that's the main thing is just giving them as much as possible and to help them do their job better, which is going to give you the resource that you're looking for. And I'm a big believer that really to be an affiliate manager, you should be an affiliate as well, or have been, you know, because you kind of get that, you know, the pain points, you can help tackle those pain points if you've been through it yourself. So when I've managed affiliate managers in the past at more niche, I've always tried to get them to just even if it's just create a website, just to know the pain points that people go through and how to overcome them. Because that's going to help you give advice and training to your affiliates.
SPEAKER_02So, what is the biggest pain point that you feel affiliates face working with affiliate managers nowadays?
SPEAKER_01Give us one. I think it's probably the growth and knowing how to grow. Yeah, how to scale up because you can have affiliates at different levels, and they sometimes it's quite tricky to actually get them to scale to that next level, and they may not know necessarily how to do that.
SPEAKER_02And the pain points that come with scaling, because I think that's the other thing that affiliate managers forget is that an affiliate is also running a business, they're not just running a website, so they're managing people, they've got overheads, they've got things that they need to be thinking about in terms of like systems and processes, things that allow them to scale. So whilst the affiliate might have all the kind of wanting and desire in the world to send more traffic, they physically cannot because they're still trying to figure out how to actually run their business operations. So I find giving like having little entrepreneurial sessions as well with smaller to medium-sized affiliates can often help. The running of the site is one thing, and or the running of the channel where they're referring players or customers to is one thing, but the actual running of their business is another. And many affiliates, I think, just by looking in your group as well, they fall into this industry from very diverse backgrounds. So they bring a very diverse set of skill sets with them. And I think it's it's important that affiliate managers realize who they're dealing with. They're not dealing with necessarily an SEO expert or a PPC expert. They're dealing with somebody who happens to have a passion about a subject matter and can actually drive a community or an audience to actually follow what they're saying or they're providing some sort of value in that customer journey, but they're not necessarily always, you know, expert business people as well. So having that kind of mindset, I think, is incredibly important for affiliate managers. I wanted to kind of spend a little bit of time about myth busting because I'm I'm pretty sure that you can share some really cool things around myth busting in affiliate marketing around the world and dealing with all the people that you deal with in your community as well. So, what are some of the things that you've learned about managing affiliates and working in affiliate marketing over the years that you can share with our audience?
SPEAKER_01The most obvious myth that our bust is that affiliate marketing is dead.
SPEAKER_02Um absolutely 100% agree with you.
SPEAKER_01You hear that everywhere. You hear that dead SEO is dead. So that's obviously the biggest myth because it continues to grow and it changes, but it'll always be there. I I think that part of it looking at it more on an SEO side, because that's obviously my main area. One of the biggest things that that people say is that you build great content and people will come, and that's just simply not true. You can create an amazing website, but if you don't market it, if you don't do the building the back links to the SEO stuff, then no one's gonna come. So that's probably one of the biggest myths. And also just the easy to make money online because it's it takes a lot of time and a lot of work.
SPEAKER_02I think that I 100% agree with you. If I had a dollar for every time somebody says, Oh, I'm gonna launch an Afida program, make a thousand sales a month, I'm like, yeah, it doesn't work that way. And it's not that quick either. I think that's something else that brands tend to think, oh, they're just gonna integrate with the network and then turn the tap on and everything's gonna be hunky-dory, but it's not like that. And you you often find that people like us who've been in the industry for you know decades and have been around the block a few times, we're the only ones saying, listen, this takes time, it takes investment, it takes effort, it takes continuous elbow grease to actually make this work and be successful. It doesn't just magic overnight. So happy to hear that you're of the same elk as me. You're obviously the right kind of guest for this podcast. What are some of the other myths that you've dispelled over the decades that you've been working in affiliate marketing?
SPEAKER_01I'm trying to think of them now. To be honest, I don't pay much attention to myths and what people think. I just do it myself. And if it doesn't work, then I know it doesn't work. If it does, then I know it works.
SPEAKER_02That's very true as well, is that everybody is still learning everything about affiliate marketing because it's evolving all the time. And even though you've been in the industry a decade, two decades, whatever the case may be, even you, even we can't claim to be experts because tomorrow something new is going to happen. And I think that's what makes it a real challenge to work in this industry as well, from an affiliate's perspective, but also from an affiliate manager's perspective, because we're constantly having to learn on the fly and adapt to changes that happen, not just only in our vertical, but across multiple markets, because most businesses sell everywhere now. The internet is a big, wide place. So from things like localization and language and even cultural differences that we have to deal with as affiliate managers, it's incredibly time-consuming role and you're constantly always learning. So, no doubt this industry is becoming more complex. There's kind of networks, sub-affiliates, influencers, SaaS providers, like there's so many choices that you can make now when you enter into the world of affiliate marketing, either as a brand or as an affiliate. But if you're new and starting out on the affiliate journey on both sides, what are the top tips that you'd give to both sides having a broad view of the global landscape as you do?
SPEAKER_01Definitely it is continually changing and evolving. And there's always new things to learn, which is, I think, what makes it so exciting as well and enjoyable. My biggest tip with affiliate starting, you know, what angle to go would be just to pick one and not spread yourself so thin. A lot of the things that I see is that, um, and I've been so guilty of it myself in the past, um, and I still am, is creating more than one website and actually getting into lots of different. Verticals and actually just splitting your focus. If you've got three websites, you can only spend as much time on each one rather than just having the one building that up and getting that to grow into making more sales. And the same is said with marketing methods. So pick a marketing method, whether it's SEO and content, if it's influence and if it's YouTube videos, pick one marketing method, get that performing, get that working, and then start incorporating different methods. That's something I see a lot of people struggle with, is that they're just spreading themselves too thinly. And then on a brand side, the biggest tip, I might repeat myself slightly, but the biggest tip will be just to work with the affiliates and actually just help them grow and help them build and give them the respect that they deserve, whether they're completely new or they're a super affiliate, they've all got the potential to make lots of sales. And so I think it's just giving as much support as training to affiliates as you possibly can. And that's ultimately going to grow your business.
SPEAKER_02That's a really good point because you use the word support. And I think as affiliate managers, we think that our job is to manage our partners, but your job isn't actually to manage them, it's actually to support them, it's to support their growth so that your growth is kind of multiplied. And there's a different mindset to supporting a partner to grow and managing a partner to grow. And I think we need to be cognizant of the fact that we are there to facilitate, we're not there to direct. And sometimes I find, and I'm sure you find this with clients as well, clients want to hold that narrative a little bit too tightly, too stringently, and they don't actually let affiliates have the freedom to go and try the things that we're actually wanting them to try to go find new customers. Because as a brand, you've got certain limitations, you've got the compliance rules, you've got legal things, you've got brand guidelines. As a marketer working inside a brand, you're not as flexible as what an affiliate could be to be agile and change and go with the flow and find new like pockets or segments of customers that they can go target. So I also like to caution affiliate managers and say, you know, give your affiliates some space to breathe and let them actually do what they do best and see how it works out because you're testing everything all the time. That's how this industry works. So if you if you're not happy with the unknown, like maybe this isn't the right job for you because we deal with the unknown every day in every single deal that we negotiate or connect to our brands and audiences. So let's wrap up here now in terms of talking about the affiliate side of the coin. Where do you think the future of affiliate marketing is going? And what do you see in terms of new tech that's driving better data-driven decision-making processes for both affiliates on their side and also on the affiliate manager's side?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think the biggest future really of what needs to be done is again, is just building those better relationships and better partnerships with affiliate managers and affiliates. That's going to help tenfold. And again, just obviously offering more support and more training, doing, you know, site reviews, SEO audits, all of that stuff for your partners because that's going to help them, that's going to help them grow and develop. I think a lot of stuff, I mean, I've tried, I test a lot of tools out and a lot of technology. I think a lot more stuff is going AI, and the robots are taking over a lot more. I'm testing out software which creates content for you artificial by AI, and it's incredible what it actually does. And I think that opens up a lot of potential for affiliates that potentially English is not their first language, which then also opens up a new segment of potential affiliates that programs don't have if they can support other languages.
SPEAKER_02So some of those tools, if you don't, if you don't mind me asking too much sharing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sure. So the the one that I'm using at the moment and testing it is called jarvis.ai. It's really good. Definitely recommend that. And then using tools more on the SEO side, but using tools like Surfer SEO, where it actually goes through your content and compares it to those that are ranking and gives you recommendations on what to change to make it better. So using tools like that and definitely tools like Hrefs and SEM Rush. Yeah. A lot of programs that I've been in as an affiliate, I can tell that the affiliate manager doesn't have access to any of those tools. So they can't really give me any support I want. Exactly. So it's like having affiliate managers having that tool set that they can use to help affiliates is gonna it will help load.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I've come across some tools as well. Like one of them, I'm not even sure if it's still alive, but it's called Article Forge, where you can throw in a couple of keywords and it'll actually type up a really decent, you know, 350, 450-word blog that you can then just quickly edit off. It is amazing what is happening in the AI field in terms of our space, in terms of the tools that affiliates or affiliate managers can use. Totally agree in terms of that. But what about like how are we going to spend our budgets moving forward? Do you think that performance channel or affiliate channel is still going to be a really big percentage of brands focus going forward?
SPEAKER_01I think it definitely should be. I think if not, it should be actually increased and more people should put more money into affiliate marketing. But you could spend so much of your own budget promoting your own brand on paid or on TV or magazines and whatnot, or you can pay probably ultimately a smaller amount and have hundreds, if not thousands, of affiliates promoting your brand. Both have the place, obviously. But I definitely think that more folks, more budget could go into affiliate marketing and your affiliates and actually help them grow more because it is going to increase the profit margins. You know, it's going to increase revenue. One thing that I've come up against a lot in the past is that when you have a brand and you just release it and you're getting your affiliates, you know, affiliates are great, they bring in all these sales, but then a year down the line, then starting to think these affiliates are costing me and which percentage. So their mindset shifts, whereas it should always be these affiliates are bringing in my revenue, they're bringing in this business. I need to put a bubble around them and support them as much as possible and give them more budget and do incentives to actually get inspired to promote more, give away laptops, do these things to get them motivated and get them pushing brands more. I'd definitely recommend any program put as much budget behind affiliate marketing as possible.
SPEAKER_02And I think that's true, you know, for people like us who have seen the cycle of an affiliate program, the life cycle of an affiliate program from start to scale to plateau and then grow again. Unless you've seen that pattern happen in a program over time, it's very difficult to understand how to continuously manage that growth. But I think the key thing is that what people need to understand is that an affiliate program is a long, it's a long-term game plan for your business. It's not paid media, you spend your money, you get your eyeballs, the sale happens immediately. This is a long-term game plan to augment some of the other digital channels that you are working in. And often what I've experienced, at least in my career working across multiple programs is that over time, your affiliate program actually reduces your costs in other channels because your brand awareness becomes a lot bigger, a lot faster. And so direct and other paid channels, you can actually reduce as the program increases. So it's almost like you manage it on a scale. It's not always even. It's sometimes you spend more in the affiliate program and you spend less in direct. So just understanding that whole platform of where the affiliate program fits and what stage of the buyer journey you're busy trying to target with your partners is incredibly important. What's the one last tip that you can leave us with on this podcast? Because you've shared so many great nuggets of wisdom here, to build stronger partnerships with affiliates to reach more customers in the performance model.
SPEAKER_01I think it's a get to know the affiliates on an individual level, actually get to know who they are as people, who their family are, who the kids are, what they do for hobbies, and actually want to get to know them as well and actually build those relationships. I have affiliates that I've been working with for 10 years. I know them quite a bit. We go out for drinks and things like that and actually do affiliate meetups where you go and meet a selection of affiliates and just get to know them. You can't buy loyalty. And we've got a wide range of affiliates, and many of them are incredibly loyal because of that relationship that we're built up.
SPEAKER_02It's still very much an old school personal kind of way of doing business. You want to go shake hands with someone, go talk to them and find out who they are, like the person behind the screen. I think that's the one thing that I love about this industry is that we love networking and we love relationship building and we love going to events. Unfortunately, those have been curtailed for the last two years, but hopefully we're all getting back to them. And on the subject of events, what are some of the best ones that you've been to, just in case anybody's looking to go and network and hang out?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, SEO content. The best one I've been to is um Shang Mai SEO by um Matt Diggerty. Amazing, lots of training, lots of networking opportunities. That's that was brilliant. Even the affiliate summit in Vegas. I always struggle with some of these events because it's always business to be, there's a lot more business there than actual affiliates. And I think that's why I like Shang Mai because there's a lot of affiliates there. So you had a bit more communication that way. There's quite a few that I'd like to go to that I haven't been to yet, like Brighton SEO. I've not been there yet. Oh, you just missed that.
SPEAKER_02I went to affiliate habitat, it was really great.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Yeah, I keep seeing it every well, obviously it's not been there for a couple of years, but yeah, it's I think it's if you are an affiliate manager, is just going to these events, it's such a great opportunity to actually meet people and just develop your own skills and actually get to know more affiliates. And finding business is always an added bonus.
SPEAKER_02So, top tip of the day, be a continual learner, go network at events and keep meeting new people, and your program will grow.
SPEAKER_01You can never stop learning, never stop growing.
SPEAKER_02And if you're listening to this podcast, go and join affiliate ninjas on Facebook. You're gonna meet some interesting people in there. I've been hanging out or lurking out there for a couple of weeks now, and it's really interesting. Chatters. So I just want to thank you for your time, Martin, for coming on this podcast today and sharing lots of insights from both the affiliate and the affiliate management side. It's been great to have you and looking forward to meeting you at some of the local events.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been really good.
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