1 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:10,700 Welcome to another edition of the Always Be Testing podcast with your 2 00:00:10,700 --> 00:00:15,400 host, Ty De Grange. Get a guided tour of the world of growth, performance 3 00:00:15,500 --> 00:00:20,000 marketing, customer acquisition, paid media, and affiliate marketing. 4 00:00:20,500 --> 00:00:25,400 We talk with industry experts and discuss experiments and their learnings in growth, 5 00:00:25,600 --> 00:00:30,600 marketing, and life. Time to nerd out, check your biases at the door, and 6 00:00:30,600 --> 00:00:35,000 have some fun talking about data driven growth and lessons learned. 7 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:41,000 Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Always Be Testing podcast. I'm your 8 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:44,500 host, Ty DeGrange, and with me today is Brooke Schaff. 9 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:51,000 We're hosted by capital factory here in Austin, Texas. And, they've been so gracious to give us 10 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:56,000 their green screen for the day. So it's gonna be fun. I'm excited to have Brook on 11 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:00,900 today. He has an amazing affiliate veteran background. Ready to 12 00:01:00,900 --> 00:01:05,700 dive in. He's got started off in Zappos. He 13 00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:10,500 got into building his own agency, which he built up in crew and sold to 14 00:01:10,500 --> 00:01:15,300 acquisition, which is amazing. And now he's building FMTC. It's pretty 15 00:01:15,300 --> 00:01:19,500 awesome. Thank you. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. 16 00:01:20,100 --> 00:01:24,500 Maybe give us a little bit more color on the background and, and, and kind of your, 17 00:01:24,800 --> 00:01:29,700 your story. For those of you, you don't know. I know a lot of the affiliate folks are very familiar with you, but 18 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:35,000 tell us a little bit more. Yeah. So I have been in affiliate management sorry. Affiliate marketing, I 19 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:39,800 should say, for pretty much my whole career. Right out of college, I I jumped into a young Zappos dot 20 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:44,800 com, worked in house at a couple of, other companies, one retail, 21 00:01:44,900 --> 00:01:49,800 one lead, stumbled into agency life. I had the agency 22 00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:54,700 for many years, sold it six years ago because I didn't want to have to compete with Ty 23 00:01:55,600 --> 00:02:00,600 after he got in. And then along the way, we started FMTC, which is a deal 24 00:02:00,600 --> 00:02:05,200 and product distribution platform in the affiliate space. We're a b to b company. So we power 25 00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:10,400 enterprise sites, enterprise affiliate sites in particular, coupon deal, rewards, some commerce content 26 00:02:10,400 --> 00:02:15,400 guys. And we've had FMDC since the, very end of two thousand seven. 27 00:02:15,600 --> 00:02:20,600 That's awesome. So we're full steam ahead to build the tools to help everybody make more money in 28 00:02:20,600 --> 00:02:25,300 the affiliate space. I love it. Servicing so many is pretty exciting, and 29 00:02:25,500 --> 00:02:30,200 there's not a lot of folks that are doing really what you do at FMTC. Is that right? There's a very 30 00:02:30,400 --> 00:02:35,400 there's a pretty small pool of I think you could call them tech vendors in the affiliate space, and fewer 31 00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:39,700 of them are independent. So you also had companies like Trackonomics 32 00:02:40,300 --> 00:02:44,900 and Affluent, which, of course, are both acquired by Impact dot com. Yep. You've got a lot of 33 00:02:44,900 --> 00:02:49,700 compliance guys. They're kind of you know, they float around the outskirts of the retail space where we play 34 00:02:49,700 --> 00:02:54,700 because they're mostly, with lead stuff. Yeah. And then you've got some other 35 00:02:54,700 --> 00:02:59,200 players like, the conversion optimization guys Mhmm. You know, Upsellit, 36 00:02:59,300 --> 00:03:04,100 Revlifter, Unikoto, Intently, and, they sort of 37 00:03:04,100 --> 00:03:08,900 operate more as kinda kinda like affiliates. Mhmm. And then some other players floating around 38 00:03:08,900 --> 00:03:13,500 like, Affiliate. They did they're sort of a competitor of Trackonomics, other reporting guys out 39 00:03:13,500 --> 00:03:18,400 there. But there's just really not that many. You know? It's it's probably numbered in the low dozens 40 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:23,300 as opposed to hundreds of thousands of affiliates, hundreds of agencies Yep. Dozens 41 00:03:23,300 --> 00:03:28,200 of networks. But the networks, of course, are much bigger companies. Getting closer to that zero to 42 00:03:28,200 --> 00:03:33,200 one strategy, which I think is a smart one. Good zero to one strategy? Good on you. Yeah. The the book 43 00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:37,800 by Peter Thiel, it's a good good one if you haven't read it. No. I haven't read it. What does he say? 44 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:42,700 Basically, it's, if you can kind of create a pseudo monopoly and have an 45 00:03:42,700 --> 00:03:47,700 innovation and be one of one or one of two, one of three, a 46 00:03:47,700 --> 00:03:52,300 lot better than being one of a hundred, a little bit more difficult inherently, regardless of 47 00:03:52,300 --> 00:03:57,300 how great you are at all the things. It's a kind of a cool lesson. Hard to pull 48 00:03:57,300 --> 00:04:02,300 off, but when if you can build up that mode and you you know, FMTC in some ways is kind of 49 00:04:02,300 --> 00:04:07,300 trying to do that a little bit, which I think is cool. There's not a lot of not a lot of competitors. Yeah. 50 00:04:07,300 --> 00:04:11,900 We are in a special market position. If you want to provide good quality 51 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:16,900 coupon content using your own relationships Yep. You're either using FMTC 52 00:04:17,100 --> 00:04:22,100 in practical terms or you're doing it yourself. So you don't have to provide good quality 53 00:04:22,100 --> 00:04:27,000 content. Some sites make money going that route, and you can do it 54 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:32,000 yourself. But if you do it yourself, your costs are going to be higher Yeah. Because of the fees that we charge, 55 00:04:32,300 --> 00:04:37,300 and the quality might not be as good. Yeah. That's awesome. Saving a ton of 56 00:04:37,300 --> 00:04:42,200 time. What is that? Does that, like, require developers? I'm curious to know what the do it 57 00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:47,100 yourself structure looks like at a high level just just to kind of educate people at 58 00:04:47,100 --> 00:04:52,100 home at a at the broad strokes. Yeah. That might be a good segue to AI, which we were talking about 59 00:04:52,100 --> 00:04:57,000 earlier today. Yep. You know, so right now, it's it's a pretty messy process because we integrate with 60 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:01,900 about twenty thousand merchants, and the merchants, it should also be mentioned, are kind of going online and offline, at 61 00:05:01,900 --> 00:05:06,800 least the smaller ones are. Mhmm. And this is across all the major players, the players being the tracking 62 00:05:06,800 --> 00:05:11,700 platforms in the English speaking markets around the world. So that's Canada, United States, United 63 00:05:11,700 --> 00:05:16,100 Kingdom, and Australia. At least couple dozen data sources with the tracking, 64 00:05:16,600 --> 00:05:21,300 platforms, many of which have, like, like, more than one API you're tapping into, stuff just 65 00:05:21,300 --> 00:05:26,000 breaks all the time. Yeah. And what that means is that you need 66 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:30,800 somebody to repair that. So that's technical resources right there. When it breaks, you've got to, 67 00:05:31,200 --> 00:05:36,200 Sounds expensive. Yeah. Obviously, you gotta fix it. But then the bigger issue is you have to deal with all the data that's 68 00:05:36,300 --> 00:05:41,300 coming into the system, which is, you know, for us, thousands of new deals every day. So deal is broadly 69 00:05:41,300 --> 00:05:46,200 defined as a coupon, a category sale, buy one get one, get with purchase, 70 00:05:46,300 --> 00:05:51,200 anything in that direction. And for us, it's, very important to get that data out as 71 00:05:51,200 --> 00:05:56,200 quickly as possible in as high quality as possible to our subscribers, and then they get it 72 00:05:56,200 --> 00:06:01,200 out to their, to their end users who are the customers who click through on the affiliate sites, 73 00:06:01,200 --> 00:06:06,200 make the purchase on the retailer, and then the affiliate site gets the commission. And so a big part of the 74 00:06:06,200 --> 00:06:11,200 infrastructure is making sure you have the correct links, and then the correct links are married to the correct content. And 75 00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:16,200 that's what FMTC does. So it requires you know, we have dozens of people doing this all 76 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:21,000 day every day, and then we also have a a full developer team. And 77 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:25,600 then to keep up the relationships, we have our our business development team for the network integrations, 78 00:06:26,100 --> 00:06:30,800 the merchant integrations, and so on. That's awesome. So it's Pretty good. Yeah. It's it's it's a 79 00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:35,600 legit operation. Yeah. For sure. For sure. And Brooke has been you know, you've 80 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:40,600 been such a senior sound expert voice in the affiliate 81 00:06:40,600 --> 00:06:45,500 space from building your career, managing Zappos to building out an 82 00:06:45,500 --> 00:06:49,800 agency, seeing all the players, and working with some great enterprise brands. 83 00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:55,300 Now building out FMTC, You've got your, you know, regular newsletters that are 84 00:06:55,300 --> 00:07:00,300 kinda educating the community, and I think that your insights are always very interesting 85 00:07:00,300 --> 00:07:05,300 and helpful. So I think that kind of excited to kind of dive into some of those today and and share 86 00:07:05,300 --> 00:07:09,400 those. And for those who aren't, following Brooke or subscribing to his, 87 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:15,000 regular information through the FMTC blog, highly recommend. So important, yeah, 88 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:20,000 call out, I think. Speaking of that, what are you kind of seeing as 89 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:25,000 the, you know, biggest kind of misnomer around coupon and deal? There's there's a few 90 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:29,900 of them out there and varying opinions about the topic, but what is kind of your thoughts 91 00:07:29,900 --> 00:07:34,600 around the notion of coupon and deal as it relates to the affiliate marketing space? Yeah. Great question and 92 00:07:34,600 --> 00:07:39,600 probably too much to tackle in any one podcast. Yeah. But I think the short of the long is that 93 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:44,300 customers love deals. Who doesn't? And customers are very much trained to look for 94 00:07:44,300 --> 00:07:49,300 deals. Not all customers, you know, you have very much your market segments. Yep. But by all the studies I've 95 00:07:49,300 --> 00:07:54,100 ever seen, the ones who are especially tuned into looking for the deals, the 96 00:07:54,100 --> 00:07:58,900 coupons, etcetera, they are the frequent shoppers, the high household income shoppers Yeah. 97 00:07:59,100 --> 00:08:03,900 The ones that you wanna get. And so if you are a merchant, you are probably competing 98 00:08:03,900 --> 00:08:08,900 with Amazon. You know, they get close to half of the dollars in the US for 99 00:08:08,900 --> 00:08:13,900 online retail right now. And if you want to woo shoppers away from there 100 00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:18,800 or, you know, to to try your side out, for the first time, a coupon or some sort of 101 00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:23,600 special offer is practically day rigor. Right? So anytime you go to a Shopify store, you're very 102 00:08:23,600 --> 00:08:28,500 likely to see a little pop up that says, hey. Ten percent off for for first customers. Very standard 103 00:08:28,500 --> 00:08:33,000 thing. Yeah. Well, the the thought that we have at FMDC is that all merchants 104 00:08:33,500 --> 00:08:38,200 should really be doing that. Indeed, that there should be a basket of coupons that they offer. For example, 105 00:08:38,700 --> 00:08:43,700 your new customer discount, typically a discount on a very high average order size, higher than 106 00:08:43,700 --> 00:08:48,500 you would typically see. You can also do discounts with companies like Sheer ID that we're partnered 107 00:08:48,500 --> 00:08:53,400 with that validate if you are a special category, like a first responder or a teacher 108 00:08:53,400 --> 00:08:58,400 or a firefighter, that kind of thing. And, if you have this basket, 109 00:08:58,400 --> 00:09:03,400 then there might be some other stuff, like certain products are discounted. It becomes very attractive to customers, 110 00:09:03,400 --> 00:09:08,200 and those customers are going to find you on the coupon sites. Now to sort of grab the bull by the 111 00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:13,100 horns that the pattern that people are concerned about is the customer's on the the site looking for a 112 00:09:13,100 --> 00:09:18,000 deal or, sorry, they're in the the checkout looking for a deal, but then they come back. And so the 113 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:22,900 concern is that that that sort of, been paying a commission for, you know, an order that would have 114 00:09:22,900 --> 00:09:27,700 happened anyway. Yeah. And that's a, a reasonable concern as an important thing to sort of talk 115 00:09:27,700 --> 00:09:32,600 about. But I think that what happens too often is in the space, people say, well, that's that's just a pattern, 116 00:09:33,500 --> 00:09:38,500 but there's many other patterns that could sort of go along with that. Mhmm. For example, there was 117 00:09:38,500 --> 00:09:43,300 a case study with a software product called Fuze plugged into a, Google Analytics. 118 00:09:43,800 --> 00:09:48,700 And when they looked at so and this is strictly Google Analytics data. Right? So it's nothing to do with the 119 00:09:48,700 --> 00:09:53,200 affiliate networks tracking. When they were looking at the sort of highest value 120 00:09:53,300 --> 00:09:57,900 customers brought, the winner was buy now, pay later, for new 121 00:09:57,900 --> 00:10:02,700 merchants, in terms of bringing in new customers and then frequency purchase and things like that. 122 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:07,900 And then second, was sort of coupon sizes and something like that might surprise a lot of people 123 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:12,800 For sure. But but it comports well with, like, the the surveys that I've sort of mentioned. And 124 00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:17,800 do you think that was based off, like, cart size or LTV or just generally? Do you I mean, 125 00:10:17,800 --> 00:10:22,500 that sounds pretty compelling. Yeah. It was pretty compelling. You know, Google Analytics has their anonymous, 126 00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:27,800 mysterious, you know, user identity. You know, you're in there and I'm in there, and everybody listening to this podcast is probably 127 00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:32,800 in there. And then they then they could see if the customer goes to the merchant, and then 128 00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:37,800 they can if they're new and then they they with Google Analytics, the transaction events are recorded. So this is the first time 129 00:10:37,800 --> 00:10:42,600 a customer's had a transaction event. And so, yeah, to your point, I think that that is very 130 00:10:42,600 --> 00:10:47,400 compelling. And it it's not easy. Like, so if you're the merchant, you have to come up with your own 131 00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:52,000 strategy. What's my discounting strategy? And some retailers are very, 132 00:10:53,100 --> 00:10:57,800 limited strategy, but everybody has something. So for example, Apple, not considered a discount 133 00:10:57,800 --> 00:11:02,700 brand, will go around Black Friday. You will see, cashback offers, you know, buy 134 00:11:02,700 --> 00:11:07,500 buy some stuff, get a hundred dollar gift card. That's you wouldn't think of that as a coupon, but we would 135 00:11:07,500 --> 00:11:12,400 consider it within our sort of our wheelhouse, the things that we would offer because it's an offer that makes something 136 00:11:12,400 --> 00:11:17,400 it makes it more attractive for a customer to buy something. And just about every retailer 137 00:11:17,400 --> 00:11:22,300 out there does something of that nature. You know, they have clearance items. They're going to do some fancy gift 138 00:11:22,300 --> 00:11:27,300 with purchase, maybe a cash gift. Yeah. And so our thought is that if customers 139 00:11:27,300 --> 00:11:32,300 are looking for those, you want to meet the customers where they are, and where they are is just not always 140 00:11:32,300 --> 00:11:36,800 going to be your site. So that same study that I referenced also found that email 141 00:11:37,400 --> 00:11:42,400 was the merchant's own email, is certainly in the mix, but, like, not doing a lot for the 142 00:11:42,400 --> 00:11:47,200 generation of new customers, which is no surprise. Right? Because they typically get on that email list by 143 00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:52,000 buying something. Yeah. Yeah. They might they might sign up. So the coupon sites, which come in a lot 144 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:57,000 of different flavors. Right? You got your browser extensions. You got this sort of old school, listings 145 00:11:57,200 --> 00:12:02,100 companies, huge number of reward sites, some are cash back, some are reward. The might not pay 146 00:12:02,100 --> 00:12:07,000 later guys are in the mix there. Mhmm. And the commerce content guys show content sometimes. Mhmm. So 147 00:12:07,100 --> 00:12:12,100 the ideal thing, I think, for a merchant would be to say, hey. This is my strategy. I've looked at my metrics very closely, and 148 00:12:12,100 --> 00:12:17,100 then this is the kind of strategy that I wanna go out and bring to the market. And then when you when 149 00:12:17,100 --> 00:12:22,000 you do that, there's frankly a lot of work involved in it because there's a lot of sites you're working with, and it's hard to get the deals and 150 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:27,000 offers out to all those sites. And that's exactly where FNDC can help. And so we think 151 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:32,000 that the the coupon sites get, kicked around unfairly, quite frankly, and without 152 00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:37,000 the reward sites as well. But they Yeah. They have been and they remain the backbone of 153 00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:42,000 affiliate marketing, and those are those are profitable customer relationships for the 154 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:47,000 merchants working with those sites. Yeah. And I would also add on the other other side of things, if you look at, 155 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:51,900 like, how they're compensated, the merchants have tremendous amount of control in terms of what the commission rates 156 00:12:51,900 --> 00:12:56,800 are, what the commission terms are, etcetera. And then with the advanced technologies that the tracking platforms 157 00:12:56,800 --> 00:13:01,600 have now, you can really dial it into pay exactly as you want to. Yeah. We 158 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:06,100 have a similar approach. You know, a lot of advertiser clients come to us with 159 00:13:06,500 --> 00:13:11,300 concerns, questions, hesitation around that group of partner types when you've 160 00:13:11,300 --> 00:13:16,200 got influencers exploding, commerce content exploding, a lot of options 161 00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:21,200 in the space now. And I think that those concerns, you know, still are here. In some 162 00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:26,200 cases, they're higher. And I think there's an opportunity to really assess, 163 00:13:26,500 --> 00:13:31,200 look at appropriate attribution like you've talked about, and really, you know, measure where 164 00:13:31,200 --> 00:13:36,000 those, partners come into play. Sometimes it's a little surprising. Right? So I think 165 00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:41,000 there's a notion of, like, checking some of those historical judgments at the door 166 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:45,900 a little bit and using kind of the data and cohort analysis and the right attribution models to really 167 00:13:45,900 --> 00:13:50,900 make better decisioning. And you can price them really precisely. You can reward 168 00:13:50,900 --> 00:13:55,800 effectively. And I think there's that's something that I think a lot of people don't always realize that let's 169 00:13:55,800 --> 00:14:00,800 leverage these great tools to make better decisions. And it's easy to say that, but it's surprising how many 170 00:14:00,800 --> 00:14:05,800 people just maybe are not there yet, no matter how innovative or techie or smart 171 00:14:05,800 --> 00:14:10,600 they are. It's just not, it's just not there yet. So it's fun to kind of collaborate with people to try to do that like you 172 00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:15,600 alluded to. It's a lot of work. It's a good reason to have a a good agency. Yeah. 173 00:14:15,600 --> 00:14:20,400 For sure. Something else came up that kinda jumped out at me was, like, I forget 174 00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:25,300 who coined this. Someone talked about how they like to use deals and coupons to 175 00:14:25,300 --> 00:14:30,300 the consumer if they're a brand, let's say consumer in this example. And, like, it's on a 176 00:14:30,300 --> 00:14:34,800 pendulum or a spectrum where you might not be offering a coupon initially. 177 00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:39,600 But as maybe that buyer becomes less engaged 178 00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:44,500 or retained in your ecosystem, you can kind of use levers various 179 00:14:44,500 --> 00:14:49,300 levers, micro levers throughout it. And I think that's where there's a really compelling 180 00:14:49,300 --> 00:14:53,500 case that, like, these are not going anywhere. They're used constantly. They're 181 00:14:53,900 --> 00:14:58,900 requested and demanded and expected by the consumer. So I think it's an interesting I forget 182 00:14:58,900 --> 00:15:03,800 who came up with that framework or pendulum. There's I'm sure people have talked about it a lot, but I think it's a 183 00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:08,700 complaint case to, you know, plug in and and kinda think about what is your strategy. Do you 184 00:15:08,700 --> 00:15:13,700 have one that's very, specific to your brand and your data and your consumer as opposed to 185 00:15:13,700 --> 00:15:18,700 just we don't do x or we always do y or you know? Yeah. And just 186 00:15:18,700 --> 00:15:23,700 a simple question. You you know, whatever strategy you have, even if it's very modest, it doesn't carry over to affiliate 187 00:15:23,900 --> 00:15:28,800 Because all the time so FMDC is all by permission. Right? So it's the affiliates, the deals that are entered into the 188 00:15:28,800 --> 00:15:33,800 affiliate networks. And often we see because we're we're constantly going out to the sites 189 00:15:33,800 --> 00:15:38,700 and we test the coupons and things like that. There's often deals that are on the home page, on the 190 00:15:38,700 --> 00:15:43,600 landing page of the website that's not posted to Affiliate. Totally available. Which I think is crazy because 191 00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:48,500 if you had that offer, why would you not get that offer out there? Yeah. For sure. That's a 192 00:15:48,500 --> 00:15:53,400 great, framework in thinking about, like, ways people to kind of think through coupon 193 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:58,400 deal, where FMTC fits into the ecosystem. Maybe it would be interesting to hear a little bit more 194 00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:03,300 about maybe some of the other aspects of affiliate marketing you've seen. You've seen a ton of 195 00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:08,400 change in the last, you know, twenty five years, probably. What are you kind of noticing at a 196 00:16:08,400 --> 00:16:13,200 macro trend level? Especially, you're publishing these learnings regularly. You're reading a ton. You're 197 00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:18,000 talking to great practitioners at conferences and on calls daily. Like, 198 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:22,900 what are some maybe themes that you're seeing in the space out maybe even outside of coupon a 199 00:16:22,900 --> 00:16:27,500 deal that are very interesting to you? Yeah. So Mike McNerney of MarTech 200 00:16:27,500 --> 00:16:32,500 Record picked up a few really good ones, with panels and fireside chats actually last 201 00:16:32,500 --> 00:16:37,300 week, in New York. One of them, I think, is gonna be the seller networks largely around the 202 00:16:37,300 --> 00:16:41,700 Amazon ecosystem. Commerce content, I guess, has has gotten quite a bit of, 203 00:16:42,200 --> 00:16:47,100 discussion, but it's still growing, which is very exciting. And another is going to be, I 204 00:16:47,100 --> 00:16:52,100 think, the margin. Where does the commission payout come from? Are you paying out of a portion of your margin, or is it 205 00:16:52,100 --> 00:16:57,000 sort of considered more like these branding dollars? And then something else that's been on my mind recently 206 00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:01,600 that has not been as discussed is affiliate versus programmatic, which we were chatting about earlier. 207 00:17:01,700 --> 00:17:06,600 Mhmm. So if you run through those, you know, start with the seller networks. Well, actually, 208 00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:11,600 sorry. Where would you like to start? There's a lot there. That's a juicy, it's a list. Let's 209 00:17:11,600 --> 00:17:16,600 do let's go seller networks. Yeah. It would just just happen with a great panel out in New York. Let's 210 00:17:16,600 --> 00:17:21,500 keep rolling with that. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. And so for those who are not familiar, seller networks, which are sort of 211 00:17:21,500 --> 00:17:26,400 formerly known as shadow networks, are paying a a seller on a marketplace, typically 212 00:17:26,400 --> 00:17:31,300 Amazon, but can work on any marketplace. They can pay out a commission directly to the affiliate. 213 00:17:31,500 --> 00:17:36,400 And this is really big news because it's kind of, like, not known in the larger ecosystem, but you 214 00:17:36,400 --> 00:17:40,900 have probably hundreds of agencies that specialize in helping 215 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:45,500 sellers on Amazon sell through. Amazon's like an ecosystem unto itself. 216 00:17:46,500 --> 00:17:51,300 And here here to now or here to recently, you've only been able to 217 00:17:51,300 --> 00:17:56,300 stand by as as the Amazon Associates program pays out whatever commissions it pays out, which are normally pretty 218 00:17:56,300 --> 00:18:01,300 healthy, especially because it's this halo effect Yeah. Where, you know, somebody goes and buy a pair of scissors and they 219 00:18:01,300 --> 00:18:06,300 buy a TV and you get the commission on the TV. Velocity. You got all kinds of great factors. All the high conversion 220 00:18:06,300 --> 00:18:11,300 rates. And so I think Publisher Expansion a few years ago might have been the first one, and they did 221 00:18:11,300 --> 00:18:16,000 this sort of, had an unusual, tracking mechanism. And they're still around. 222 00:18:16,300 --> 00:18:20,900 But then there was sort of a second generation that came where they would take the agency 223 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:26,000 ID. So the affiliate tracking solution, the seller network, and they were called sort of shadow network 224 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:31,000 because it sort of operate in the shadows of the Amazon ecosystem. But then Sounds ominous. Yeah. It touches. 225 00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:36,000 Yeah. Because it it was sort of played in a gray area from what I understand. Yeah. Then with the seller network, 226 00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:40,800 they become the advertiser of record, like, the advertiser is their agency record for the seller. And what that means is 227 00:18:40,800 --> 00:18:45,700 that they can create a link with parameters, and and they can see the report on the back end. So if you're buying, like, a Facebook 228 00:18:45,700 --> 00:18:50,600 campaign or Google campaign or something else, you can see how that performed. Well, you can just you can do the same 229 00:18:50,600 --> 00:18:55,400 thing, give a link to anybody, basically the same as a regular affiliate tracking link. 230 00:18:55,800 --> 00:19:00,400 And so it's been a really interesting race with these guys because 231 00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:05,400 Refersion made big waves when they announced theirs, but then Refersion had pretty 232 00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:10,200 massive layoffs late at the end of last year. And then they were bought by a 233 00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:14,800 company called Fantastic, which, from my understanding, shut down their seller 234 00:19:14,800 --> 00:19:19,000 network. And so they were sort of like the head of the pack, and then they, poof, went away. 235 00:19:19,900 --> 00:19:24,700 The earlier this year, you had a company called Movanta launch, and those are the principles out of GroVia, 236 00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:29,800 which is, you know, an agency that got acquired. We specialize, I think, in affiliate outreach. And 237 00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:34,700 so these guys announced profitability after six months, which is, you know, not 238 00:19:34,700 --> 00:19:39,300 bad, especially for, you know, a tech company, which has to be tech, investments. And then 239 00:19:39,300 --> 00:19:44,000 also, in the mix of forgiving them and weaving people out, Benfog got publisher 240 00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:48,800 expansion, part of AdVon as as I understand it. And forgive me if I'm mangling anything here. And then he 241 00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:53,800 launched Maverick X, which has that that next generation sort of tracking solution. And 242 00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:58,800 then you've also got one called Archer. There's another one I've spoken with called Costingtons, and I think 243 00:19:58,800 --> 00:20:03,700 you'll see many more kind of come out because it's kind of a big land grab. You know, the sellers are 244 00:20:03,700 --> 00:20:08,700 currently getting a kickback from Amazon, if kickback is the best word, of about ten percent. 245 00:20:08,700 --> 00:20:13,400 So if you're paying an affiliate ten percent, it sort of, like, washes out from a cost perspective if you're getting a ten 246 00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:18,200 percent from Amazon. And so there's a very big opportunity for these guys, and I actually just 247 00:20:18,200 --> 00:20:23,200 blurted about this this week. It's great for affiliates because they potentially have a different revenue stream. 248 00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:28,000 Although, it looks like they're going to have to choose. They're going to have to choose between 249 00:20:28,100 --> 00:20:32,800 the associates program commission and they're going to or the seller network commission. 250 00:20:33,300 --> 00:20:38,200 You can double dip. So, like, I think what you currently can do is you can take the associates link and 251 00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:43,200 then deep link with, the seller network link or, sorry, maybe it's the other 252 00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:48,200 way around. And that's been considered to kind of be a gray area, but it is getting scared up on 253 00:20:48,200 --> 00:20:53,200 the panel is I I think it's basically a way to be disallowed. That's what it looks like. It's more 254 00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:58,300 sense. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but the seller networks are often touting, 255 00:20:58,900 --> 00:21:03,900 generally speaking, a higher commission rate than what Amazon Associates has historically 256 00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:09,000 charged, like apples to apples. Is that correct? That's my understanding. Amazon's gotten away 257 00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:13,900 with pretty low commission rates Yeah. Compared to competitors in the same category. 258 00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:19,000 Yeah. And so one of the principals was talking about a commission rate of three to four 259 00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:23,900 x on a in the same category. So it's sort of like, do I give up do I get three or four 260 00:21:23,900 --> 00:21:28,800 x higher going to a specific product page? It's probably gonna convert pretty well, but give up the 261 00:21:28,800 --> 00:21:33,700 halo effect. There seems to be a use case for it, and it can be a specific link. Right? So if you write a 262 00:21:33,700 --> 00:21:38,100 listicle, you can go specifically to that seller, maybe a paid placement's negotiated. 263 00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:43,400 So I think that that's going to continue to be attractive, and going to continue to grow. 264 00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:48,200 Except the other thing to note is that I think they call it greater connections is that Amazon launched 265 00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:53,200 basically their own solution. It doesn't seem to have as much traction yet based on 266 00:21:53,500 --> 00:21:58,400 what people I've talked to, who are knowledgeable, are observing, and that could lead to 267 00:21:58,400 --> 00:22:03,400 everybody getting killed. Right? Because, you know, it could just be for forbidden. Yeah. And they could also get 268 00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:08,400 rid of the kickback. So the sort of damocles is is kinda hanging over those guys' heads as they as they 269 00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:13,400 raise ahead into what could be a huge, huge land grab. Yeah. I wonder if there's a way I 270 00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:18,300 was debating this with someone, I think, on my team and maybe out in New York at the panel, but 271 00:22:18,700 --> 00:22:23,500 it seems like there's maybe a way where Amazon benefits from the seller 272 00:22:23,500 --> 00:22:28,500 networks. Is there a path there where Amazon sees that value? Because it's always 273 00:22:28,500 --> 00:22:33,200 that risk that Amazon shuts down XOR. Yeah. They they killed the on-site publisher 274 00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:38,000 program earlier this year. Yeah. So I I don't know. Is that a path that you 275 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:43,000 think that they could thread the needle on where there's mutual value in 276 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:47,900 that case, or do you think that that's gonna end up as Amazon kinda 277 00:22:47,900 --> 00:22:52,700 steers the the traffic back to its own owned and operated ecosystem 278 00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:57,700 more so? Even though they're technically benefiting from these seller networks doing what they're doing in some 279 00:22:57,700 --> 00:23:02,300 capacity. Right? So it's a great question and your guess is as good as 280 00:23:02,300 --> 00:23:07,300 mine. But I have heard rumors that Amazon associates program is, a 281 00:23:07,300 --> 00:23:12,300 bit separate from other stuff inside the Amazon ecosystem. Yeah. And so there's possibility 282 00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:17,200 of sort of, like, split incentives inside the company. And so, collectively and this 283 00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:22,000 actually Jeff Bezos is pretty famous for this. It's in the book, The Everything Store Store. You know, 284 00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:26,900 he, pulled off a trick that eBay couldn't where he forced everything on the same buy page, whether it was 285 00:23:26,900 --> 00:23:31,600 Amazon operated or, a third party seller. And that was apparently 286 00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:36,400 over great protests of the internal buyers. Because if the buyer, you don't wanna be competing against some random person 287 00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:41,400 from outside the company. But he made it happen, and it's been hugely successful for Amazon, which I 288 00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:46,100 I believe has most of its volume from the third party sellers and has for many 289 00:23:46,100 --> 00:23:51,100 years. I believe so. I believe so. So if you have that split, then, you know, there could be sort of, 290 00:23:51,100 --> 00:23:56,000 like, turf protection inside the company. But then even without that, if you're Amazon 291 00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:00,900 and you're getting traffic from off of Amazon, and in a sense, you're not paying for it because the kickback 292 00:24:00,900 --> 00:24:05,600 is purportedly related to a competitive guard against, Shopify. You know, 293 00:24:05,600 --> 00:24:10,500 again, rumors and hearsay, so take it with a grain of salt, but it it makes logical sense. It makes so so much 294 00:24:10,500 --> 00:24:15,500 sense. So they would keep potentially keep that up, and then also it could suck the oxygen 295 00:24:15,700 --> 00:24:20,300 out of the room. So, you know, if this stuff really kinda continues to take off, 296 00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:25,800 it's a little bit of a threat to the competitors of Amazon and then to tracking platforms that 297 00:24:25,800 --> 00:24:30,800 support them, like, you know, CJ and Rakuten and Impact, but an opportunity for the 298 00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:35,800 affiliates and potentially for you as well as an agency. Right? Because you guys can start to play this Amazon game 299 00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:40,700 and work with all the DTC guys who have the Shopify store and sell on Amazon. Some of them are pretty 300 00:24:40,700 --> 00:24:45,600 big. Yeah. Absolutely. We're we're doing a lot of, collaboration with a number of 301 00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:50,200 players like Lavanta and others, and we feel like there's just tons of opportunity 302 00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:54,900 there. Just similar to us doing you know, having a handle on Google and Meta and TikTok, 303 00:24:55,500 --> 00:25:00,400 we also need to have some acumen around the, Amazon ad buying game, which is slightly different 304 00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:05,200 but but related, which I think I don't know. I kind of predict that there 305 00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:10,000 that desire to retain those those sellers and those advertisers is 306 00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:15,000 really the play for them. And and I that I feel like, not to get too much into 307 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:19,800 conjecture because we don't know, but I would think that despite there being some conflict with Amazon 308 00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:24,600 Associates, I would think they would be really highly incentivized to maintain the the 309 00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:29,500 grip of the, ecosystem and want that, in my in my limited 310 00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:34,400 knowledge speculation. And I think that the Shopify's of the world, even to some extent, the 311 00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:39,200 TikToks of the world are are clamoring for that and wanting that. I don't know how you feel about that too. 312 00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:44,200 But do you feel No. I agree with that prediction, or do you think that's a I agree with you. They 313 00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:49,200 do need to service the sellers. And, you know, going back to, I think it was around twenty fifteen, they made a pretty aggressive 314 00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:53,700 push to get a lot more of the the China based sellers on board, which was 315 00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:58,600 Yep. Which was covered in, I think I think it was twenty seventeen. Brad 316 00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:03,400 Stone, the guy who wrote the everything store, wrote another book called, I think, Amazon Unbound. And he talked about this 317 00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:08,400 conflict where the the buyer is still one of these cheaper Chinese no name goods. So in a way, 318 00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:13,400 it makes the marketplace more valuable, but I think in a way, it also might make Amazon a little bit more vulnerable. For example, 319 00:26:14,100 --> 00:26:19,000 Xi'an and Taimu, again, out of China Mhmm. Are making, Xi'an in particular, I 320 00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:23,400 think are making is making big moves to woo those sellers for its own marketplace. 321 00:26:24,100 --> 00:26:29,100 And so there's a little bit of the innovator's dilemma kind of nipping at Amazon's heels. Right? Basically, they wanna have the 322 00:26:29,100 --> 00:26:33,800 low cost sort of China game, which, you know, a certain customer segment is totally tuned into. 323 00:26:34,300 --> 00:26:39,200 Then you can sort of service that market, but then, like, there's a higher end of the brand name stuff, which you 324 00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:44,100 also wanna service for your buyers, it might be a difficult balancing act. You know? 325 00:26:44,100 --> 00:26:48,900 Absolutely. There it certainly seems to be on their minds. And so whatever else they're doing, if they can say, hey. 326 00:26:48,900 --> 00:26:53,800 Listen. We'll accommodate you sending traffic to to us that we're not necessarily even 327 00:26:53,800 --> 00:26:58,600 paying for, it would seem logical that they would continue to allow that. Yeah. Absolutely. 328 00:26:59,100 --> 00:27:03,900 Sure. They're pleased. They have a lot of, users locked in their psychological habit 329 00:27:03,900 --> 00:27:08,500 of one click shopping and ease and prime and all that. Yeah. 330 00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:13,600 And it's more, more searches start on Amazon now than on Google, correct? I believe so. 331 00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:18,300 More shopping searches. Shopping based searches. Yeah. It's amazing. That that's amazing, 332 00:27:18,700 --> 00:27:23,600 knowledge drop. And I think there's just a lot to watch in that space. You've obviously touched on a number 333 00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:28,600 of other trends. So I guess the question of where do we want to go next? We need to take some questions from the 334 00:27:28,600 --> 00:27:33,500 audience, even though we don't have a live audience right now. Maybe we should soon for our next show. 335 00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:39,000 One of the things we've talked about also is around you touched on it as part 336 00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:43,900 of that kind of hit list of topics, but one was this programmatic industry 337 00:27:44,100 --> 00:27:48,900 and kind of where affiliate sits into that. Like, what are your thoughts on 338 00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:54,000 you know, you kinda recently shared that it's quite a lot of fraud, quite a lot of issues in the programmatic 339 00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:59,100 space. Not to say that it doesn't exist in a lot of different digital channels, but what are your thoughts 340 00:27:59,100 --> 00:28:04,100 on that piece that you wrote and kind of some of the discussions you've had around programmatic and fraud and 341 00:28:04,100 --> 00:28:08,800 and maybe with affiliate? This is a drum I think that we in the channel really need to be 342 00:28:09,100 --> 00:28:14,000 beaten on. I know not everyone thinks of affiliate as as a channel, so bear with 343 00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:18,300 me. Channel channels. That actually came up with the MarTech thing too. 344 00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:23,900 So whatever you, you know, whatever you call it, the the space that we're in, you know, we're very much, I think, 345 00:28:23,900 --> 00:28:28,900 scrutinized and we're very, critical and self critical, which I think is a really good thing about affiliate. And 346 00:28:28,900 --> 00:28:33,800 I would also point out that out of that criticism, there really are a lot of tools that have emerged 347 00:28:34,100 --> 00:28:38,900 to give complete control or or a tremendous degree of control to the 348 00:28:38,900 --> 00:28:43,900 merchants and agencies that manage merchant programs. And what 349 00:28:43,900 --> 00:28:48,900 vexes me sometimes is that if you look at it as sort of a budgetary game, affiliate 350 00:28:48,900 --> 00:28:53,900 kinda gets the short end of the stick where I think we have a lot more value to to offer. And 351 00:28:53,900 --> 00:28:58,400 so the Association of National Advertisers in the which I think is US based, 352 00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,900 they did a study of open web programmatic advertising. It gets a little confusing. Right? Because it's not the closed garden stuff, 353 00:29:03,900 --> 00:29:08,900 but it's, I think they rounded up to about ninety billion dollars and this is 354 00:29:08,900 --> 00:29:13,900 a global number. And they, by their study Ninety or ninety, nine zero 355 00:29:13,900 --> 00:29:18,800 billion globally on an annual basis. And they found that there were there's these 356 00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:23,800 things they call made for advertising sites, clickbait, AI fits in with very naturally with 357 00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:28,400 that stuff, but it totally predates AI. Low quality content. Low quality content, which probably doesn't 358 00:29:28,400 --> 00:29:33,400 attract a sort of a buyer with any real intention. And they 359 00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:38,300 found that they were getting, I think, twenty percent of the, traffic and about an estimated fifteen 360 00:29:38,300 --> 00:29:43,200 percent of the dollars. And so, you know, call that in the thirteen sort of billion dollar 361 00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:48,100 range. And and, again, it is a little bit apples and oranges because the global number, but affiliate in the 362 00:29:48,100 --> 00:29:53,100 US is is lower than that. Right? From an angle basis, it might be, you know, it might be right around to, 363 00:29:53,100 --> 00:29:57,900 like, not known, but, you know, maybe it's, like, twelve billion dollars or something. Mhmm. 364 00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:03,000 And so if we, as a channel, are are are smaller 365 00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:08,000 than, you know, sort of like a fraud of value for the channel, it sounds it that tells 366 00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:13,000 me that something is just really mismatched and off balance. Yeah. A hundred percent agree. You know, with the the 367 00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:17,900 programmatic stuff, you also have all the bot fraud, right, because it's an impression and half 368 00:30:17,900 --> 00:30:22,800 the traffic out there is bots. Yep. And so with affiliate, there definitely are concerns in the lead 369 00:30:22,800 --> 00:30:27,500 space because people can can sell in traffic and fake leads all day long. And there's definitely 370 00:30:27,500 --> 00:30:32,100 concerns around the margin stuff, with the retail space. But if you're 371 00:30:32,100 --> 00:30:37,000 validating your leads and you can't help but validate your retail sales, right, because if it's fraud, you're you're 372 00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:41,500 gonna like, if it's credit card fraud, which is actually pretty uncommon, you'll you're gonna get charged back. 373 00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:46,800 Those are real sales, and those are generally very profitable sales. The studies, I 374 00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:51,500 think, over the years, it it typically is the most profitable way to market 375 00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:56,400 after your own email list. Now some things might be more profitable, like your own 376 00:30:56,400 --> 00:31:01,300 keywords. Right? But that's probably not fair because the volume is whatever it is, and that's just Almost the 377 00:31:01,300 --> 00:31:06,300 same. To find you anyway. Yeah. Hundred percent. So I think that's generally 378 00:31:06,300 --> 00:31:11,200 pretty true because, again, the the merchants control the cost very well and and the mechanisms and all that. And then 379 00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:16,100 there's you just don't get the same exact kind of bidding war that you get with Google Ads, that you get with 380 00:31:16,100 --> 00:31:21,100 Facebook. And those companies are very good at getting your money from you and expanding your advertising and 381 00:31:21,100 --> 00:31:26,100 stuff like that. And then programmatic is too. So to me, it seems like a very big challenge that we have, 382 00:31:26,100 --> 00:31:30,900 and this is one that FTC aims to help solve, is making it easier to deploy 383 00:31:30,900 --> 00:31:35,800 dollars and get positive returns in the affiliate space. You know, it's really easy to 384 00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:40,800 work with one affiliate, three, five affiliates. When you start to get to the point where you're 385 00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:45,800 working with even just dozens, you really need that technical infrastructure to be in place. And it clearly 386 00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:50,500 is for tracking purposes, but it's a little bit trickier for the content distribution purposes 387 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:55,900 because, you know, first, the content is is bad. Mhmm. You know? So we deal with the deal feeds. We deal with product 388 00:31:55,900 --> 00:32:00,800 feeds. You have to clean that stuff up. There's no way there's no way around it. Mhmm. So you might 389 00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:05,800 say, well, why don't the networks do the cleanup? And it's a little bit tricky because if they did it for one merchant, they'd 390 00:32:05,800 --> 00:32:10,800 have to probably do it for all of them. Mhmm. And then they're also getting paid by the by the merchant, so it's 391 00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:15,400 a little bit of a political challenge for them. So FMDC is a very natural spot that we fit in there. 392 00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:20,700 And our thought is that we should make it very easy for the merchants through the networks to get those those 393 00:32:20,700 --> 00:32:25,600 tracking links out there to the point of display on the publisher properties, be it, you know, an app or or 394 00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:30,400 website or whatever, so that you can access with new content like a deal, for 395 00:32:30,400 --> 00:32:35,300 example, or a coupon that's expiring soon. You can get out to hundreds and even thousands of partners 396 00:32:35,300 --> 00:32:40,100 in a very timely manner, and then you'll pay out accordingly, which, again, will probably 397 00:32:40,100 --> 00:32:45,100 be very positive ROI for you. And you can feel a lot more comfortable shifting 398 00:32:45,100 --> 00:32:49,500 your investment dollars from very dubious programmatic spends to, 399 00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:55,500 long term profitable defensible, because you have a relationship, affiliate spends. 400 00:32:55,700 --> 00:33:00,600 I love that thought of defensible because I've talked a lot about how affiliate 401 00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:05,600 is most misunderstood, most underrated. And in 402 00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:10,600 some ways, it can have an even better moat than and more defensive than a lot 403 00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:15,600 of other channels. If if Google wants to shut you down or if Meta wants to shut you down, granted, it's 404 00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:20,400 often unlikely for most brands, but they can and they will. Whereas with affiliate, 405 00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:25,100 you have, you know, dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of relationships, 406 00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:29,800 some very close personal relationships, some more disconnected. 407 00:33:30,700 --> 00:33:35,500 But that's, by nature, a more diversified defensible 408 00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:40,600 position to be in than having all your eggs in one basket that can be shut off by an API. 409 00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:45,700 Absolutely. You can reach places you couldn't reach otherwise. And, you know, for some kinds of 410 00:33:45,700 --> 00:33:50,500 merchants, you can also advertise where you can't advertise on Google. So, you know, Google doesn't do gun 411 00:33:50,500 --> 00:33:55,100 advertisements. Mhmm. And this publisher site called, I think it's Pew Pew Pew Pew 412 00:33:55,100 --> 00:33:59,800 Tactical, and, you know, it's all affiliate programs that they make revenue off of. It makes a lot of 413 00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:04,700 sense. Niche communities, and, that makes sense. The other thing that 414 00:34:04,700 --> 00:34:09,600 kinda came up when you were sharing that was kind of like the in house team method and 415 00:34:09,600 --> 00:34:14,500 how affiliate is not really a channel, but more of a channel. The channels are a lever. And in 416 00:34:14,500 --> 00:34:19,500 a lot of ways, it it behaves multichannel. You can access Google, Meta, TikTok. You 417 00:34:19,500 --> 00:34:24,300 can it's more of a methodology almost. I'm wondering if there's a world where, you 418 00:34:24,300 --> 00:34:29,200 know, the affiliate manager in in house at a big brand can be a little 419 00:34:29,200 --> 00:34:33,800 bit more, I'm guessing I'm speculating that if 420 00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:38,800 affiliate was looked through from a different lens internally and we we need to kinda educate and 421 00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:43,800 talk to people about that, it might get better outcomes. It's not to say that affiliate 422 00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:48,800 account managers internally or affiliate experts at a brand are not savvy and smart and 423 00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:53,800 have connections and know what levers to pull. But my hypothesis is that, you know, 424 00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:58,700 the VP of marketing, the CMO, the head of growth can kind of, ride shotgun 425 00:34:58,700 --> 00:35:03,500 with that affiliate account manager and maybe think of it more of, okay. We we need to pay for 426 00:35:03,500 --> 00:35:08,400 outcomes. We need it to be multichannel. We wanna we can even weave stories with this lever 427 00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:13,200 that's called affiliate or influencer marketing. Do you have any comment on that or any thought? 428 00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:18,200 I'm kind of going off on a little bit of a soapbox here, but I feel like there's an opportunity to kind 429 00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:23,200 of pair the two more and and have it less live in a silo because 430 00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:28,100 it's so multichannel and it's because tech and all these great tools are kind of letting this 431 00:35:28,100 --> 00:35:33,100 happen more so than they, they did before. I don't know if you have any comment on that or, 432 00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:37,700 or thought, but it feels like an opportunity for the industry. Yeah. That's been affiliates, 433 00:35:38,100 --> 00:35:43,100 long slog. And if you listen to somebody like Todd Crawford, you know, the, formerly of CJ and 434 00:35:43,100 --> 00:35:48,100 cofounder of Impact Mhmm. You know, they always talk about getting more budget and being in the suite with 435 00:35:48,100 --> 00:35:53,100 the CMO. And I think it's really true because and then that goes to the back to the resource thing too. You know, the investment is 436 00:35:53,100 --> 00:35:58,100 not just like, oh, you know, we'll spend a million dollars over here instead of over there. It's like, you know, we'll spend a million 437 00:35:58,100 --> 00:36:02,500 dollars on programmers, to do the technical implementations that are necessary. 438 00:36:02,900 --> 00:36:07,900 And I think that the, the channel has to prove itself more than other channels do, which is a 439 00:36:07,900 --> 00:36:12,700 little bit mysterious. It's a little bit odd, frankly. And it even seems irrational to 440 00:36:12,700 --> 00:36:17,700 me. But for whatever reason, that does seem to be the case. And maybe it's just 441 00:36:17,700 --> 00:36:22,100 because it's more work. Yeah. It takes more time to understand, takes more time to manage those relationships. 442 00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:27,700 But for that, again, you know, you've got a lot of spaces you're not gonna get to otherwise. And you'll 443 00:36:27,700 --> 00:36:32,700 also receive feedback, and you'll enable collaborations that you can't do otherwise. That's why I feel I 444 00:36:32,700 --> 00:36:37,300 think affiliate has such this, really natural blend with the influencer stuff. It's kinda funny because 445 00:36:37,300 --> 00:36:42,200 influencer's bigger bigger already. Right? I came you know, affiliate was around more 446 00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:47,100 than ten years longer, and then influencer came along, blew up bigger than affiliate. I think that 447 00:36:47,100 --> 00:36:52,000 was probably, like, last year or the year before. And then there was a study that went around predicting a hundred billion 448 00:36:52,100 --> 00:36:57,000 dollars in influencer global income, I think, by twenty thirty or 449 00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:01,200 something. Wow. Yeah. So massively bigger than the affiliate, projections. 450 00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:06,900 And but the challenge is, like, you know, it's very easy to flush your money down the toilet with the influencer stuff because 451 00:37:06,900 --> 00:37:11,800 they want this paid placement. Pseudo celebrity. No. No. Totally. And then also, you know, they 452 00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:16,800 might be they might be gone next year. My wife sees this with her business. She buys, like, she had a 453 00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:21,700 really good run with podcast ads, and then a lot of these podcast ads started going with the agencies. And 454 00:37:21,700 --> 00:37:26,600 then it makes things worse because she loses the relationship, the ads are read more poorly, the prices 455 00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:31,600 go up, and then that tips the ROI into the negative direction. She has to stop advertising with them. I think you hit 456 00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:36,200 something so powerful. There's that And something that I've always loved about 457 00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:40,900 affiliate is that when you're setting up a deal, you're negotiating, there's a, there's a 458 00:37:40,900 --> 00:37:45,900 relationship. Yes. You're looking at the data as well, but there's a feedback loop there. And 459 00:37:45,900 --> 00:37:50,800 there's so much kind of goodness that comes back to the brand around, especially for, you 460 00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:55,200 know, your top ten partners. They're gonna be highly incentivized to give you 461 00:37:55,900 --> 00:38:00,500 essentially coaching at times to be like, how do we optimize this? I found this to work really 462 00:38:00,500 --> 00:38:05,300 well. Not to say that you don't have some of those chops internally, but nine 463 00:38:05,300 --> 00:38:09,900 times out of ten, that feedback loop yields value and revenue if you're 464 00:38:09,900 --> 00:38:11,400 listening and you're using it 465 00:38:18,900 --> 00:38:23,800 and David Givano, the CEO of Impact, he had a podcast a while ago with an influencer, and 466 00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:28,800 they were talking about, you know, paint placements. And she's like, look, you know, we have to charge paint placement because we allow the 467 00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:33,800 brands to repurpose our content for their purposes. And you all it's it's sort of 468 00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:38,600 different, but you see the same thing with, like, companies such as Wirecutter, where where they do the the product 469 00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:43,500 reviews, and they'll license out those product reviews back to the manufacturers. So 470 00:38:43,500 --> 00:38:48,400 it's like this, sort of, like, ancillary value this gets created and then get get gets 471 00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:53,000 harvested and has to be paid for one way or another, but everybody involved in the value chain is is 472 00:38:53,000 --> 00:38:58,000 winning. And so I think affiliate pairs well with that. It's kinda funny. It's like the dog chasing 473 00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:03,000 the bus now because, you know, we have the tracking stuff in place. The networks have the merchant 474 00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,800 relationships in place, which the influencers networks can do struggle with more. Like, you know, they get the influencers, 475 00:39:08,100 --> 00:39:13,100 but then the the anchor really is with the merchants, which I think explains all the collaborations between 476 00:39:13,100 --> 00:39:18,000 the affiliate networks and these influencer networks and couple of the acquisitions too. Absolutely. Like, you know, 477 00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,400 CreatorIQ, I think, works I think Awin and CJ, I believe. 478 00:39:22,900 --> 00:39:27,700 Double check that. But there's a lot of relationships like that. And so I think it's really good 479 00:39:27,700 --> 00:39:32,700 because you can do a lot of hybrid deals. Again, that requires more more time. You gotta be coordinating with people. 480 00:39:32,700 --> 00:39:37,400 But if you figure out the template, then that can can scale pretty pretty reasonably well. You can get, like, the links 481 00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:42,000 out to those creators Yeah. And then Yeah. Really do some some neat 482 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:46,900 campaigns that reach a very large audience. Yeah. It's, it's pretty, it's, I think become pretty 483 00:39:46,900 --> 00:39:51,800 powerful and there was an article on social proof. I'm gonna kind of the topic for the 484 00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:56,600 next newsletter that I'm excited to dive into that. I think it feeds into what you just shared. It's like, 485 00:39:56,800 --> 00:40:01,300 right, people wanna hear from, you know, other friends, family, influencers 486 00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:07,000 about their experience with other brands. It's just inherently psychologically compelling, whereas, 487 00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:12,300 you know, the brand speaking to you has lost its luster that it had 10:20, thirty, 488 00:40:12,300 --> 00:40:17,300 forty years ago. And I think brands can still do that, of course, but we do it very it's 489 00:40:17,300 --> 00:40:22,200 harder to rise above the noise. And I think it just that social proof is something we're all kind of seeking 490 00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:27,000 right now, in the brand and marketing space. This has been some amazing knowledge 491 00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:31,900 drops. I'd love to hear maybe as we wind down here, just talking a little 492 00:40:31,900 --> 00:40:36,800 bit more about, you know, where you see the vision for FMTC, what big things you have in 493 00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:41,500 mind. I know you've kind of explored a number of partnerships. You're building some awesome things. 494 00:40:41,900 --> 00:40:46,200 Maybe give us a sneak peek of what's ahead. Maybe share what you're building towards, 495 00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:51,100 without divulging anything confidential, but we'd love to hear more. Yeah. Thank you. The, 496 00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:56,400 I think FMDC's big vision is to participate in in affiliate as affiliate continues to 497 00:40:56,400 --> 00:41:01,100 expand. And the vision for affiliate is very exciting. You basically 498 00:41:01,100 --> 00:41:05,900 have anything that's a commercially relevant link could typically be an 499 00:41:05,900 --> 00:41:10,700 affiliate link. And in the past, I think that a lot of publishers have been afraid to monetize those links. 500 00:41:10,700 --> 00:41:15,500 So for example, there was I think it was, like, ten or twelve years ago now Yeah. There's a big kerfuffle with Pinterest 501 00:41:15,500 --> 00:41:20,300 and SkimLinks. Yeah. And it's interesting because Pinterest just engaged 502 00:41:20,300 --> 00:41:25,300 in this similar partnership, not quite the exact same, but similar with Amazon where stuff goes to Amazon and you can 503 00:41:25,300 --> 00:41:30,300 buy it. And to me, that's the most natural partnership in the world. And the natural concern there would 504 00:41:30,300 --> 00:41:35,300 be, you know, editorial versus advertising, but those two can be parsed. You know, they can be separate 505 00:41:35,300 --> 00:41:39,900 teams. The ad advertising can kinda come along later. The advertising can be automated. Mhmm. 506 00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:45,200 And you have some huge, huge, huge volume out there of links that are not monetized but 507 00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:50,100 could be monetized. It would really support any number of publishers that have, you know, a freemium, 508 00:41:50,500 --> 00:41:55,500 access. Right? So you can just see the whole site for free, or it's like some kind of software tool that you're, 509 00:41:55,500 --> 00:42:00,400 you know, sort of a free user of. So the the opportunity for brands or the, you know, 510 00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:05,400 that these advertisers to reach new audiences and all sorts of niches, on the Internet is 511 00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:10,000 is incredible. And FMDC hopes to help participate in that by having the 512 00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:14,700 merchants index at the ready. So if you're the publisher, you would know who you can work with. 513 00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:20,000 We provide you with your own link. We also have a a sub affiliate network that's owned by FTC called 514 00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:25,000 Freshreach. So if you don't if you're not integrating with a particular tracking platform, we can provide you 515 00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:29,800 a ready access link because, you know, it naturally evolves toward those those key 516 00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:34,700 partnerships. There's sort of like a long tail. Right? Yep. And so if you're the publisher, you can take advantage 517 00:42:34,700 --> 00:42:39,700 of of the full monetization opportunities. You can display all the relevant content that should, be 518 00:42:39,700 --> 00:42:44,400 there. So for us, obviously, it would be deal content Mhmm. Also the product contents, and who knows what 519 00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:49,300 else there might be in the future. Yep. So we can index that all. We can provide it all. The publishers 520 00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:54,400 can call that on an API basis and then really enhance the value of to their users 521 00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:59,400 with with these convenience features and optimize their own operations for generating revenue. 522 00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:04,600 I love that. What that just reminded me of is can't recall if it was Connie 523 00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:09,300 Chen of, Andreessen Horowitz. She's very strong on 524 00:43:09,300 --> 00:43:14,100 APAC and mobile, if if I recall correctly. But she talked a lot about micropayments 525 00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:19,400 and how that's very large in Asia. And we think you kinda touched on, like, gated content 526 00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:24,200 and paywalls and how that's such a terrible experience as is seeing a ton of 527 00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:29,100 irrelevant ads as privacy and cookie deprecation have come so important. And I 528 00:43:29,100 --> 00:43:34,100 feel like there's an opportunity where affiliate as a mechanism, if you will, 529 00:43:34,100 --> 00:43:38,900 or channel channels can play a a part there and kind of bringing about a 530 00:43:38,900 --> 00:43:43,700 better monetizable user experience for people across the entire web. I mean, it 531 00:43:43,700 --> 00:43:48,700 just seems like there's so much more to be done there to kind of make those 532 00:43:48,700 --> 00:43:53,500 paywalls and those friction points and the the user experience that's kinda clunky and and friction 533 00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:58,900 improve and and get even better. So I think that would be exciting place to take the industry. 534 00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:04,600 Yeah. Absolutely. And it's even becoming a some something of a center of gravity. You know, The Wall Street 535 00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:09,500 Journal celebrated the one year anniversary earlier this summer of their buy side. They're I think they're sort of a 536 00:44:09,500 --> 00:44:14,400 more conservative entity in terms of their operations. So it might be just too much 537 00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:19,300 for a lot of these publishers to resist, and then you just gotta manage all the all the 538 00:44:19,300 --> 00:44:24,100 data and information. Yeah. I mean, you got a brand right there with that's collecting massive 539 00:44:24,100 --> 00:44:29,000 amounts of money in subscription volume, and then they turn to that as another monetization 540 00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:33,900 arm. It's it's pretty good validation for the affiliate industry, as you said. 541 00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:39,400 Very cool. I guess, what else? I I know you got, the 542 00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:44,200 farm, thriving in in Texas. Any any comments or updates for the 543 00:44:44,200 --> 00:44:49,200 audience? We got the bees. We got the goats. The chickens are laying again. We went 544 00:44:49,200 --> 00:44:54,200 through a bit of a dirt there. I don't think the heat helped. Yeah. And, we're nearly done with our 545 00:44:54,200 --> 00:44:58,900 little renovations. Well, congratulations. And the boys are learning to swim. Oh, that's 546 00:44:58,900 --> 00:45:03,900 music to my ears. Love to see it. Yes. Tell your wife. I'll let her know. 547 00:45:03,900 --> 00:45:08,700 I'll let her know if they need a refresher. Former, bring her over. A water probably player. Right? That's 548 00:45:08,700 --> 00:45:13,700 right. That's right. Yeah. She likes to tell that when parents are a little hesitant to 549 00:45:13,700 --> 00:45:18,700 bring their kids, little, little ones to her, to learn how to swim. So now it's crucial, crucial service 550 00:45:18,700 --> 00:45:23,600 Right? Absolutely. For their safety. Absolutely. Well, so appreciate you have having the chat and 551 00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:28,500 being on the on the conversation here live in Austin at the the Capital Factory where 552 00:45:28,500 --> 00:45:33,400 they're so gracious to set us up in their in their green room. Thanks, Brooke. Thank 553 00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:37,300 you. Come by anytime. Appreciate it. Great to see you. Bye, everyone.