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Welcome to another edition of the Always Be Testing podcast with your 

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host, Ty De Grange. Get a guided tour of the world of growth, performance 

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marketing, customer acquisition, paid media, and affiliate marketing. 

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We talk with industry experts and discuss experiments and their learnings in growth, 

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marketing, and life. Time to nerd out, check your biases at the door, and 

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have some fun talking about data driven growth and lessons learned. 

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Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to another episode of the Always Be Testing podcast. 

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I am your host, Ty DeGrange, and I am thrilled to have today 

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Adam Weiss. Welcome to the show, sir. Hey. Thanks for having me, Ty. 

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Heck yeah, man. Adam is the founder of Wise Digital Consulting. He 

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is definitely an affiliate marketing veteran. What have you been around the space? What? Twenty years 

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at least? Not to make you feel old. Yeah. I think veteran is I was gonna say veteran is 

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just another word for old. I mean, we're kind of both in that 

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category. I think you've been at a little bit longer than I have, but we're we're up there. Maybe. But 

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you look a lot younger. Probably are a lot younger. Maybe not for long if I keep 

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at it. So, Adam is is an amazing resource. He has 

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been consulting with publishers, partners, affiliates for quite a 

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long time. He's, launched his own consulting firm, Voice Digital Consulting. 

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Prior to that, he was you were at Rakuten for, what, fifteen years ish? A little 

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over fourteen. And then I think a lot of affiliates seek him out to say, like, how do 

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I find partnerships? How do I make sense of the channel? How do I monetize? 

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And similarly, you you do an amazing recap of the affiliate industry in your newsletter. 

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You develop the really awesome partner landscape, which we've talked 

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about and and published similar. And I think yours is kind of one of the more comprehensive publisher 

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partner affiliate landscape visuals I've seen out there. So super excited to dive in 

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with you today. Appreciate it. I'm excited too. Thanks, Ty. Heck, yeah. 

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So, you know, I have to start out. You you kind of provided a bit of a hot take. We did 

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a conversation with some of our teammates recently, and, you mentioned 

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that, Hagar Van Halen is preferred over 

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David Lee Roth Van Halen. Can you but I wanna preface it with Oh, 

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man. My first concert ever was Van Halen, and I'm slightly 

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embarrassed to share that I have a ringtone on my phone, which is always on 

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silent, of course. But occasionally, it sneaks through and people will actually hear it in an office 

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environment or outside, and it's David Lee Roth, Van Halen, 

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jump. That's okay. It's true story. How bad is that on a scale of one 

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to ten? Well, I didn't know there were still ringtones beyond just 

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what what I mean, do you have, like, a Nokia from the early two 

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thousands? Is that Snickers bar, you know, Nokia. It keeps 

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me off of social media even though even 

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though that's what we work in. Just kidding. They don't have a Nokia. But Well 

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help us understand this hot take because, inquiring minds wanna know. Well, let's 

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give some context for your audience was I met the team, and 

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I thought that when you're given a, you know, a presentation or an overview, you gotta 

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say something controversial. And that was my controversial statement, but I stand by it. 

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I don't dislike DLR. As a matter of fact, I I love them. I love the early Van 

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Halen stuff. But maybe just, you know, for me, my formative years of 

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of rock and roll, just that intro riff to fifty one fifty. 

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I'm not gonna sing on your podcast, but if you if you know, you know. We won't say no to it if 

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you wanna Well, I don't want you to lose subscribers. But that run, you know, 

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the fifty one fifty and o u eight one two and for unlawful carnal knowledge, 

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those three in a row, that was epic. And that was Yeah. Me 

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growing up. Again, my formative years of rock and roll, and it 

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just it spoke to me. And to this day, if you were to ask me 

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to throw on a Van Halen album, I would I would put on fifty one fifty. And I wanna be clear. 

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I love one and two and nineteen eighty four and Divergent and all that 

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stuff. Don't get me wrong. I love it. But my 

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go to is is the Hagar Van Halen. That's just that's who I 

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am. Sorry. What's your favorite jam off fifty one fifty if you had to pick 

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one? Oh, man. Actually, like, fifty one fifty, the last 

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song on the album. Do you listen to a song an album all the way through, 

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like, old school style, or do you go into the song, like, Spotify style and just say, hey. 

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I've got my playlist. That's a great question. We can make this podcast 

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just about music. I'm happy to. I have a lot of thoughts on this. 

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I have become more of a Spotify person, which is play me 

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songs like Van Halen, and then you get a playlist. And then a lot of times, it 

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introduces you to new music, which is great. Hard to beat. I think 

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the art of listening to an album, if that is an art, has sort of disappeared, and it's sort of a 

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shame. So I do try to listen to albums. I have a 

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really good, friend who I used to work with who always 

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listens to the record. And when I see him post it on Instagram 

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or something, it inspires me, and we're sort of missing that. I 

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I think a lot about Dark Side of the Moon and the Joshua Tree 

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and some albums that, in my opinion, have to be listened to 

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end to end. There's a ton of them out there. Email me or whatever. 

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Text me. I'd love to hear what people say. That's an important That'd be a great list, 

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like, albums that need to be played through. It's probably it's it's subjective, of course, but 

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I think that's what makes it fun is to Yeah. Talk about it, think about 

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it like that. Dark Side of the Moon to me is the that is the penultimate 

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end to end. You can't pick one song. Love it. Very 

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cool. So a little bit of a segue. We've kind of talked music. Maybe we'll weave 

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some music in later or throughout, but We should. People come to you for affiliate. 

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You're clearly one of the leaders in the space. Your your kind of exec summary newsletter is, I 

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think, a awesome curation and and summation of a lot of things that are happening 

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and updates and news and less people make sense of it. How did you get into 

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it in the first place? Into affiliate or providing that overview? Affiliate. Affiliate? 

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I got a job at LinkShare. It was that simple. I had worked at 

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twenty four seven Media. I worked at about dot com prior to that, and I landed at LinkShare 

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on the publisher side of the business, took a real interest, and the rest 

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was history. It took off. Really loved the business, loved the 

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publishers, loved the people I work with worked with. And 

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it was a I feel like my sort of career there paralleled the 

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evolution of the affiliate space as well because it was maturing over that time as well. 

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That's awesome. Was there certain aspects of the people or the work or the 

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day to day that kind of was an moment for you that got you really kind of, 

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excited about being involved in it? Like, what was it in 

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it resonated for you then? It's a good question. I think there was an 

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entrepreneurial spirit that I saw on the publisher side of the business because that's where I started. 

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I think I saw a lot of innovation happening. I remember 

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learning about a business called You Promise, which some people might remember it still exists, 

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and the ability to shop and save money towards college. And at the time, I had I think, 

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yeah, my I didn't even have my first kid when I started there, but in that time 

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frame, realizing the power of being able to shop online 

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and put money towards college savings and then seeing these other interesting 

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models that were being developed, helping find 

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discounts and savings and introduction to products. And the innovation 

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I thought was interesting and rapid, and 

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I thought there was a lot of change happening from the ecommerce perspective that was being driven by the 

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publishers in the space. And I took it upon myself to really learn 

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who are the publishers in my neighborhood and what do they do. Pretty 

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good neighborhood. Yeah. Where where were their offices? What did they do? How many people work 

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for them? Because you were dealing on the on the other side of the business with 

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major brands and retailers, who everyone knows for all intents and 

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purposes. On the publisher side, we were still learning. Who 

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is this publisher, that publisher? What are they doing? How many people work there? Have they raised 

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money? All these other kinda story lines were being Yeah. Developed. 

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So I took a real interest in in understanding that. That's awesome. And I think it kind of resonates 

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with me heavily because I had a similar experience when I entered the space. And I feel like 

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people don't always realize how much affiliates are doing truly innovative 

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things, how entrepreneurial they are, how I I view them as, like, the 

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currency of the space, and I think that you're you're really focused on that side 

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of the ecosystem. Obviously, you know, we are as an agency as well as we're courting these 

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great partners to promote great brands and advertisers, but 

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you're we're really working directly with them, and I think that that's compelling and super interesting. 

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And for the advertisers that you work with, it's it could be interesting to them as well. That's why 

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they're signed up with you with a network at the end of the day is for 

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support, finding distribution, innovative distribution, 

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distribution that's gonna provide new customers, that's gonna drive higher ticket 

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sizes, that's gonna drive a particular action that meets their goals. 

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And the publishers are thinking about that too. They should be. And I think that's what what makes it interesting. 

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And I would also say not all of them win. Not all of them have the right 

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answer, the right model, the right technology, but the industry 

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can compound on what we learn from what works and what 

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hasn't worked as well. And it's important to know what publishers are 

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doing because that is how things are gonna grow from that 

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from those those kind of those ideas. I think to build on that, wrap maybe wrap up 

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that thought, the advertisers that are so are the ones that are winning 

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are the ones that are either working with a partner to unlock it or even 

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better, collaborate with a partner, an agency, and network to be 

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super interested in how those partners operate and hop on calls and to work through things 

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to kind of feed that innovation. Because if you I think if you can feed that innovation as an advertiser 

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and listen and hear feedback and learn from the innovative, cutting edge affiliates 

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and partners, you're gonna find ways to unlock their value even further and help them and tee them 

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up with content, rewards, commissions, bonuses, 

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incentives, all the fun things that fuel the system. So it's super interesting. 

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Couldn't agree more. What about things that folks get wrong? You know, we talked a 

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little bit about, like, some pseudo best practices a little bit here and what can work 

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well, but, like, what are some maybe some misconceptions of affiliate marketing 

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that you've seen, or how often do these come up? Or I'm curious to learn more about your 

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perspective in in working with with publishers and affiliates and in the industry in general. 

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I think it's the inverse of what you just said is what they could get wrong. 

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One size does not fit all. Every advertiser's different. Every publisher 

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is different. We are a partnership platform. We wanna brand 

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ourselves as partnerships. Partnerships are never one size fits all. 

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So taking the the time to understand both 

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sides, goals and objectives, what's the give and the get in the partnership is 

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critical to establish a partnership and then to optimize it as well over 

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time. It requires some strategic planning and an assessment 

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of your partners and potential partners. So in my opinion, if you're not doing 

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that, that's where there's a potential to fall down to 

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become too concentrated in the top part 

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of your portfolio, if you will, and miss out on innovation 

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even if not today down the road. You might not think someone is a 

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good partner for you today. That's fine. But if the 

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risk is low to integrate now, you never know what's gonna happen 

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down the road. There's I feel like I've seen instances 

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of we don't wanna work with this particular publisher, and 

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then the publisher gets big, and there's more 

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friction essentially to partner with them, then, you know, 

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you have to deal with prioritization and all that when you could've just partnered with them early on, 

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built a relationship, started to see little bits of what works and 

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what doesn't work, and now be at a point of optimization. But now you're at a point of 

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fighting just to get through the door. Such a great callout. People don't always 

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realize that these things change quickly. There's ebbs and flows, and getting in on that 

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emerging channel is really a first mover advantage is something people should consider when 

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they can as long as there's got some incentive alignment and something set up well at 

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the beginning. Totally agree. Speaking of that, good segue into 

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when you get dropped into an engagement, when you're consulting for an affiliate or publisher or 

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partner, how do you approach that? What are some things you look at 

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to help them with partnering with great brands, with monetizing 

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their audience and their community and their site. How do you kind of look at 

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that and get started and approach it? It's hard because it's a unique 

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use case for each potential client. Every pub like I just said, every publisher is different, so 

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it's not one size fits all. So for me, the approach is 

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really understanding their business, doing some discovery, 

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looking where they're at in their life cycle of their business? Because I think that matters. Are 

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you just starting? Are you at a mature stage? Are you trying to get over 

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a hump to get to maturity? And where are they making investments? 

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What are some key challenges that they're facing? What are the problems they're trying to solve? 

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So I look at it more as how can I understand your business, come 

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in as an extension of your team to solve a particular 

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problem or problems over time and evolve with 

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the business and make sure that even the problem I'm trying to solve, which a lot 

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of times is around their strategy for affiliate monetization and building partnerships, 

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Like you said, there's other components? I could do all that. We could do it really well. 

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But let's say if the product itself is not good or if you're a content site and you're not 

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generating content or traffic for that matter, all 

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those things have to play together to be successful. You can't do one 

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of them really well and be successful. So I wanna make sure 

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that if you're gonna have me come in and help the business in one facet of it, 

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the other ones are moving in lockstep as well. That's sort of a long winded 

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answer, but the short answer is it'll depend on what the needs are of the business, but you really need 

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to understand what their the problem is they're trying to solve and if it's something I could help with. And 

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then I was I love getting under the hood and and getting things working and moving. 

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That's great. And are you do you find yourself kind of playing, like, a fixer 

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role? Do you find yourself kind of doing a lot more of the partner 

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partner approach and how to set up the right types of partnerships and matchmake for for 

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revenue purposes? Are you helping them get from a certain level to another level? 

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Like, kinda curious to understand what you're seeing most often and maybe 

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what you wanna get to or or think would be optimal. I'm just curious 

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to learn more about what you're kind of seeing most frequently in these types of engagements where you're 

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helping these types of partners and affiliates. If this was multiple choice, my answer would 

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be all the above. There's a lot of strategic work that I get to 

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do with publishers entering the market who wanna accelerate their 

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knowledge of the space and how to navigate the landscape. In 

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some cases, it's very hands on. In some cases, it's more of like a coach, if you 

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will. But then, yes, there's partnership development that happens as well. I 

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try to do one before the other or assess where a publisher is at to see if they're 

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ready for one versus the other. I always tell publishers, 

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you only got so many shots at this, and you gotta make sure that you're in a good 

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strategic position. And it doesn't mean you have to wait till everything is perfect. 

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I'm certainly not suggesting that. But you only have have so many shots at 

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this, so let's make sure that we have everything lined up correctly. And to what we were talking about 

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earlier, goals and objectives are aligned. We understand what the brands or 

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the the advertisers are trying to do as well. We understand the competitive landscape and 

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how, as a publisher, we differentiate. Is the brand gonna be like, oh, is this just like 

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x? Well, perhaps in some cases, but in other cases, these are the five things 

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that differentiate us or that we can do for you or that or even on our road map. So just 

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making sure that all of those things are lined up becomes really, really 

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important. So, again, it's gonna depend where they're at in the life cycle, 

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but everything I do can be at the very strategic level, helping you enter the 

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market, assessing where the business can go in the market, to your point, to 

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partnership development and understanding where there's opportunities to 

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optimize a brand that you're working with, or, again, even adding new partners 

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into the mix as well. You kinda touched on it. Are they ready, when they're ready, 

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and, like, kind of turning on the, like, the faucet, if you will, of partner development. 

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How do you like to kind of define ready for partner development? And and, 

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obviously, that comes in many flavors like you said, but how do you think about that? 

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Is there something unique from a product perspective? Is there existing traffic already that you're 

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monetizing? But relative to the traffic, there's a a gut sense that we could do any 

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more. Have I seen, broadly speaking, from a benchmarking perspective, 

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opportunities like this that there has been success that we potentially 

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can tap into. So it's it it varies. Do you have a newsletter that's out there 

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working? Do you have a team dedicated to this right now? Because, again, 

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from a partnership development perspective, there's some real low hanging fruit and easy ways 

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to partner up with people through the channel. The scale of the channel is what's beautiful. But if we're trying to get 

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strategic or get additional budget or investment, we gotta be able to manage that as well. So I look at 

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a bunch of different things to make sure that we're in a a good place and at least have some of those things 

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ready to roll. When you kinda look at all the consulting engagements you've 

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done with Wise Consulting and the types of partners that have come to 

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you and some of the results you've helped them with and the problems you've solved for them. What makes 

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your eyes light up in terms of the characteristics of a of a partner that's really needing 

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help from you and maybe alluding to, like, there is that you really wanna nail in the 

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future for what you're doing. I'm curious to know maybe some of those commonalities, 

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common threads between partners that are really needing certain things. Obviously, again, it comes 

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in many site you know, shapes and sizes, but what kinda gets you the most 

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excited and pumped to work on a a partner? Well, a lot of times 

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it's, of course, the business itself, what it's doing, the problem it's solving. One 

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hundred percent. I love when someone comes to me and what they're 

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doing is solving a real world problem that I have when it comes to 

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and then use the term problem loosely when it comes to just shopping online, but 

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a real world a real world challenge. A painkiller rather than 

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a vitamin, perhaps. Perhaps. Yeah. And is this something that I've thought, wow, this 

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would make my life a little bit easier when it comes to ecommerce, shopping online, or even shopping in 

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store? So I think that's always interesting, the people that you get to 

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work with at these organizations. And are they potential 

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partners who wanna immerse themselves in a solution, who wanna take a 

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strategic approach versus throw it all against the wall? And, again, I'm all for testing and 

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learning, but I wanna make sure that we're taking sort of some some logical 

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steps to make sure that we get to the right solution. Because if you're just looking to jump to the finish 

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line, then I don't know. You know, you're gonna be successful in the long 

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term. And you're willing to make changes. You're willing to learn from those changes. You're willing to 

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understand the time and the investment that it takes to do so. And then most 

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importantly, what I think is a great approach 

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and clients who are successful is when we do bring things to a 

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brand. Here's something we've developed as a publisher that we want you to invest in, and they 

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say no and here's why. Put that back into the cycle of learning. 

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These brands or partners or advertisers are not interested, so let's maybe 

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not go back to the drawing board, but optimize ourselves in terms of what our offering is to 

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get to that end goal that ultimately is gonna drive a new partnership, 

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increased revenue, or something of the sort. Love it. When a partner 

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is approaching you and you're kind of they're trying to look for growth or trying to look for 

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eyeballs and distribution, I know that's a little different than the monetization side. We call 

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it the acquisition side, if you will, for an affiliate. What are their options in front of them at a 

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macro level just to educate the audience? And and that while you're not necessarily pulling the levers on all of those, can 

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you share more about that? Can you clarify in terms of what I offer or 

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look at for the publish? Yeah. Less about, like, what you specifically offer, 

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but more how does affiliate grow? How does an affiliate or a publisher think 

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about distribution and audience growth if they're small, medium, 

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large? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that knowing some of it is involved in your 

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scope of work, some of it is not, and I'm curious to learn more. It's like we talked about earlier. 

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There's there's multiple facets at play here. It starts with having a great 

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product, whatever that might be. You're a coupon site. You're producing content. 

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You're a browser extension. You're some type of post checkout optimization 

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tool. You're whatever. So having that product is important. 

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And then there's traffic. How are we thinking about getting traffic? 

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Paid, organic, there's various paid channels, which I think you know something about. Correct? 

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You have a newsletter. Are there other things that you're doing to 

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grow and diversify traffic? And then there's the partnership 

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piece, which is where monetization comes in. Do you have the right infrastructure for that, the 

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operational setup? Do you know who you're dealing with? Do you know are we getting the best rates? Do 

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we have the right partners? Are we are we thinking about this strategically? 

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And then the last piece, which sort of blends in with the traffic generation 

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component, is the brand of the publisher themselves. Are they 

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building a brand? Are they creating some stickiness with the user? Solving a problem for 

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the user where they're they create some stickiness and tell their friends, hey. Install Honey or 

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Rakuten or or Cap One Shopping or whatever it is. Hey. I got a 

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great deal at this site. You should check out this site. I learned about this pair of of 

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running shoes, or I just bought a, a bike rack for the back of 

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my car, and I had no idea what to purchase. So what do I do? I go to an affiliate site, you know, 

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to read the reviews. And I'm ashamed to say I don't even remember specifically because I read, like, a whole 

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bunch of them. But, nonetheless, you know, creating that brand is important, which I guess 

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is is counter to what I just said. But, nonetheless, it's it's something I think will be more and more 

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important for brands, for publishers as, as they continue to evolve. That's 

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awesome. Where where are you biking these days? Where I live, there's an 

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old rail line that they paved over, so it's 

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pretty flat. It's called the North County Trailway, and there's a South County Trailway. And it basically 

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runs from the Bronx all the way up through Westchester County up to Putnam County. It's 

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pretty awesome, actually. It goes across the reservoir, and it's really nice. Sounds amazing. It 

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is. It is. I want to check this out one day. Anyone's in the area and they wanna go for a bike ride, 

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I'm down. There you go. Offer has been, presented to the 

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audience, so take Adam up on it. I'm curious about a 

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lot of things. I wanna talk about when we did our kind of lunch and learn topics 

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and dove in with the team and talked about a lot of the observations you've 

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had in the space, we talked a little bit about trends. There's quite a few trends you've observed. 

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Maybe can you share maybe maybe some of the best of from those trends 

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that you're observing and share with the with the audience a bit more about what you're seeing in the 

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space, what's happening in digital and performance marketing, what's happening with these partners, what's happening 

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in affiliate marketing that's a that's a key trend for you. There's always a lot happening, 

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which is great. And who knows? By the time you publish this, there might be be new stuff 

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that that pops up. I'm sure it will. Which is a good thing. 

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Mhmm. Trends, I think we are continuing to see growth 

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and innovation on the publisher side like we've been talking about. I think there 

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is a focus on traffic, like we've been talking 

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about, and what changes are happening. Google is constantly 

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changing their algorithm. There's a lot of artificial intelligence now that 

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is sort of there's questions around what's gonna happen with that. I 

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think we're seeing more and more influencer and affiliate 

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convergence, and I think that is still in the 

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evolutionary phase. There are a ton of different influencer 

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businesses out there, a lot that are great, have great partnerships, 

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and they're more and more starting to integrate from an affiliate perspective. And the 

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networks and agencies themselves are starting to either acquire or form direct partnerships 

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as well. I'm curious to see how that shakes out in the the mid to 

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long term and how partnerships are presented given you 

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have an an in house partner and looking at other external partners 

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as well. So I think those are some of the immediate things that come to mind. And from a 

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trend, I would go back to what I was just talking about brand building. I think that's that's gonna continue to be really important 

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for publishers as they grow. And the traffic sourcing 

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question becomes more and more there's more 

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concern perhaps around the inventory on Google that's available to them. So 

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from a brand perspective, it's become even more important for publishers 

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things you're seeing, you know, brands try to make sense of as Google, 

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you know, clearly is taking up a larger piece of real estate of the search engine results page 

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and and kind of more of those clicks. It kinda relates to what we talked about with chat 

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GPT and the AI with kind of this crazy 

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feels complex daisy chain of, like, when is the creator compensated 

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when you have, like, multilayers of tech curating their 

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content, maybe repurposing their content to kind of, 

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like, feed into the user's need to ask questions and get value. So, 

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like, have you seen what is, like, the macro strategy for a partner that's 

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like, well, I'm getting hit from an SEO perspective because of maybe, 

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I don't know, competitors are generating more content and I'm not fast enough, or Google's 

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taking up more of the serve, or, I'm kinda listing out some macro challenges maybe that you 

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see that I'm hearing you share. What are some, like, high level ways that you might 

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approach that or say, like, to a partner, hey. This is how partners are 

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addressing it. How do how are they counteracting that? I don't know if I have a good answer for that. I would 

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probably tell them to call you in terms of figuring out alternate traffic 

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sources. I think I I'd assume some folks are getting involved 

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in a more paid sources that make sense, investigating 

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channels that they haven't been acquiring customers from before. I think 

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focusing on newsletters is is a good approach as 

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well. I personally, you know, enjoy reading a lot of the 

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affiliate newsletters and, you know, I I sort of look at it from an inside baseball 

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perspective too, but, you know, how they're structured and the colors of their click here 

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button and stuff like that to see what's working. But I think newsletters is a good source. So it's 

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essentially alternate traffic streams that they're gonna need to consider. Yeah. Trying 

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to own kinda own pieces of that customer relationship with with a 

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lot of these things changing with privacy. It's it's the email and 

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SMS and other other means of relationship, customer relationship management, new and existing is 

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is really exploding and needed. So I think that that's definitely resonates with me and the team. 

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SMS is another another good example as well. Yeah. For sure. 

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Maybe kinda coming into the experiment thought theme of 

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always be testing, what are some things that kind of struck you in 

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terms of, like, learnings or observations or, oh, wow. I didn't expect that to 

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happen in in maybe your Rackton experience, maybe some of the consulting 

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experience you've had. Always love to, like, talk through learnings and I don't necessarily have to name 

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specific clients, but I'd love to hear what are some maybe of those moments you've had 

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over the years of, like, wow, that was surprising or that was really instrumental for me as 

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a practitioner. What what are your any learnings that you wanna share with the audience? 

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Yeah. I think it's fairly simple to say 

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taking the time to do the discovery makes things a lot easier down the 

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road in terms of different testing scenarios. It's not that 

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you're just looking to sell a newsletter placement or get an increased 

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commission from an affiliate perspective. It's about what your partner brands 

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are looking for as well that's gonna help drive your strategy to what I 

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was talking about earlier. It's about the partner's attribution logic, their 

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thoughts on partners in their program already, what they're looking for, their marketing 

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calendar. I think asking the right questions in advance 

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goes such a long way. And I know I'm not giving you a specific I did x and 

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it resulted in y. There's certainly tons of examples of that, but each of 

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these different scenarios, I think the macro strategic approach 

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helps for longer term success and partnership, and that's really what I've 

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picked up over the years. And like I said earlier, taking a no and turning it into 

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a revision of a strategy can really make you successful. 

405
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Yeah. I'd say those are those are some kind of high level. I love it. Yeah. 

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Do you think that people maybe don't ask enough questions generally in this in the 

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industry? And and I'd love to hear more about that. I think people ask questions. I think 

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it's asking the right questions to achieve a particular goal between two 

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partners. Again, if we're a partnership business, it's it's a two way street, so we gotta ask the right 

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questions. And I think understanding what it is 

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your advertiser partners are looking to do or potential partners are looking to do is 

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really important. So like I was just saying, who are the partners in your program 

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today? Where's the lion's share of it coming from? Are you looking to diversify? What are you looking 

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for? Those types of things. And and there's a laundry list that I usually go through. 

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But those types of things, I think, reveal where the opportunities are 

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and help find gaps in the market and ultimately success for for a publisher and an 

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advertiser. Yeah. And you talked about kind of kind of taking that strategic 

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approach, in a number of, you know, cases that you get presented with. What do you think 

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people maybe get wrong about strategy or maybe miss upon on the strategy 

420
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:58,100
piece? Good question. I feel like it's it's very similar to what I've been saying. 

421
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:02,800
I think having that bird's eye view of the business 

422
00:35:03,500 --> 00:35:08,500
is important and gives you a better opportunity to create a solid 

423
00:35:08,900 --> 00:35:13,700
foundation for the longer term. So I think to be more 

424
00:35:13,700 --> 00:35:18,300
specific, when opportunities present themselves, they're not always a 

425
00:35:18,300 --> 00:35:23,300
fit. That's okay because they're out there in the industry, and 

426
00:35:23,300 --> 00:35:28,200
your business is not happening just today. You want it to to expand 

427
00:35:28,200 --> 00:35:33,200
and grow over time. Mhmm. So I think you need to have a three hundred and sixty degree view 

428
00:35:33,200 --> 00:35:38,200
of what's happening. All the cool stuff in our space, the broader ecommerce space, we talk about affiliate 

429
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:43,200
being on the cutting edge. And even those things that don't apply today 

430
00:35:43,700 --> 00:35:48,600
help us formulate that strategy for the longer term. Also, 

431
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:53,300
just the basics of understanding the market size, the competitive landscape, 

432
00:35:54,300 --> 00:35:59,300
levers that potentially could be pulled that maybe you're not pulling today. All of 

433
00:35:59,300 --> 00:36:04,300
that sort of comes together to help build an approach that will ultimately lead 

434
00:36:04,300 --> 00:36:09,300
to a solid partnership and help and, hence, solid monetization as well. That's really 

435
00:36:09,300 --> 00:36:14,100
interesting. And, you know, hey. You've got a chance to kind of go through the 

436
00:36:14,100 --> 00:36:18,500
ranks at Rakuten. You spent a lot of time there. You know, you I think you were 

437
00:36:18,900 --> 00:36:23,800
certainly a leader within that organization over time. And and can you share maybe more, 

438
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:29,300
like, from a leadership perspective in in performance marketing and affiliate marketing specifically? 

439
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:34,700
What do you think kind of separates those that are more successful than those that 

440
00:36:34,700 --> 00:36:39,700
maybe struggle or have more challenge in in more leadership roles, managing folks, 

441
00:36:40,200 --> 00:36:45,100
being an influential part of a larger organization. And now, obviously, 

442
00:36:45,100 --> 00:36:50,100
you're seen as a leader consulting and in impacting the the industry. But 

443
00:36:50,300 --> 00:36:55,300
from, like, the leadership side of it, how do you kinda look at those learnings and and and maybe what separates 

444
00:36:55,300 --> 00:37:00,100
those that are stronger from those that are having that are more challenged? So when I think about my 

445
00:37:00,100 --> 00:37:04,800
time at Rakuten, it comes down to being able 

446
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:09,700
to balance the strategic and the tactical. And what I mean by that is as you move 

447
00:37:09,700 --> 00:37:14,500
up the ladder, you need to focus on more strategic things. But if you completely remove 

448
00:37:14,500 --> 00:37:19,500
yourself from the day to day, you lose touch. And it doesn't have to 

449
00:37:19,500 --> 00:37:24,200
be in the weeds pulling levers for a program, but 

450
00:37:24,700 --> 00:37:29,600
client QBRs, interactions with clients are 

451
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:34,500
critical. I love the leadership team I work with during my time at Rakuten because 

452
00:37:34,500 --> 00:37:38,500
pretty much everyone from client services to tech to marketing 

453
00:37:39,300 --> 00:37:44,000
all grew up in the business. They worked on the ground floor and all had this 

454
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:48,900
really solid tie to the business. And even as 

455
00:37:48,900 --> 00:37:53,600
we were later required to be more strategic in our thinking, we 

456
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:58,500
knew how the day to day worked. And we had a gut 

457
00:37:58,500 --> 00:38:03,500
sense for strategic ideas and opportunities that had legs and ones that might have sounded cool 

458
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:08,500
and maybe even the math worked, but we just knew clients wouldn't go for it because we sat in those meetings. 

459
00:38:08,900 --> 00:38:13,600
We knew what the client was looking for if that ties together everything I've been I've been saying, 

460
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:18,700
you know, so far. So we really it made a big difference, 

461
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:24,200
in my opinion, as to why that team was so successful and 

462
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:28,900
such a great team that that tie of the the 

463
00:38:28,900 --> 00:38:33,800
tactical to the strategic. And, again, you get more strategic the more 

464
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:38,400
senior you get. But I feel to be successful at that leadership 

465
00:38:38,500 --> 00:38:43,500
level, don't lose sight of sitting in a client meeting. If 

466
00:38:43,500 --> 00:38:48,400
you if you're not I would just say try to be in a set set of goal for yourself to be in 

467
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:53,300
a one client meeting a week, want a date, whatever it is, whatever is appropriate to stay connected 

468
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:58,300
to what's really happening in the business. Yeah. I think that's such an awesome call out. You look at all these 

469
00:38:58,300 --> 00:39:03,000
successful and software companies, I mean, from Facebook to 

470
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,700
Glossier, and there's the list is you know, Amazon, I mean, everyone is 

471
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:13,200
the customer obsession concept is so talked about, 

472
00:39:13,500 --> 00:39:18,500
published, real. And I think it's still I think a lot of people are not 

473
00:39:18,500 --> 00:39:23,500
doing it enough, and you just kinda called out the importance of it. And it's like having that 

474
00:39:23,500 --> 00:39:28,500
voice of the customer really present, top of mind, backed by some level of 

475
00:39:28,500 --> 00:39:33,500
the quantitative and the qualitative, I think it's just so such a great reminder. And so, 

476
00:39:33,700 --> 00:39:37,700
what a what an awesome point. Yeah. And I think to one of your earlier 

477
00:39:38,500 --> 00:39:43,300
questions, talking about earlier even in my career, I felt like it was important 

478
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:48,300
even then and now to sit in the room with publishers and 

479
00:39:48,300 --> 00:39:53,200
understand who they were and what they were doing, getting on airplanes, going to 

480
00:39:53,500 --> 00:39:58,100
different places, sitting in their office, seeing the environments they worked in, 

481
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:03,400
the people they worked with that were beyond just the people that you were talking to on the partnership side from a tech and product 

482
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:08,300
and engineering standpoint, it goes a long way. And I think for me, at least, that 

483
00:40:08,300 --> 00:40:13,100
was sort of rooted in the foundation above, I guess, who I 

484
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:18,100
am as someone in the affiliate marketing industry, really understanding 

485
00:40:18,300 --> 00:40:23,000
their businesses from from top to bottom and and feeling like you're you're 

486
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:27,900
ingrained in it goes a long way. It's not just a it's not just a line item on a report. 

487
00:40:27,900 --> 00:40:32,900
You know, you look at a report as an advertiser and you see fifty, a hundred, whatever it is, publishers, 

488
00:40:33,500 --> 00:40:38,500
and they just look it looks transactional. No pun intended. I know there are transactions in there, 

489
00:40:38,500 --> 00:40:43,400
but you really get to understand who each of these are and it makes you think a little 

490
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:48,300
bit deeper about them and and what you potentially are doing with them. I love that. Yeah. The depth of 

491
00:40:48,300 --> 00:40:53,100
understanding each partner and then your entire partner ecosystem or your program can be 

492
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:58,200
there's a three d chess element to, I think, understanding each of them in a way that's that's a little bit more, 

493
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:03,600
best in class to your point. So Completely. This has been amazing, Adam. You've you've 

494
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:08,200
kind of, just dropped some awesome knowledge on affiliate marketing, your journey, your 

495
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:13,100
learnings, who you are. Speaking of that, just to just to share, what are 

496
00:41:13,100 --> 00:41:18,100
some things that maybe the, affiliate community doesn't know about you? You shared some good singers to kinda kick 

497
00:41:18,100 --> 00:41:23,100
it off, but maybe wrap up with a couple that, that maybe you wanna share to folks that 

498
00:41:23,100 --> 00:41:28,100
that might not know about you. Well, I feel like they know a lot now given our conversation 

499
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:33,400
about music. I think that probably tells a lot about it. Are you 

500
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:38,300
gonna be, putting the record player on here anytime soon, or are you kinda more shifted 

501
00:41:38,300 --> 00:41:43,300
over to the full digital experience in music? I'm fully digital. I love I 

502
00:41:43,300 --> 00:41:48,200
got my Sonos behind me with a few throughout the house. It's a beautiful device. 

503
00:41:48,300 --> 00:41:52,900
It's on my wish list, I'll I'll say that. They're great. They make it super 

504
00:41:52,900 --> 00:41:57,800
easy. If you're gonna get one using affiliate link, of course. I'll 

505
00:41:57,800 --> 00:42:02,700
need it. They're not cheap. But I'm I've always got music on. I feel like it's important. I always have 

506
00:42:02,700 --> 00:42:07,600
music on. I feel it's important for the kids. They hate my music, of course. Well, my daughter is better about 

507
00:42:07,600 --> 00:42:12,400
it than my my son, but I want them to be exposed to everything 

508
00:42:12,500 --> 00:42:17,300
that that I listen to. Because now I I look back, and I remember 

509
00:42:17,900 --> 00:42:22,900
my mom playing the Beatles and the Beach Boys and Neil Diamonds. And when I was 

510
00:42:22,900 --> 00:42:27,700
young, I was like, oh, but now I love listening to that stuff. So 

511
00:42:27,700 --> 00:42:32,500
music is a is a big part, of of me throughout the day, you know, 

512
00:42:32,500 --> 00:42:37,500
working or or otherwise. When you're working and you you wanna get something done, but you still 

513
00:42:37,500 --> 00:42:42,300
wanna enjoy some good music, what's some go tos that you that you reach for? Oh, we're going 

514
00:42:42,300 --> 00:42:46,600
deep. I like this. Like we're talking about earlier, I do a lot of, like, the Spotify 

515
00:42:47,500 --> 00:42:52,200
playlist, and it varies. I'll be honest. I I can 

516
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:56,500
listen to everything from 

517
00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:02,400
classic rock, which I love, to you know, I was in college in the 

518
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:07,300
nineties, and, like, nineties rap and hip hop was was big for me back then, big 

519
00:43:07,300 --> 00:43:12,200
influence from a lot of my roommates and really, really love listening to that. To more modern day 

520
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:16,600
stuff, I love Aviso. I love the war on drugs and bands like that. 

521
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:21,900
But, also, I listen to, like, Wham and eighties 

522
00:43:22,500 --> 00:43:27,500
rock, and I love Def Leppard and you name it, man. I it depends on my mood at 

523
00:43:27,500 --> 00:43:32,300
the end or whatever mood I wanna be in. And, I'm sort of all over the place. So like I was 

524
00:43:32,300 --> 00:43:36,900
even saying, you know, the Beach Boys or the Beatles or I love 

525
00:43:36,900 --> 00:43:41,900
it. Yeah. What about you? I go in waves. I'll I'm similar to you in a lot of that, the 

526
00:43:41,900 --> 00:43:46,700
diversity and the collectiveness and the eighties and nineties influence for me in particular. 

527
00:43:47,500 --> 00:43:52,300
I will have waves in, you know, morning motivation or, you know, kinda get 

528
00:43:52,300 --> 00:43:57,100
get going, and I will definitely reach for the nineties hip hop. Mike, 

529
00:43:57,100 --> 00:44:02,100
our CEO and good friend, recommended Nate Dog Radio to your point of letting the 

530
00:44:02,100 --> 00:44:07,000
artist kind of go and then let the algorithm pick, and it's phenomenal on Spotify. It's 

531
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:11,200
it's really, really good. And I think it reminds you of how amazing his 

532
00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:16,900
ability is in terms of, like, baseline and tracks and and creating some 

533
00:44:16,900 --> 00:44:21,900
hip hop, beats with collaborations with a number of artists which are just off the charts, 

534
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:27,000
no pun intended, and, and quite good. Yeah. And then, yeah, sometimes 

535
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:31,800
I'll do kind of the the deep focus stuff via YouTube or Spotify 

536
00:44:31,900 --> 00:44:36,600
to kind of, like, zone out and just crank out work. But those are those have been 

537
00:44:36,900 --> 00:44:41,900
some go tos, but I'll reach for all kinds of stuff across the the genre. Yeah. I love 

538
00:44:41,900 --> 00:44:46,600
The genres. It's fun. I love that, you know, Spotify helps surface new stuff 

539
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:51,400
as well, which is good. I've been using that Spotify DJ, which is their AI 

540
00:44:51,700 --> 00:44:56,700
that pulls back stuff that you listened to in the past or makes recommendations. I've 

541
00:44:56,700 --> 00:45:01,700
been so I've been if there's one element of AI, I guess, I've sort of incorporated into my 

542
00:45:01,700 --> 00:45:06,700
life, it's that that Spotify DJ. And then, you know, like I was saying 

543
00:45:06,700 --> 00:45:11,600
with the kids, it's interesting because my son is into to rap and hip hop, so I try to let 

544
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:16,500
him hear what I listen to when I was growing up. And he digs it, so there's a connection there. And That's 

545
00:45:16,500 --> 00:45:21,300
cool. My daughter got into, like, ABBA and that type of 

546
00:45:21,300 --> 00:45:26,300
stuff, which I dig also. Wow. So it's nice to sort of I think music kinda creates 

547
00:45:26,300 --> 00:45:30,700
a connection across the across the ages, and I I love it. That's an amazing, 

548
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:36,000
amazing way to say it, amazing wrap up. Adam, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks, 

549
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:40,900
man. Look forward to more great conversation, and, thank you so much for joining us. 

550
00:45:40,900 --> 00:45:44,600
Thanks for having me, Ty. This is great. Appreciate it. You bet.