Driving affiliate success through talent, strategy, and stronger partnerships

[00:00:10] Todd Crawford

Welcome back to The Partnership Economy podcast. I’m your host, Todd Crawford. We have a great conversation this week with Graeme Boase, account director at Growth HQ, a UK based affiliate marketing agency. Graeme has experienced across various roles in the affiliate world, starting off on the publisher side, then eventually moving to the brand side for one of the biggest telco brands in the UK. He spent a few years learning how each performance marketing channel operates against traditional brand channels before venturing into the agency world. Here Graeme is on a mission to give affiliate agencies a good name by delivering true incremental growth through full funnel affiliate strategies. In this episode, we’ll explore how to hire an affiliate A team, the difference in talent sourcing between the US and UK, and ways to build a successful career path in our ever evolving industry. I hope you enjoy. Okay, Graeme, well, welcome to the podcast. It’s great to have you here. We’re excited to dive into kind of the talent side of the affiliate marketing equation. But before we do that, why don’t you introduce yourself and the company you work for and the services that you guys typically provide. 

[00:01:13] Graeme Boase

Thanks a lot, Todd, very happy to be here. So I’m Graeme Boase, I’m the account director at Growth HQ. So we’re an affiliate marketing specific agency. So we service our clients, affiliate marketing channels. We are split across the UK and US. We have some US clients, we’ve got some UK clients and also some EU clients as well. So quite a good view in terms of like those differences that I’m sure we’ll talk a bit more around in today’s session. But I guess a bit more background to me, most of my experience, pretty much all my experience to be fair has been in digital marketing. Started publisher side, within affiliates and then moved brand side, still looking at affiliate marketing. Then moved into the e-comm team at one of the big telco brands in the UK for a couple of years and now I am agency side. So sort of doing that full circle with affiliate marketing and being here for the last, yeah, just over two and a half years now. 

[00:02:06] Todd Crawford

Yeah, it seems like most people I talk to, once they get into affiliate, they stick with it. 

[00:02:10] Graeme Boase

Like I said, I spent a bit of time in the e-comm team, but I don’t know, something about affiliates, maybe because I started off there as well, but, you know, just very dynamic in terms of what you do in a typical day to day, which was such a big appeal. You know, it was a great experience, obviously, going into the e-comm team, seeing what other channels are doing, how it all like relates to affiliates. But at the end of the day, it’s definitely what I love doing. So, yeah, quite happy to be back and sort of specializing in this specific channel, and also just seeing, I mean, you’ll know better than me, Todd, but just how much has changed in the affiliate channel even since I started within it. So yeah, very exciting place to be. 

[00:02:46] Todd Crawford

Yeah, it’s definitely in kind of a phase right now or where a lot of moving parts are involved and a lot opportunities for growth and diversification which everybody loves. So yeah, that’s exciting. So let’s dive in. I think probably what most people, the thing that always gets people interested is kind of just the salary ranges that you see between mainly the UK and US obviously. Europe, I think, is more aligned with the UK, so kind of paint with broad strokes there. But you know, obviously you guys are hiring experienced affiliate managers and probably to a certain extent even some newer people and training them in. What’s kind of the salary ranges that you’re seeing over there? 

[00:03:34] Graeme Boase

Definitely see that sort of on par essentially UK into EU, but definitely where we see the big difference is when we’re comparing to the US. So like I said, we sort of service clients across all these territories, so we see this very tangibly. On the US side, there is that higher premium that companies essentially investing in affiliates full stop, whether that’s the team, whether that is budget into affiliates, there’s definitely that higher propensity that I’ve seen in the US to see it as a bit more of that solid channel in like your digital mix, that channel that should be part of every company’s sort of e-commerce approach. And that’s reflected in the salaries from what we see. Obviously tied into what’s ultimately that role that affiliates are playing for a company, that will a lot of the time dictate, obviously, what salary they can pay. And what we’re seeing in the US, maybe it’s a few years ahead of what the UK and EU is doing in the affiliate side, but it’s definitely, I guess, measure at a higher rate. Than what we’d see in the UK or EU, sorry. 

[00:04:32] Todd Crawford

You know, obviously North America is a bigger, you know, the, the e-comm sales, the consumer base is so much larger. And I always wonder if like, you know, since it’s, you know, if you take a typical UK e-commerce company in a typical US a U S brand can definitely drive more revenue overall, just because they have a much larger customer base to to access, potentially that kind of is proportionate maybe to the, to the salary. Cause, and you can do a search on Google and there’s plenty of sites out there like Glassdoor that kind put out the range, and I don’t think I was surprised to see the range in the US.Being from at the bottom end 56k a year to 107k is kind of the range there. Obviously there’s exceptions and things, but this is mainly for an affiliate manager, which is kind a broad role because you could be the whole affiliate team and be the affiliate manager, or you could be part of a team. It’s just, to me, was interesting to see that, which obviously, you know, 107K translates to roughly 86K, or 86 pounds, right, so 86,000 pounds, whereas in the UK, that band is 35,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds, which 50,00 pounds for us in the US is around 62,000 dollars. So kind of still at the lower band of the US. Of course, like I said, there’s exceptions. 

[00:06:13] Graeme Boase

It’s very telling isn’t it, I mean how big that difference is. I suppose there’s probably like a couple reasons for it as well like I said you know it probably is safe to assume the US in terms of like you said before you know the budget size you know that’s obviously going to take a certain skill level to be able to manage budgets of that size but also I mean in terms of like demand as well if you know affiliates is much more established than somewhere like the US the demand is going to be there for affiliate specific experience and you know very specific people. I think what’s definitely interesting of what we’re seeing in the UK and also the EU, obviously being agency side, right, that role that we play can a lot of the time just be introducing affiliates to a company, selling the affiliate channel as a whole, not just our specialties, but affiliates as a home. I think was interesting is how this can work with some brands as they invest in an agency to begin with, get things going and then bring that in-house. What I think is interesting is that it’s definitely not that straightforward in the UK and the EU to find that affiliate person now. And we’ve had a couple of clients, very, very recently as well, I’m talking the last couple of months, that are wanting to look at that, sort of bringing it in-house. They want to do it, say, next month. Next month arrives, they don’t have anyone. And then it’s like, okay, so then we have to keep servicing this for a bit. But it’s just, there’s not necessarily that, yeah, I guess that resource pool in the UK and the EU yet. But what I would guess could happen is, now that demand is definitely growing for sure, especially more and more as affiliates get improved as a solid digital marketing channel, that demand will be there. So then obviously salaries should increase off the back of that. Whereas from my experience, working with US brands, it’s not been that sort of as tough, I suppose, getting that affiliate specific person in. 

[00:07:56] Todd Crawford

One thing I’ve always admired about the UK affiliate industry is how tight-knit it is. Your history in this space kind of illustrated that. People in the UK have worked brand side, have worked network side, have worked publisher side, have worked agency side. At one point, almost everybody’s path has crossed, whether that’s professionally or semi-professionally through some social events at a pub or something or an industry event. So, it’s interesting that, well, that’s what I’ve always loved about the industry is that it’s so tight knit and so concentrated, obviously, in London. I mean, not that people aren’t all throughout the UK, but I’ve also admired that because it’s easy to know everyone, which you’d think would make it very easy to find and hire the right people. So it sounds like, you know, there’s a demand that is outstripping the supply right now. 

[00:09:03] Graeme Boase

It is a bit of a running joke. It must be similar in the US, but maybe it’s more so in the UK, but when you go to these yearly events or some of those big network events that impact put on as well, but it is a running bit of joke that you always see the same people. A lot of the time you have the exact same conversations with the exact people, and I guess there’s a bit of a charm in that, but I guess that could illustrate why companies struggle to find these affiliate people because you’ve got people that are trying to source this talent that aren’t necessarily connected with those circles, because if you’re seeing the same people at each of these events, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s like a lot of growth happening with the people that are there. Obviously that’s definitely happening now, no doubt about it, but I guess that can be an obstacle, right? How do you understand who’s in that network if you are not in there yourself? So I guess for us, we don’t necessarily struggle in that sense. We’ve hired people from the industry, but we’ve also hired people that’re completely fresh into the Introduced them to the affiliates and I can pretty confidently say the majority of people that we’ve had work at our agency then go on to new opportunities has stuck with affiliates which is really interesting, not from an affiliate background, come and learn the affiliates sort of roadmap or learn the affiliate game with us and then go onto do affiliates with another company. So it stays very much within the affiliate family once you’re in but potentially that could be a bit of a blocker to actually understanding who’s it in here if you yourself aren’t. 

[00:10:28] Todd Crawford

The nice part about affiliate marketing compared to the other marketing channels is that you are dealing with real people, whether especially if you’re an agency, you’re dealing with your client and their team, you are dealing the partnership side, the affiliates, the creators. It’s more dynamic where doing programmatic and paid search, you literally don’t have to talk to anyone. I mean, you get your budget, and you spend it wisely and you measure it and you report in to your manager, and you’re not talking to Google or anybody. Even if you are having a conversation with your Google rep, it’s certainly not about the partnerships, or there’s no real conversation there. It’s just more, you know, we wish you’d spend more money with us, and here’s a new feature you can toggle on. 

[00:11:16] Graeme Boase

Hundred percent. And that theme, like I mean the value of the relationship, it counts for so much in affiliates. That can be the difference in terms of three months. It might take to onboard with a new publisher say, if you don’t know someone there. If you do know someone, it could be a week. I don’t think that’s the case across the other channels. That’s obviously why I love affiliates as well, because you have a relationship with someone within the affiliate sphere. And you don’t know when you’re gonna have to knock that, pick that relationship back up. So there’s always that incentive to really deliver well, create those strong relationships, because the amount of times you’ll tap back into them without really realizing is, it happens so often, it happens often. So again, I mean, I think in terms of when you look into hire someone in affiliates, the size of the network, who they know in the industry, it can count for so much, way more than say a more sort of, fundamental skill of data analysis, obviously it’s important. But when we’re servicing a client, what’s going to make the difference is if we can do something in a week rather than doing something in three months. And that a lot of the time does just come purely off who you know. 

[00:12:20] Todd Crawford

Yeah, and I think an agency is definitely an advantage because you might be, have brought two other opportunities to that partner, two other client opportunities, and now you’re coming with a third, you kind of create that mind share with your point of contact there. And like you said, you can get things done quicker and oftentimes more efficiently, right, which is really what the brand is looking for and being a brand kind of on your own. If you’re a large brand, of course, you know, you can get your foot in any door, most likely, but once you start getting below a certain level, it can be just that no matter how great the partnership is with a specific affiliate, you’re still going to not be material to their book of business, especially maybe that contact. You know, they might have 25, 50 brands that they’re working with any given day or month so. That’s one of the challenges. But if you are a mid-size brand and you’re at an agency, you’ve got that leverage that you can say, look, I can bring you this deal, but I need you to also work on this deal as well, right? 

[00:13:30] Graeme Boase

Definitely. But I think that’s what’s great about it, isn’t it? You know, it’s quite a sort of old school thing. But if you get on with someone, they’re more likely to do business with you, you know, and I think, that’s shown in affiliates much more so than any of the other marketing channels of like, how far that can get you, how much value we can deliver for a client, say. But just also in your own career, getting on with people is kind of half the game a lot of the time. And like them recognizing you not just as a you know, as the affiliate manager of this brand is actually recognizing you as who you are. And then that will be transferable across, you know whatever role you’re in or whatever brand you’re working with. It will go beyond what you’re just servicing with that specific brand or that specific role, which I think is really exciting, right? It incentivizes the right type of behaviors and the right time of productivity as well. 

[00:14:19] Todd Crawford

Yeah, so let’s talk a little bit about kind of the ideal skill sets that an affiliate manager should have that could potentially get them at the upper band of the salary range as well, but obviously make them a great performer and really a key player on a team. 

[00:14:36] Graeme Boase

When we’re looking at what experience does someone have to be able to service the role, obviously for more of the entry level jobs, affiliate experience is fairly unrealistic, right? So the main thing that I’ve realized over a career of sort of being part of the hiring process and seeing how people get on when they come into a role, like an affiliate role, like an affiliates sort of exec, manager role, it’s just how you deal with people, right. Like we were saying before, how is your relationship with people but also understanding people. And I think the big thing that I look for in a CV is not necessarily your your business experience but can a lot of time be something like hospitality experience, you know, like being able to manage a whole bunch of different people what are their specific requirements versus the other table that’s over there when things go inevitably will go wrong, how do you deal with that how do you come out the other side of that with everyone kind of happy you know you adapt so many different skills within that sort of environment which. Will do you really well in affiliates, like I said, being able to react, being able to adapt, it’s a massive part of it. But obviously, you know, it is a performance marketing channel so the data side is key as well. If you don’t understand the data then there’s not really much you can be doing in terms of really being able optimize to what’s working or pivot your strategy away, because it all comes back to the data-side. So having that data side, massively important, vital to be able to stand the sort of KPIs. But then, you know, at the same time, actually having that creative mind now influencers starting to come more and more into the affiliate space, you know, why does this piece of content work better than that piece of content? And I think for me, right, when I was brand side, for some, for, you know, a brand that the affiliate channel is still relatively new, your stakeholder management side is key, absolutely vital, the education side of what is it you’re trying to do? What does that mean for the business? What does it mean for other channels? You know, that’s, again, not necessarily something you’d have to know as a paid search manager, but it’s a key part of the affiliate role was actually educating everyone else that’s there of like, yeah, this is a good idea, this is why we should do it, this is some of the risks. So even just like in the initial view, there’s a ton of different attributes that you need to be able to finesse all just within the category of like account manager or affiliate manager. It goes over so many different at a skill set. 

[00:16:57] Todd Crawford

We talk about relationship management with affiliate, with the partners, but it’s also being, like you said, relationship management internally. You really need to develop those partnerships internally and be able to manage expectations, which is one of the things I hear quite a bit. You go into launching something or you kind of outline, present a new strategy. You get more budget and then you go and execute and maybe you have to kind of change expectations, that it didn’t go as well, or it’s going better than we thought, and you need to kind of be very flexible and able to roll with the punches, as they say, because, you know, best laid plans don’t always go as expected. So if you aren’t hitting the numbers, it’s better to get ahead of it sooner, versus kind of dreading it and putting it off. But I think that the data side too, like you said, the smartest people, I’ve seen in this space are so good with data, and not just pulling data and making a report that, you know, you have to send in to your boss so that everybody has all their data, but it’s the analysis. It’s really, it’s like looking for needles in haystack, you got to slice and dice data to kind of get these unique perspectives and go, Oh, I didn’t realize it until I looked at it from this angle. I was always looking at it straight on, right? 

[00:18:26] Graeme Boase

I think there’s a really good point as well. When we’re thinking about servicing any sort of affiliate channel, you’ll have something that you’re tracking in the network, which in itself, understanding how the network works, understanding pulling reports and what those KPIs mean, that’s one thing. But then a lot of the time with the clients that we service, you’ve got two different data sources. One might be their source of truth, like their internally attribute numbers, but you’ve gotta do this balancing out between what’s actually happening in the what’s happening in terms of what they’re seeing, what the client is seeing on their side. What’s being entirely attributed and then matching these up together to actually give you those proper conclusions of, okay, this is something that’s working, this something that isn’t. But all the steps to get to that point can be quite complicated and that’s a very regular occurrence, right? There’s something you have to do every day, match up these data sources and find those conclusions. 

[00:19:14] Todd Crawford

Yeah, and I think sometimes when you’re analyzing this data and you get nice and granular, you start to understand maybe how two seemingly similar partners or affiliates maybe shouldn’t be compensated the same way. Maybe the value that they’re driving, one is worth four percent and the other is worth worth percent, or, you know, and that is a nuance too that I think is a vital skillset that, you now, either you have already or you should try to learn because, you know, yes, I want to partner. Yes, I them to promote my brand and I want them to be, do well, but I also don’t want to overpay them or underpay them because that puts the partnership at risk. And that that’s the whole art in itself there as well. 

[00:20:02] Graeme Boase

For me, the data side is the bit that I love as well. Obviously the people side is great, but I’ve always gone towards the data-side because for me that’s just, it’s great when you can take emotion out of something. If you go, okay, we disagree on this, but this is what the data says, so we can’t argue with this, that’s our next step. I think there’s something really good about that and without those sort of insights, if you don’t understand why something worked, why something didn’t, or is this the right thing to do. It could kill your confidence. And you’ve seen that a lot with some new joiners. There’s obviously quite a sort of, I guess, apprehensive approach to maybe a negotiation with a publisher or trying to sell something into a client. But bringing that all back to the data side, that’s where you can have real confidence and say, no, this is black and white. It says this is the right thing to do. I think that does a lot, like I said, on the confidence side, but just really being able to base things on data as such a superpower to take a lot of emotion out of it I don’t see. You know, potentially get a lot of decisions much more efficiently, but you need to be able to understand it to be able to get to that point. So it’s all pretty closely linked. 

[00:21:08] Todd Crawford

Having a conversation with a publisher and you’re saying, look, I need to move you from eight percent to four percent. That’s not a fun conversation to have. Many affiliate managers probably dread it, but again, if it’s data driven, if you’re saying this is what we value and we would love to keep paying you eight, but you would need to do this, right? And we have, we’re waiting for that data to show that. So it’s not like you’re doing it just because, you know, it’s, it, there is some data behind it. But there’s an opportunity, like, look, this is what we value. And we want to see if you can drive that value. And if you, can we’re happy to pay for it. And I think that that’s really where data kind of helps you do things that aren’t maybe as fun or you’re not as comfortable having those conversations. 

[00:21:57] Graeme Boase

It’s funny that flow, isn’t it, because you kind of start on that data side, understand the data side, get your conclusions and like you said then you’ve got that situation where you have to get whoever you’re talking to, right, the client, the brand, the senior stakeholders, the c-suite or publishers on board with your way of thinking. So the data can say anything it wants but how are you going to get them on board without way of think, how are you going express your point in a way which means that people are going to agree with you and align with it, and that in itself is a skill. I remember in my first role, the CEO at the time he said that affiliate marketing is essentially selling. You’re always selling at every part of it, whether it’s selling to get investment in affiliates, whether its selling on a specific publisher campaign that you’re selling into the brand, or like you were saying there, if you’re trying to sell into a publisher actually commission is going to have to decrease because of this. Getting that, getting the stakeholders into your way of thinking, getting them to agree with what you’re saying. That skill in itself in terms of how you deliver that and how you sort of map that out to make it quite a straightforward decision for them. So it’s all having skills across a whole bunch of different aspects and that’s why we’re looking at what that average salary is for an affiliate person versus potentially some of those other marketing channels. There’s so much more that has to happen within that affiliate role. So, you know, it’s that whole supply and demand thing is kind of telling of that. 

[00:23:26] Todd Crawford

Yeah, I think obviously, talent costs money and the best talent can move the needle. And so that’s the other risk I think a lot of brands take is I think an agency or a network hiring a junior person. One is you’ve got enough senior people covering for them, that they can learn under them and become a valuable asset to the team. Far back as 2000, I mean, we were hiring waiters and waitresses in our town. They would come because they heard, they heard great things and they wanted to, to, to work for, you know, an internet company that was doing something fun. They knew nothing about affiliate marketing. And today some of those people are vice presidents of very large companies or, and even CEOs, and this is both in the U S and UK. So I had a great experience, you know, just seeing these people come in fresh out, fresh face, out of college and, and, you know, totally grew their career out of this. And I do think it’s because of the, how dynamic it is and varied and every day is different. And and, you know, the whole slicing and dicing and negotiating, and it’s just more fun and interesting to me than, you know, changing your bids and changing your budget and changing your goals and you know, twisting a few knobs and pulling a few levers and then running a report the next day. 

[00:25:00] Graeme Boase

I mean such a similar experience with this as well, and I think he’s talking about that sort of hospitality side, you know the key thing you have to be able to do as a waitress or as a waiter is spinning all those different plates at once right and then meeting expectations which can a lot of the time be quite you know quite high expectations and constant right quite time-pressured. I think anyone in affiliates is used to that sort of way of working now, right. You know, a lot the time you are that underdog in a very mature marketing mix where you’re trying to shout about what’s great about affiliates, but you are battling against why would we give you budget over all these different channels that are already proven. So there’s quite a sort of charm in being that underdog. And I suppose, as well as the spinning plates, what we definitely see, and I’m sure you agree with this, but it’s just the resource that affiliate teams will get is nothing compared to what these other channels get. Obviously, because we’re still arguably in a bit of an infancy stage with it, still trying to prove this to a lot of different brands. So you have to be able to do everything within a channel, whereas in your paid search team, you’ll have someone that does the data analysis side potentially, or the client management side, whatever it is. You’ll have a lot more of resource within that team, whereas the affiliate person has to be able to deal with all of this themselves, and fighting against probably company expectations and budget getting taken away from you. So it’s fairly high pressure, whichever role you facilitate within affiliates, because you’re always ultimately that underdog, you’re almost trying to sell in what’s good about it, whereas other channels don’t necessarily have that same requirement or that same obstacle in their day-to-day work. 

[00:26:34] Speaker 3

If you’re enjoying this podcast, we’d love to see you at Impact.com’s Partnership Experience in Austin, Texas from June 9th through 11th. Join us for three days of partnership innovation, including future-focused keynotes, panels, and workshops, tons of opportunities to network and book meetings with publishers, brands, and more, a welcome reception at Bangers on Historic Rainey Street, and IPX Fest. A festival style party filled with all things Texas hospitality. To secure your ticket and a $150 discount, check out the episode description or go to events.impact.com/IPXAustin and enter code podcast. Finally, if you’re interested in sponsorship opportunities, please email events at impact.com. Now back to the show. 

[00:27:27] Todd Crawford

Knowing your data as well as you can, and being able to see it, slice and dice it from multiple perspectives, not only helps you do your job, but it helps you to defend the channel if you have management or anybody kind of questioning it. But conversely, it also helps you champion it internally, because you have great data and you can clearly show opportunities. And I think optimization is, is something that’s always ongoing with your partners, whether it’s shifting commissions or getting more placements or, you know, finding new partners, things like that, and having, you know, not only documenting that, but having that as part of your data set. So you can show this is what we’ve done month to month, quarter to quarter, year over year, the changes we’ve made and what actually happened because of those changes. To me, that’s where you, you, can feel very confident in your channel and that you’re not at risk because you know it inside and out, you, you can clearly show all of the activities and the opportunities and the, and the changes in growth. And then when somebody does question it, you know, you’ve got the answers and you understand the data and you’re not scrambling. So even if you do have analysts, which a lot, some marketing teams will have somebody that pulls all the data together and makes it easy for everybody look at it once, but don’t get kind of hooked on an analyst doing all the data, and you’re just kind of, you know, talking to people and doing your job, because it really leaves a blind spot. 

[00:29:05] Graeme Boase

I had quite an interesting experience with that, right? I remember when I was brand-side, because I completely agree, right, when you’ve got that hands-on approach to data, actually looking at something every day, and maybe it takes half an hour, an hour to update your trackers, but it means for an hour or half an hour every day you’re looking at the day, you’re understanding what’s happening this day versus yesterday versus the day before. On brand- side, we’re moving more and more to automation, right, which is great, don’t get me wrong, obviously it’s gonna keep efficiencies thriving, all that sort of good stuff. But more and more I was trying to like ring fence, no, actually, I really quite enjoyed this part of the job of manually updating these reports because then I feel, it’s like what you say, I feel I know exactly what’s happened today versus yesterday versus the day before. But when you get that report that just kind of gets automatically sent to you, you kind of want to solve it, but you don’t really understanding the whys and the real specifics behind it, which is ultimately where all the learnings are, right? And where you get all your confidence in terms of this is what happened, this isn’t what happened. More and more as that automation has come in, I mean, I probably sound a bit, you know, I guess old school with that because I had this exact sort of, you’re in conversation with the brand side, I was like, no, I want to keep doing this. It’s like, but you don’t have to, you can move other things. But for me, having that data start of the day of an hour, half an hour at the start updating your trackers is great because you get that sort of confidence throughout the rest of the today. And for any sort of I guess obstacles or questions you get across the company or from a client, you’ve got that sort of that information to really be able to manage anything that comes your way. So I guess it’s a slightly separate point, but I think that it’s such a, it’s like what you say, if you don’t have that resource dedicated to analytics, you’ve got that yourself. It’s definitely a superpower that you can create of actually knowing it inside out more so than anyone else that would be servicing the same type of role that you are. 

[00:30:50] Todd Crawford

And being skilled at things like Excel or whether you’re using Google Sheets, but the ability to create good data from all the data that you’re sitting on and affiliate sits on a ton of data, that is also key because when you’re presenting to your VP or your CMO or even a CEO, the quality of your spreadsheets and the data that you’re showing really shines through and kind of shows the value of yourself, right? So it doesn’t take a lot to be good at Excel. I think some people get intimidated by it, but it’s not like you need to be able to do rocket science with it. You just need to create good pivot tables and good layouts and manipulate the data a way that makes sense and is easy for people to consume. 

[00:31:45] Graeme Boase

Exactly that because what insights can you get from it if you know a certain data set is saying something, another one saying something different, what are your conclusions going to be? That’s why you know it’s great working with Excel but it’s funny isn’t it, you don’t actually need to know that much within it so it’s funnier that you mentioned that because we have that conversation quite a lot. I mean maybe I’m wrong right, maybe everyone does need to go on an Excel course but I do feel like those fundamental things that we need to tell stakeholders is not necessarily understanding everything that a data scientist will need to about Excel. 

[00:32:13] Todd Crawford

Again, back in the early 2000s, I was actually a UK employee and she was like kind of fresh out of college and she a whiz at Excel. It was like we were all cavemen, and she had a cigarette lighter and was lighting fires. Everybody can get the data into a tab and maybe it all kind of is similar, but there is a nuance there. And and one of the things that I always tell our team internally you know, less is more. If I’m building a spreadsheet, I see a lot of people, they want all the data. Like you got to scroll way to the right to see other columns. Whereas look, that’s what tabs are for, but trying to put more data in there, what it does is it distracts people from the thing you’re trying to point out. So you can have all the day in one tab, and then you can bits and pieces that are trying to show one or two things at most. I think that’s important, too, because then whoever’s looking at it is not distracted by, it’s like having a PowerPoint slide and the one slide is just all text, top to bottom, all bullet points. It’s too much to consume on one slide. 

[00:33:29] Graeme Boase

Nothing more frustrating is there when you feel like you’ve got this great point that you’re delivering, you know, oh, our CPA is 50 percent more efficient than it was last year. And the question is, why did sales drop on that month? You know, it’s like, well, that’s not really the point of what I was trying to get across here. So it’s a skill in itself, isn’t it? Like, find out what that key data is that you’re actually going to want to bring attention to. Absolutely, that whole less is more. It’s definitely the approach that we’re always trying to like take. I think it’s interesting, right, going back to like overall what’s that sort of those roles that an affiliate manager will play. I guess it is a little bit like this with this Excel example, is having that sort of understanding to a degree of understanding what do I need to get from this to help me with my role, not necessarily being that expert in it or understanding every in and out of what goes on behind Excel, but it’s kind of like that across all the different skills in terms of the people management side, yeah, it’s a factor of affiliates, but it is not the whole thing, so you can’t be spending all your time on that. You’re not gonna be able to survive just on that attribute. All these different things that it’s just you have to have that base level understanding, understand what you need from it and then be able to service that across all these different skill sets which is quite exciting, right. I mean that’s that’s it’s quite a cool thing really. 

[00:34:40] Todd Crawford

Yeah, I think it’s a lot of it is time management skills as well because there’s so many aspects to managing this channel. Doing the analysis, which partners am I going to talk to today, this week? What am I gonna talk to them about? What’s the outcome I’m looking for from this conversation, I think is a very good mindset to have, right? And then, how much time I’m gonna spend on recruiting new partners and getting them active. There’s a lot of time management issues here, and you can just get stuck in looking at data for a whole day, or you can get stuck at being on calls all day with partners, right? But to feel like you’re hitting your goal, you’ve got to kind of work backwards from that and turn that into, you know, what do I need to do with each partner? How many new partners do I needs? You know, what’s gonna kind of hit my numbers? And the other objectives of the program, maybe it’s diversify certain, you now, top-heavy programs, create some more, you know, entail partners, whatever, right. 

[00:35:48] Graeme Boase

I think we see that a lot, being agency side, we’re all constantly getting measured. I guess anyone who’s in the affiliate role is in the same game I suppose. But being agency side is even more so, you’re measured on your impact more so than how well you know the data or any of these other points, so you have to be delivering that impact every week, every month against those targets, or they’ll work with someone else, or bring it in-house, that’s always the battle that we’re fighting. So for someone to come into the agency they have to Impact-driven, you know, it has to be, even if you’ve got 10 things in your list you want to do on an account, what’s that one thing that’s actually going to make a difference for it? And it’s focusing all your time on that. Being able to understand what that priority is, where you’re going to get the biggest impact, obviously comes from a lot of this data side, from the people side, everything like that, but actually having like the awareness and like the capability to be like, this is the one thing, delivering that, that’s, it’s so key, it so key being able to have, actually be able to show those results every time rather than spending all your time. Analyzing something to death and being like actually we haven’t impacted anything, you know, nothing’s changed since I did this 

[00:36:53] Todd Crawford

Yeah, you got to be careful that you’re not just running around doing work, that you actually, like I said, focus on the goals. You’ve deconstructed it, worked it backwards, down to maybe your top five or top 10 partners. I need them to grow by this much, top 25 partners by this. I need to always bring in X number of new active partners quarterly, setting these kind of realistic goals that you can hit time in and time again that make the difference, because I think it’s easy to focus on your top partners and just get stuck there. 

[00:37:30] Graeme Boase

And all of a sudden, we see that a lot in terms of if we’re on board and say a new client, you’ve got that low hiring fruit that we can instantly go to, cash back sites, some coupon sites, employee benefit sites, and as some great volume comes in straight away, everyone’s quite happy. But then all of the sudden, if you’re a couple of months in, that volume drops and you’re like, okay, but what can we actually do about this? Yeah, fair enough, you can increase your commission, you could maybe do a paid package within these cash back site. So by the end of the day, you’re kind of drying up that funnel without much control over what else is gonna happen. So then suddenly that’s why we have, you know, at Growth HQ is a real focus on these like full funnel strategies, you know, tapping into content, influencers, review sites, because you just find that’s a much more scalable and almost like controllable, like vertical to implement for like an affiliate strategy, actually having some say of, if we do this content piece with a media house, this is gonna drive sales in this period. Whereas I feel like, you know if you’re going down that sort of route with like the cashback and coupon. Great to begin with but how much control do you really have over actually accentuating if you come into a seasonal peak for a client that’s not that you know a traditional peak say an affiliates like Q4. And it’s a really interesting thing it’s something that’s yeah the more control you can get over that the better right and the better is for our clients of course but yeah it kind of takes having that willingness to test over it. 

[00:38:49] Todd Crawford

Yeah, I think most brands at some point start to say, hey, we want to see more diversification. We don’t want to be relying on this type of partner or that type of a partner for 50 percent or whatever the number is, 80 percent of the revenue. And that’s fair, right? I mean, it’s the same with anything. You don’t to be reliant. You want to have all your eggs in one basket. So inevitably, the low-hanging fruit is great and easy to implement. But it’s what I call the high-hanging fruit. Is where the real work is. I see that an agency brings to the table is that there, you know, you have all this talent, like you said, and behind the scenes at any given time, you know there could be two or three or four people working on your program. So, you might not be all the time, but you know it could be certain initiatives, hey, we’re gonna go out and do a big recruitment push, boom, we’ve got two people that do that, and you don’t really know all the work that’s being done, obviously, that gets presented usually to the client later. But my point is that you really don’t have that kind of those kind of resources typically internally. Like I am always surprised at some of the largest programs and that are in-house and how big those teams are. 

[00:40:04] Graeme Boase

It’s a really interesting comparison when you look at exactly what you’re saying there, that appreciation for what we were talking about before, who’s in your network, and obviously as an agency that’s kind of what we have to be good at, that’s what we have to bring to the table is that we know the right points of contact, we can leverage maybe other clients what they’re doing on a certain publisher to squeeze you guys in to maybe avoid a set up fee or whatever it is. But I think in the US there’s a much better appreciation for all that. All the work that goes on, you know, to facilitate those sort of partnerships, because, you know, we’re thinking about how what our role is with US brands, there’s a much more sort of autonomy that happens with US clients that we service, right? There’s a lot more sort of them. I guess appreciation for agencies that they are the specialists will kind of leave them to it and then obviously measure them very harshly in terms of, you know, targets, did you hit that? You know, of course. But there’s much more trust in terms what of what we’re doing. And then on the UK side, it’s just it’s not necessarily like that. You know they typically they’ll start say with someone in-house, get agency support to try and help them, but constantly try to drive down costs, you’re understanding what where specifically is this resource going. Whereas on the US side, it’s much more. If we want to launch affiliates, we’re going to bring agency services in to sort of launch the program, get everything running, potentially service for a couple of years, and then the in-house person comes after, so they kind of appreciate that level of expertise that does come with an agency. Whereas on the UK side, it’s not all the time, but it’s definitely a difference that we notice in terms of how we serve as US clients versus UK clients, but also how that relationship is with our points of contact at brands as well. 

[00:41:47] Todd Crawford

We don’t provide managed services as a company on the affiliate side, but we’ve partnered very closely with agencies, of course, and that’s intentional because we feel like, I mean, look, I can tell, I see that the programs that are managed by agencies, most of my perspective is in the US, but what I always say is they’re co-managed. They have somebody internally, obviously, responsible for the channel. And they’re working very closely with the agency. And there’s back and forth. And in some cases, there’s a team internally and an agency team. That’s how big the program is. Because nobody would, at the retailer, would hire the number of resources internally. They just would never allow that in their budget, but they can work with an agency. And to me, those are always, I mean, almost without exception, the best managed programs, most successful programs when they’re It’s that co-manage versus here you go, have my affiliate program. 

[00:42:50] Graeme Boase

I guess it is a bit of a cliche, right? Because before a work agency side, there’s always those sort of cliches that agencies will use. And one of them is, we’re an extension of your team. But genuinely, that is a cornerstone of what we do. We really want to feel, or the client, to feel that we are their affiliate team. And why we want to do that is not to say that on our website and be like, oh, yeah, we’ll be an extension your team. It’s generally because that’s the most productive type of partnership, right. And it’s much more on like when things haven’t gone well, rather than when things go well. You know, you have to have that transparency with any brand that you’re working with around, we did try this, we thought it was going to do this, but it didn’t actually work. So we’re going to pivot away from this and do whatever. But that only comes when you feel like each other can trust, you know, you can trust the other person that you are working with and ultimately that they genuinely feel that you trying to service their channel for their, you know for their brand, that you actually a brand advocate. And it’s 100 percent where the best challenge that we’ve served is, and the most growth that we have implemented, is where it’s that type of relationship where you can be very transparent with each other. Because it’s an efficiency thing, isn’t it? You don’t spend tons of time trying to sugarcoat something and write, oh, this did actually work in this way. It’s like, no, this didn’t work, and we were wrong about that, but let’s crack on with the next thing. It saves so much time. 

[00:44:11] Todd Crawford

Yeah, I think making excuses or being less than transparent is not good for a long-term relationship and the best agencies, the best people, I mean, they admit, you know, those are our expectations. That’s kind of like I was talking about managing up, you know, we had a plan, we executed, it didn’t go as planned, here’s why, and now we know and we’re pivoting to this and we think this will work now, right, based on what we learned, you know. And that’s all it is, it’s learning, you know, over and over and over again. 

[00:44:39] Graeme Boase

Definitely. It probably goes a bit back into what we’re talking about in terms of the people side of affiliates. That’s where transparency comes from. Like I say, your client doesn’t see you as the affiliate manager for this agency. They just see you as Graeme. You’ve got that personal side to the partnership, to the relationship, because it just means that transparency will be there and no one feels like they have to pretend it’s something else. It’s just a very productive working relationship then. And absolutely, like you said, that sets you up for much better long-term success where you can work together for years rather than constantly trying to figure out, are you telling the truth? Are you doing this? Are doing that? You have to have that trust as part of the partnership, otherwise time’s wasted but mostly it’s not very healthy, right? You’re not going to get the same results if you don’t have that level of trust that you can build with a client or that they’ve got in you or in us as an agency. 

[00:45:35] Todd Crawford

And the same thing with the internal resources. You know, when you’re transparent, when you have good data, when you good communication skills, you can explain to your boss and your boss’s boss what they need explaining. You can admit when you’re wrong or you made a mistake and you’ve learned from it. To me, those are the skills that are way more valuable, and definitely lead to promotions because people that are smart admit when they’re wrong, and they understand what works and what doesn’t and if they’re able to articulate that, and show it in the data and saying, because of that, we’re doing this now. It’s really what I think most people look for in an employee is, and likewise, if I hire an agency, I don’t need an agency always kind of sugarcoat or have an excuse for everything. It gets old, right? Just be honest and transparent and move on from there. And the learnings are great. And when things get fixed and they’re back on track, everybody’s happy. 

[00:46:44] Graeme Boase

Exactly. It’s absolutely something that we look for hiring the agency, but also like, you know, when we’re talking to a potential brand that we might want to, you know, they might want a launch with us, they want to launch their affiliate channel is exactly that sort of thing that we’re trying to look for as well. Right. Like is, is there a way of speaking, is their way of, you know, working and, you know, I guess like giving feedback, is that in line with how we do things, because that’s where we know it’s going to work. We’ve got tons of case studies where it hasn’t been like that, right? We’ve had those warning signs when we’re in that pitch process. I’m like, this doesn’t feel like it’s quite in line with how we kind of operate. Go ahead with it, and then nine times out of ten, that channel’s not going to work out because there’s no trust there. We’re not moving reactively, and there’s just a lot of, we find it definitely with more corporate companies. There’s a lot throwing under the bus, you know, and then everything else will get blocked. We can’t be reactive then. It’s just, everyone’s terrified to do anything because someone’s not it to happen, and then you just can’t get anything done then, you get three months in, and it’s like, we haven’t done anything, you know, because everyone’s just.

[00:47:46] Todd Crawford

No, that pointing fingers, I mean, you know, not blaming agencies, but, you know, been in this industry over 25 years. And I’ve seen where agency is pointing at the network. Network is pointing at the brand because they’re doing something wrong, you know, and they’re not agreeing, you know. It’s everybody’s, nobody is to blame that that can’t, you can’t have it. You got to, someone’s got to step up and go, even if, look, here’s what went wrong, we’re going to fix it. We know what we need to do now. We’re moving forward, you know. That’s more refreshing than anything. 

[00:48:18] Graeme Boase

It also just seems very obvious as well, right? Just having that transparent approach, obviously that’s more productive. And I think it’s always, I always find that quite odd when you come across that thing of really trying to cover your own tail and really sort of putting up these defenses around actually getting to like, okay, what’s actually happened there? Because ultimately it’s just slowing everyone down. But obviously it’s such a big part of how a lot of these companies operate. And it was a lot like that when I was brand side as well. You know, people will be making moves in their career by just pointing holes out in what other people are doing. And that’s it. Not actually delivering something that’s new or exciting or taking that risk. And I guess, you know, in affiliates especially, there is a lot of risk that you take, right? There’s a lot testing that you do, but you have to do it on the assumption that you’re going to take the learnings and move forward with it rather than, oh, you did that, that was wrong. You know, that’s it! 

[00:49:08] Todd Crawford

I mean, there’s just a lot of moving pieces in this industry, and that’s what’s kept me in it for 25 years. And I think anybody that’s considering a career here or is mid-career, I mean there’s so much opportunity, and I think we’ve outlined some great tips and kind of food for thought, especially. And depending on where you are in your career, if you’ve worked at a brand, you know, or that’s where you are moving to an agency is something really interesting. I think, if you’ve always worked in an agency, moving to a brand is can be very eye opening. 

[00:49:46] Graeme Boase

Hundred percent. It’s funny, you know, like, obviously, when moved agency side, but my experience with agencies was always pretty poor, to be honest, you know, and that was kind of a big thing of what we’re trying to do at Growth is kind of change that narrative, because I think especially in affiliate marketing, it doesn’t necessarily have a great reputation. There’s a lot of the time of what we’re battling against with, you know, pitching and things, it’s just people’s experience with agencies has never been great, but having that perspective, like you said, across those different stakeholders, that different position within affiliates or within just e-commerce or digital marketing is really helpful, and I guess that’s sort of the way that it will get better in terms of those relationships across all those different stakeholders, just having those experiences on each side of it. 

[00:50:24] Todd Crawford

Well, Graeme, we’ve covered a lot today, and I hope everybody got something out of this because there’s more to it than what’s on the surface. And I think there’s just so much opportunity in this industry and it’s constantly evolving, and that’s what keeps people in it. 

[00:50:40] Graeme Boase

Absolutely, absolutely. 

[00:50:42] Todd Crawford

It’s been great having you, and thanks again for all your contributions and we’ll talk again soon. 

[00:50:47] Graeme Boase

Thanks a lot for having me on, Todd. 

[00:50:49] Todd Crawford

Success in affiliate marketing isn’t just about strategy, it’s about people. Whether in the US, UK or globally investing in the right talent and make all the difference. Depending on how established affiliate is in your region can impact your talent pool. As Graeme mentioned in the UK, the affiliate space is still evolving and at times companies struggle to find experienced talent as recruiters aren’t as familiar with the industry. So for companies looking to scale, tapping into agencies for their network and expertise can help fill the gaps. Regardless of location, prioritizing the right mix of skills and strategic thinking is key to building a strong affiliate team. And for those starting out, focus on building both analytical and relationship management skills. Learn to advocate for affiliates’ role in the business, lean into the numbers to tell a compelling story. And don’t underestimate the power of a strong network. As demand for skilled affiliate professionals grow, those who can balance performance analysis with strategic relationship building will stand out and thrive. Thanks for listening, and I look forward to next time.