Amazon Ecosystem and Affiliate Marketing

Dustin Howes 0:46

Hey folks , welcome to Affiliate Nerd out . I'm your late nerderator . Dustin Howes Spread that good word about affiliate marketing . You're gonna find me here every Tuesday and Thursday around 12.15 Pacific time . We're now with industry legends and folks that are talking about affiliate marketing , so please consider subscribing . You can find us on any podcast format you want as well . My nerd guest today is Stephanie Robbins , a dear old friend and CEO of Robbins Interactive , and we're gonna talk about the Amazon ecosystem matching up with Affiliate Marketing . Stephanie , welcome to the Nerditorium .

Stephanie Robbins 1:32

Thanks so much for having me . I'm super excited to talk about this stuff .

Dustin Howes 1:35

Awesome . We have gone back at least 10 years , I want to say , since we've been in a group and I've always had great conversations . You have consistently had the best hair in the industry and absolutely .

Stephanie Robbins 1:55

Best hair awesome .

Dustin Howes 1:57

Always a pleasure to see at a conference . So , stephanie , I are gonna be talking to Philly . If you want to jump in that live Q&A and nerd out with us , please drop something in the chat and don't be shy . But without further ado , stephanie , who are you ?

Stephanie Robbins 2:15

Wow , that's a terrific question is to kick it off ? That's awesome . So , mom and a wife and a business owner so I've been in digital marketing my entire career we won't talk about dates Fall in love with Affiliate Marketing over 15 years ago . I just love the relationship aspect of it and , honestly , like the ROI for the clients is just you can't beat it . You know the performance model , so I fell in love with it early on and then I just stuck with it . Met some really great people . The first conference I went to was Think Tank , so I was really spoiled .

Dustin Howes 2:55

I remember the .

Stephanie Robbins 2:56

Think Tank days where it was like at the Ritz Carlton and stuff like that , and I just met great people that were just so welcoming and I've never been in an industry where there is so much , where people really just want to like lift the industry and it's like less , not to say that it's not competitive . It's obviously gotten more competitive but people really do like to share the knowledge and , as I was initially getting into that , I was just blown away with how helpful people were and , like you , doing this type of stuff of like , really just sharing the knowledge and just wanting people to be better affiliate managers so that the industry as a whole is lifted . We've come a long way from the dark days of Affiliate Marketing .

Dustin Howes 3:36

Absolutely . I like being part of the solution and the industry is going in the right direction . We are gaining a lot of steam right now according to the billions and billions of dollars coming through the Affiliate Channel channel wide . My guest today is Stephanie Robbins . You can grab her profile . I'm going to drop a link in the chat . She's also got something to share with us a little bit later that you can find in the chat . It's a great resource for what we're going to be talking about . If you would like to be in the seat where Stephanie is and come be my guest , I am always accepting new applications to join me . Go to dustinhowes . com slash nerds and drop some information and just let me know what you want to nerd out about . So , Stephanie , tell me about Robbins Interactive . You've been doing this quite a long time , so what do you do and who are you servicing out there ?

Stephanie Robbins 4:36

So I always refer to myself as intentionally small . So I'm the only manager and then I just have support , help on top of that and I just I really love the client relationship and the affiliate relationship , so I just decided to stay small . So , in order to do that and do it efficiently , I really honed in on the health and wellness space . So that's really where I serve . I like to work with like small to medium sized businesses or small to medium sized departments of big businesses , but I can , I like when it's an affiliate program that either hasn't launched or is kind of been neglected , where I can really make an impact , and I think that's why I've always worked with startups . I think I'm a masochist that way .

Stephanie Robbins 5:21

So I just I really like it when people get excited and you kind of find that in like the smaller size companies .

Dustin Howes 5:29

I don't see that as masochistic . I don't know if that's the word . I mean , that's that's the exact place that I want to live as well . Once a company gets over 200 people , my personality and my mindset just doesn't mesh as well with doing enterprise level clients so that I stay away from them all together . You know they might have more money and but it just isn't worth the headache in my mind .

Stephanie Robbins 5:59

But I tend to move fast . You know , that's just like my personality is like I want to get it done . I want to get done . I don't want like 20 layers of approvals to get it done .

Dustin Howes 6:08

For sure . The red tape is just so annoying , and I mean the gratification of it all . Working with startups is there's so much . They need so much more help that you can provide and just makes me feel so much smarter working with startups and a lot of it's an ego booster , right .

Stephanie Robbins 6:29

And then that's fun too , because you end up especially with affiliate marketing , because it kind of touches everything and because I come from like a general marketing experience , like I don't didn't just do affiliate marketing , I love to be able to help people with like interface navigation stuff or general marketing tips , branding things of that nature . So it kind of allows me to kind of like dip into other areas as well .

Dustin Howes 6:51

Gotcha , well , I've traditionally known you to have one or two clients and like hold on to them for a very long time , and that's never how I've worked . I'm a traditional job jumper . I like getting in , providing a bunch of value early and then moving on and getting into my next challenge . So is that still the way you kind of interact with your clientele ? You're trying to do it for the long haul .

Stephanie Robbins 7:20

I get attached . So I would say overall , like my base is like long-term relationships . You know I have relationships that are , you know , 10 years plus . I have started doing some like kind of high level consulting , simply because I fill up so fast and I have a hard time . Like I'm definitely like a little bit of a people pleaser . So you know I don't like to say no to people if they need help . So a lot of times I'll do some high level consulting and then kind of , you know , as an interim , while they're hiring somebody , and then even help like train that person so they get up to speed .

Dustin Howes 7:56

Something else you mentioned is like doing this as a freelancer and not really wanting to expand into that agency life . And there's been so many agencies you know folks like Sarah Bundy and Mike Nunez like starting off on their own and then like expanding and making a huge agency and eventually , you know , settling that off and that has its appeal , of course . But I'm in the same boat of like I like being on my own island and doing my own thing . But what makes you make that decision of , hey , I'm not going to be hiring people , I'm just going to do this on my own and max my hours out where I can and still live my you know my parent life .

Stephanie Robbins 8:40

I think like it's different , different answer depending on where I was in my life . So , like when my kids were little , it was absolutely a focus of like I really just want to focus on being there for my kids . So in fact , for like the first six or seven years of my business , I was part time . I wasn't even working full time because I wanted to like max out the little human time .

Stephanie Robbins 10:09

And now I kind of played with the idea and I've had employees at different times . But you know , my husband is like this amazing manager , like amazing manager and I think in watching him I realized that's not necessarily like where my gifts are . Like I do , I love to mentor people . I love other humans , Like I love mentoring , like content affiliates or influencers or even like other people in the industry , but as far as like day to day managing is just not what lights me up .

Dustin Howes 10:40

For sure , and my wife and me are the absolute opposite , because I'm in the same boat as you . I want to be on my island and she's a great manager over doing her full time job .

Stephanie Robbins 10:51

So to each their own , and sometimes I get a little envy , as I was like , did I make the right choice ? And then I'm like you know what I did ? It was the right choice for me .

Dustin Howes 11:01

That's awesome . No regrets Like I have none . This is . You know I'm broke sometimes , but it's a fun journey . I love the challenge . I got to have it like gambling in my blood . It's just got to be there . So what about today ? I want to talk about you know Amazon Associates and leveraging the API that Amazon has , and I would love to hear about you know what all of this is , because it's hard to explain for me to explain to people . I think you're better students since you're living in this world so much . So tell us about that Amazon API .

Stephanie Robbins 11:41

You know it's so interesting because , obviously , like none of this is I'm going to say this and it's not proven , but it sure seems coincidental . So , as we know , like Shopify launch , shopify collabs and then , like right on the tail of that , amazon comes in and it's like ta-da , we're opening

Amazon's API and Affiliate Marketing

Stephanie Robbins 11:56

up the API for Amazon Associates , which is super exciting . So I think there was maybe possibly a little competition that forced their hand on that . I'll never know if that's just you know a real theory or not , but they did kind of launch pretty close together . And I just think it's so exciting because , as an affiliate manager , I feel like competing with Amazon , just like retailers .

Stephanie Robbins 12:20

I think it's feels like so difficult , right , like they want to go to Amazon because they can . You know the affiliate can get a commission on , you know , the entire cart . It's obviously got great conversion rates . You know it's got that instant gratification of like you know I can get it within a couple hours . You know it's hard to compete with that . And then , on top of that , it's like shoppers want options . So if you're an affiliate , like the more options you can give them , you know , the happier the shopper is going to be . And then Google came in and was like , hey , shoppers like options . So it kind of started to feel like , okay , I guess we just have to accept that we're going to have to , you know , dance with Amazon at the same time . But we had no control over it and we had no reporting and no transparency .

Stephanie Robbins 13:05

So Amazon opened up their API and allowed companies like Levante and Refersion , which are the first two to launch I think Refersion was the very first one to launch and then Levante was kind of like right on its tail , essentially Okay , that we're able to take that API and import it into what feels familiar to us , you know , as an affiliate network . Now Levante feels more like what we're comfortable with because they handle all the payments , they have a marketplace , which is absolutely amazing . So it's . It gives us like , not only like who our creators are , but now we can control the commission , which is a great deal for affiliates too , because everyone knows , you know , particularly during , you know , covid not that we talk about that too much anymore but like Amazon can switch the commissions in a heartbeat and really mess with an affiliate , and you know it's just not cool , right , like , as managers , we know like you don't do that , like you don't do that in Q4 . You don't do it when it's hot , but you know there was nothing an affiliate could do .

Stephanie Robbins 14:08

Well , now they're working directly with the brand . We actually have control of the commissions . We can increase the commissions , we can offer bonuses and we can see who's performing and like work closely with those , whereas before it was like we just kind of knew like , okay , here's an influencer we know they're going to have Amazon links , and then we kind of esoterically look like well , it looks like sales , you know , peaked at this point . So it was probably due to the affiliate . You know it was all very vague , but now we have the ability to like truly have those relationships and those metrics . So it's an exciting time . And then , like I always say , like it shouldn't be in replacement of your traditional affiliate program with the networks , to me it's like you're working both of them .

Dustin Howes 14:53

Absolutely , and I Amazon's like last straws with YouTubers , like dropping commissions down to 1% at one point almost fueled this need and necessity for what Lavanta is doing out there . So really impressive of the work that they're putting together and turning the tides to what Amazon's machine is doing . And just recently I think it was earlier this week I saw Amazon send me an email like hey , we're turning up your commissions 3 , 4% . How's that sound Like ? Start driving traffic Like , please .

Stephanie Robbins 15:36

Interesting . I haven't heard of that yet . And do you know that Amazon is actually giving a kickback to the sellers as well that go through Lavanta ? They actually give you 10% back of that commission , so . And you could even just say like , hey , I'm just going to do a 10% commission I mean there's some kind of restrictions to that and like literally not have to pay any commission as a brand . Most brands are obviously doing their own on top of that , gotcha .

Dustin Howes 16:06

Gotcha yeah .

Stephanie Robbins 16:07

So they're really invested in this as well , which is nice to see , because , I have to admit , when it first came out , I was like are they going to take it over ? Is this just like a test ? Like how's this all going to go ? But they definitely seem like they're in it for the long haul .

Dustin Howes 16:22

And you really don't know what they're going to do . And when you build your own product over an ecosystem that exists already and they just decide to shut that portion of it down , then you're out of a business all of a sudden and that can always be scary . That was one of the weird things over at WP Engine . If WordPress ever shut down , wp Engine is just toasts like all together .

Stephanie Robbins 16:48

Yeah , that's scary yeah .

Dustin Howes 16:50

Yeah , but luckily the business has legs and you can build your business around that part of the world .

Stephanie Robbins 16:58

Yeah , so I think Amazon shutting down anytime soon .

Dustin Howes 17:02

Yeah , we'll see . We'll see . These affiliate programs that we're building are coming to fight . So yeah , that's true , we'll see . Well , hey , we've got a nice comment in here from Bradley , bill and Barry at home in this group at the moment . I love hearing that this job can be as a freelancer long term . Brad's in the game himself right now and , stephanie , I guess you had some heartfelt sentiments there that resonated with the crowd , so that's great . Then we have Eric Nagel jumping in careful dust and that email says receipt of this email and its contents cannot be shared publicly . Oh , whoops , what email is that he just told me about ? Or I mean , maybe it does , if I received the email too . Maybe this is talking about the Amazon email that I sent out . Hopefully Alexa isn't listening to me in the other room .

Stephanie Robbins 18:04

Oh , she's always listening .

Dustin Howes 18:06

She sure is , she sure is . I always love that debate where people say she's not listening to you all the time and you just say how does she know when I say your name ? To wake up .

Stephanie Robbins 18:23

And doesn't like is it just my household ? But sometimes Alexa just like butts into our dinner conversations . Oh absolutely Wait . We didn't tell you to turn on .

Dustin Howes 18:33

For no good reason . Yeah yeah , so nosy , very nosy , all right . All right . So Amazon's there and you mentioned something about like traditional networks and working with this Amazon API on LaVonta or Creator . Tell us what this mix is ? You said you should be doing both essentially . How does that work ?

Stephanie Robbins 18:58

And I should preface this Okay , okay .

Stephanie Robbins 19:01

Obviously , if you have a consumer site that is very new and you're killing it on

Advantages of Traditional and Different Affiliate Programs

Stephanie Robbins 19:10

Amazon , then you might not be ready to do a traditional affiliate program on your consumer site . But overall , if you have a consumer site that has enough revenue and enough brand awareness to justify a traditional affiliate program , I always say , like , give your customers both options . Whereas before in the affiliate space we were just like discouraging any links to Amazon Because we lose the customer , right Like . I mean we don't like lose , lose the customer , but we don't have that direct relationship when they go through Amazon and you know the margins are tighter because Amazon takes a lot of its cut . But I think giving those options .

Stephanie Robbins 19:51

We're like still want to make the direct to consumer site like the sexiest option , but if somebody's going to go to Amazon , they're going to go to Amazon , like if they want it in their four hour time span because they don't live in , like you know , the rural area like I do , then that's what they're going to do , so you might as well give them that option .

Dustin Howes 20:13

Absolutely and maybe the biggest benefit of having both of these . Yes , you are paying out more money and commissions to that affiliate , but the lifetime value of that customer that you would have just lost to Amazon is now being captured in your email . Is that right ?

Stephanie Robbins 20:31

Well , no , Amazon never gives you the customer email , but you do have the relationship with the affiliate . So Amazon's not fully , you know , opening the kimono by any means .

Stephanie Robbins 20:40

I see you know they're not they're not giving the customer data but they are giving us the affiliate data . And then I think you know information is power . So you know , if you see , like OK , this affiliate promoted both the consumer site and the Amazon site and you know you look at the difference in the metrics , you know that's great information for a brand to have as far as where they want to be putting the rest of their advertising money in .

Stephanie Robbins 21:04

And you know , I think it's just if you can make that consumer site just a little bit sexier , like hopefully it has like different products that aren't available on Amazon . I mean , you know we're dealing with the beast that's Amazon , so you're never going to like undercut Amazon or anything like that . You know to risk that relationship . But I think there's a lot of things you can do , like gift with purchase and things of that nature to really like maybe appeal of coming over and that way you completely own the customer relationship . But in this way it's just making the customer happy . Either way , beautiful .

Dustin Howes 21:40

OK , gotcha and your names in this whole section . Lebons is coming up and getting a lot of publicity in this arena , but there are some big differences between these networks . You mentioned Fersion as well . Fersion's been in the affiliate game for a long time , but they jumped in very early with this API . So can you give us a little bit of distinction between the two of like creator connection and Avante here ?

Stephanie Robbins 22:09

So for me . So I have worked with Refersion before and it is a good network and I'm pretty sure they're the preferred choice for Amazon . They were the first ones to launch , I think , the first ones that got access to the API .

Stephanie Robbins 22:21

But don't quote me at that . I couldn't be not 100% sure on that . What I find is Refersion has dramatically scaled down their team and the Levanta team is really amazing with support and getting input from the managers as far as , like , what features we want to see , what data we want to see , and they have the marketplace , which has been a game changer . So recruiting is a little bit challenging because it's so new . So affiliates are like we have no idea what you're talking about . Like we're already an Amazon associate .

Recruiting Challenges and Shopify Collapse

Stephanie Robbins 22:55

Like why do you want us to sign up to this other network ? I mean to me I was like oh , this is going to be such a no brainer . I'm basically just offering you more money , You're already going to send it to Amazon , like now .

Stephanie Robbins 23:06

I'm just saying , like you have choices and we're going to offer you more money , but there's still like an education with it for the affiliate side , and Levanta is doing a lot of work , a lot of work , front-end work on that education , which makes our recruitment a lot easier . So they've done a great job of like bringing in really large online publishers that are really hard to crack , especially if you're working with a small to medium-sized business , and already they're already bought into the LaVonta , you know concept , which just makes recruitment so much easier Because , as you know , there are like some larger publishers that they only send traffic to Amazon , like either they're gonna send it to Amazon or they're not gonna send it to you , and you still wanna be able to work with those guys and tell them about new product launches and then send them to put you higher up on Alistica , et cetera , and LaVonta really set that up to make that easier . And they also set up where you can do flat fee bonuses and things of that nature as well .

Dustin Howes 24:05

Great , great . And so if you're making a decision on like one of the other , like what's your decision ? What's your like go-to solution right now that's your favorite , in one way or the other , I feel like it's so obvious it's LaVonta , like I'm definitely a earlier adapter with .

Stephanie Robbins 24:22

LaVonta . I talked to them before they officially launched and I was like you've gotta be kidding me . This is actually happening . Like I was so excited about it .

Dustin Howes 24:30

Oh , fantastic , and that brings up our and I thought that was version early too but yeah , I definitely have the preference of LaVonta . Fantastic and that brings up our second one , and that brings up our sponsor of the day . They are unofficial , but I thought it would be nice to have up here .

Stephanie Robbins 24:45

I didn't have a profile with the doll set . Oh no .

Dustin Howes 24:49

There's been a great mistake here as I upload this new file .

Stephanie Robbins 24:57

It doesn't even have my great hair in that picture .

Dustin Howes 24:59

I just ruined my own joke by a wrong photo . This is insane . I'm the worst . So you've been working with LaVonta for a while now and hopefully they're graciously giving you some commissions there as well to work with them .

Stephanie Robbins 25:21

Oh , I mean , it's our affiliate space , right , of course ? I'm an affiliate of LaVonta .

Dustin Howes 25:26

Beautiful , beautiful . All right , I guess I'll skip this joke today , unfortunate . Oh , there was another joke , no , it was a tattoo of LaVonta on the dolphin ? Oh , I think . And I just shot myself in the foot .

Stephanie Robbins 25:48

Well , we would have gotten in trouble with the animal rights people , so it's probably good that you didn't do it .

Dustin Howes 25:53

Most likely . Anyway , if you go to LaVontacom and use code DUSTIN20620 , whatever you're doing as a product , so give that a run and see how it works for you . Really low obligation to get with it and really high upside as well for getting in on that . And moving on next topic , like there's no segue to this , but Shopify Collapse is another topic you wanted to jump into and really want to get into . You wanted to jump into and hear what you're and how you're using it right now .

Stephanie Robbins 26:33

So Shopify Collapse has been interesting and I think when we initially started talking about because you were so booked up with GAS I was just starting to play with it . There's a lot of things I really like about Shopify Collapse . I think it is really great for , particularly for , like , startups . I love their discovery tool . Like , I don't know how much you've played with it , but their discovery tool is amazing . It's basically like having . It's not the same size as a grin or an aspire , but it's like having that type of tool already built into Shopify . It's free , which is amazing .

Stephanie Robbins 27:11

They didn't even take any commissions on it . The URLs are crazy friendly . If you really want to work with influencers , I think Shopify Collabs is a great option One . The URLs are super friendly , but also you can set it up where they essentially get them set up to send free product and stuff like that to them which is really great because , as you know , as a manager , sometimes that's the hardest part .

Stephanie Robbins 27:45

It automatically generates the coupon code , which is a big deal with influencers , because it's hard to get people to click , even with all the technology allowing us to add links . I think it's a great tool . The only negative experience I've had with Shopify Collabs is their marketplace . I have actually turned it off in all my programs . I don't think they're doing a lot of monitoring for compliance and things of that nature . As far as letting people in , I didn't have any fraud experiences , but I definitely had people posing as content affiliates and it turns out they're just putting up the coupon codes because it's coupon code-based tracking . I like it for recruiting people in smaller influencers who aren't already in all the networks and they want something that's really simple to sign up for , really simple to understand , because the link is pretty . It's not like , oh , how do I grab this ? Or go there . They make it really straightforward . I think it's a great tool , awesome , but for smaller , more like micro , medium-sized content influencers .

Dustin Howes 28:58

Okay , gotcha . That's a great way to dip your toes into the influencer space and try to get some steam in that area , especially since a lot of content influencers in that space want upfront fees . You can probably get away with some hybrid deals and some maybe even a fit straight up commissions .

Stephanie Robbins 29:19

Yeah , I think it is nice if they're existing customers , they tell you as part of the sign up you can do your own sign up questions , you can add fields . I mean there's a lot of . It's a really robust tool and pretty amazing that Shopify is offering that . And then from the billing standpoint , some of the really influencer-friendly tools like Refersion and Post-Affiliate Pro is an accounting nightmare on the back end , but with Shopify your commissions just get added to your bill .

Stephanie Robbins 29:51

Okay , excellent , so that's a nice feature for , like you know , dipping your toes in , as you said .

Dustin Howes 29:56

Excellent , and do you have to be a Shopify customer to use this platform ?

Stephanie Robbins 30:01

Oh , yeah , yeah .

Dustin Howes 30:02

Okay , that's what I thought . Okay , so Shopify specific stores that want to get into the influencer space . Go out and give it a try . Is this an add-on , like for the store ? It's an app , the thing is what they call , it right there are apps , no widgets .

Stephanie Robbins 30:19

I'm pretty sure it's app .

Dustin Howes 30:21

I don't have any clients on Shopify . I don't uh oh really . No .

Stephanie Robbins 30:26

Shopify is just like taking over the world . But you know , shopify really launched with the focus of entrepreneurs . I mean they've obviously expanded , like there's so many people on Shopify now , so many businesses on Shopify . But I think this Shopify collabs was like an extension of that , of really wanting , like small businesses , to be able to take off and not have , you know , any obstacles to their success and be able to leverage affiliate marketing .

Dustin Howes 30:53

For sure . And the Shopify thing , it's just a matter of you know to work for Vellusion . And then I had it took on BitCommerce as a client . So I tapped into those way before the Shopify and I never got . I never ran into a client , ironically enough . So that is weird yeah .

Stephanie Robbins 31:15

I'm trying to think like I have . I have a single client that isn't on Shopify .

Dustin Howes 31:19

Wow , that's funny that checkout process .

Stephanie Robbins 31:23

man , it's like Amazon , right , like they just make it so easy for customers so it increases your conversion rates .

Dustin Howes 31:29

For sure . It looks like you turned on Kristen Bigtime Evans to it . So I was talking to a client about Shopify collabs . Great timing . Thanks for chiming in . Thanks for listening . Evans Appreciate you . She's I mean , she's just the best .

Stephanie Robbins 31:45

You weren't talking about somebody supportive of the industry .

Dustin Howes 31:48

I know right she is . That's why she's a two-time guest on affiliate nerd out here , Just a great time . All right , Stephanie , where can people find you ? Where's we wrap this up ?

Stephanie Robbins 32:03

We didn't even talk about Amazon creations . We didn't Creator connections .

Dustin Howes 32:07

No we didn't Going back to it . I had a tab up , I thought we were talking about that , and then we went into a different , no , so creator connect .

Stephanie Robbins 32:14

I'm just going to go like super fast .

Dustin Howes 32:17

We don't need to go super fast . Take your time .

Stephanie Robbins 32:19

So creator connections is Amazon's own . So Lovanta is obviously like a third party working with the API . Creator connections is part of Amazon and run by Amazon . I believe it's still in beta , but my experience with my clients is , if you tell them to ask , they let you in , okay . So I don't think it's like super hard to get into .

Stephanie Robbins 32:44

All right , it is a little bit clunky , but if you're looking for Amazon lives or if you're looking for more Amazon reviews or micro influencers , it is a great tool . It is like smaller influencers . It's a completely different way to manage programs because you can't like reach out . You basically create a campaign and then people decide if they're going to apply . So it's much more like organic in that aspect , and you don't even have the ability to like reject people . So it's like you put it out there and anybody can join , but you do have the option of whether or not you're going to send product . So that's kind of like where your control is there . It's not . I don't feel like it's for me yet . I'm still feel like I'm in the testing stages with it because it's so new . It isn't like a huge revenue driver because it tends to be like smaller , but I feel like from a brand awareness standpoint and like getting videos on your product page and things of that nature . It's a really amazing tool and once again , it's like free with your Amazon seller program .

Stephanie Robbins 33:57

So , you're not paying extra for it . So , like you know , give it a try is kind of my thing . The downside of it is it's a little clunky , right , it's new data like . It's hard like all communication you don't get an email address . All communication is handled through a messenger and it's like if you have more than one campaign going like you can't tell from the messenger like which one they're talking about . So it kind of makes for like a little bit of an awkward communication cycle there .

Stephanie Robbins 34:28

But I still run programs because I think it's a really great tool and it doesn't take a huge amount of effort as far as getting influencers into the program . So the first one I ran was for a really small company and within 48 hours we had like 500 influencers signed up for it , and this is a company called Brushy . So it's a really cool little tool . Give them a little plug where it's like a mini toothbrush that's prepasted flaw so like , like just a cool little perfect . Amazon purchase , right . Like you're probably not going to like buy it direct to consumer , you're going to probably just add it to your Amazon cart . And you know it did great with them as far as like the brand exposure and just low risk . I mean , if they post and you know they don't get any sales and you don't pay any commissions .

Dustin Howes 35:21

That . That's absolutely something I would buy on TikTok . If a Tik Tok influencer did 30 seconds brushing his teeth , little thing I would instantly buy that . I buy something every day on TikTok .

Stephanie Robbins 35:35

And here's the thing like that's who I was like recruiting for Lovonta to are those Amazon fines , Amazon hacks and there also a lot of them are in Amazon creator connections as well . So if you have like a really focused Amazon product . It's a great tool .

Dustin Howes 35:52

Gotcha All right .

Stephanie Robbins 35:54

I had a blog post about that . I think you're going to include that has like kind of more detailed information about the pros and cons of it and whether or not it's the right tool for you .

Dustin Howes 36:01

Absolutely , and it's a . It's a bit of a long URL , so I put it in the chat . It's robinsinteractivecom . That's Amazon creator .

Stephanie Robbins 36:11

Connection connection . Should I download shorter URL A dog count .

Dustin Howes 36:15

No , no , I mean SEO value , that's you're doing it just right . But but I should have put a dozen howes . com slash stuff or something . I didn't . I just didn't have my stuff together today . I'm sorry about that , but you don't . Who does have their stuff together ? Right , it's the Lovonta .

Stephanie Robbins 36:40

So there it is .

Dustin Howes 36:43

I don't know why they're tattooing dolphins , but it's great publicity , especially for Stephanie Robbins here promoting them heavily . Dustin howes . com slash the font and use code Dustin 20 to save 20% when you sign up . Go give it a shot . It could improve your business dramatically . All right , so as we wrap up here , Stephanie , how do people get a hold of you and who are you looking to work with and service here ?

Stephanie Robbins 37:14

LinkedIn is . I'm very attentive to LinkedIn messages and connections , so that's always a great connection . Obviously , in my website , which we just put in the chat is another great way . Or srobbins at robbins interactivecom . So that's like the longest email address . So that's where I was like I should have gotten a shorter URL .

Dustin Howes 37:33

I did that when I bought performance marketing managercom and then I ended up having to buy like perfmmcom so I could just shorten the URL for my email address , but that turned out to be a big hassle . But anyway , you've been a fabulous guest . Thank you so much for being here . My guests next week on affiliate nerd out Mike Carney , one of the best in the business for affiliate recruitment or not recruitment , but like affiliate manager and setting them up with jobs . She's got about that job market that's going on right now and some good tactics for affiliate managers to get hired . And also Igor I always mess this up .

Stephanie Robbins 38:17

Oh , that's a tough guy .

Dustin Howes 38:18

Yeah , igor is a brilliant mind in the email marketing industry . He talks about email farming and funnel systems . He's just one of those incredible , probably the biggest name in the game for when it comes to joint ventures JVs and really excited to have him on Thursday . If you would like a quick resource , if you're trying to start up an affiliate program and you want to checklist , I've got one for you . Go to Dustin howes . com slash

Affiliate Program Checklist and Summit Announcement

Dustin Howes 38:50

checklist . Go check it out and be a part of my community by clicking this link up here . This QR code goes directly to performance marketing managercom and you can join up there . Stephanie , thanks so much for being here and I can't wait to see it . Affiliate summit coming around .

Stephanie Robbins 39:10

Yeah , sooner than we know right .

Dustin Howes 39:12

Absolutely .

Stephanie Robbins 39:14

Awesome . Thanks so much .

Dustin Howes 39:15

Awesome . Take care , Steph . Thanks .