Dustin: 0:27

Hey folks, welcome to Affiliate Nerd Out. I'm your Nerdirator, Dustin Howes. Spreading that good word about affiliate marketing. You're gonna find me here every Thursday, 12 o'clock Pacific Time on LinkedIn Live with a guest of mine, and my guest today, Stephen Re Man, I Oh you spell it, Steve. With the V, but I have to spell it with the pH. What happened there, Steven?

Steve: 0:52

It's, I spell it with a pH, but when you say Steve, S T E V E and use it, but now it's funny I live in the Bay Area. I live in Oakland. So every time somebody sees my driver's license, they pronounce it Stephan because of Steph Curry. So maybe I should change it to Steph route, S T

Dustin: 1:10

E P H route. Beautiful. You do you, Hey, welcome to the Nerdatorium, sir.

Steve: 1:15

Thanks. Thanks. I wanted to show you something. I know you got the giant stuff in the background. Oh, I wanted to just put my Red Sox hat on. And I think I'm originally from New England. So I'm a Red Sox fan, diehard Red Sox fan. But I did want to point out that since the Red Sox one broke the curse in 2004, that was 21 years. And those last 21 years between the Red Sox and the Giants. Those two teams have won one third of all the World Series championships.

Dustin: 1:45

Excellent stat. I absolutely love that. So

Steve: 1:49

I'll shift here to be more local here. And I know the A's are going to be your local team here starting next year. I imagine you going to get season tickets or something.

Dustin: 1:58

I am very anxious to get a season tickets. Yes. Or at least like a third of the tickets. I'm big. Baseball nerd and yes, the A's are coming to Sacramento. I'm very excited about that. And I have no problems with the Red Sox either. Always classy organization. But so interesting. You've been in the Bay area for a very long time.

Steve: 2:20

Yeah. Yeah. I've been in the Bay Area for 25 years, but Boston is one of the classic sports cities, in this country, Boston, New York, Chicago, LA. And it's I remember back in, when I was young, I was a huge Celtics fan with Larry Bird and Robert Parrish and, all the DJ and all those guys. Now I'm a Warriors fan, of course. But yeah, so I'm a Boston sports fan. Plus a Bay Area sports fan.

Dustin: 2:43

You can be both. You can change every, like me and my friends like to say every birthday that ends in a zero, you can change your loyalty in a sports team.

Steve: 2:52

Yeah. With the Patriots, not in the playoffs with the 49ers, not in the playoffs. I've, I'm rooting for my friends from Buffalo, I've taken to Buffalo, Josh Allen's a great quarterback. There's sad Super Bowl run in the nineties. I'm hoping they can change that, breaking that curse for sure. Breaking that curse. Yeah.

Dustin: 3:12

All right, Stephen tell us about who you are.

Steve: 3:16

Sure. I've been in I guess we'll start with affiliate. I've been in the affiliate space for gosh, probably 15 years now, and managed a bunch of programs in the B2C space and B2B space. I've managed programs as an in house program manager I've managed my own clients, independently. And then for a time I worked in the agency as the director of affiliate marketing, managing a stable of clients. Been in the space for a while. Prior to that, I was in retail merchandising. I was worked at Apple and worked in the merchandising team for the retail stores. And then going even before that, I worked in politics coming out of college. I was hoping to change the world and make people's lives better. But after a number of years of making no money, I decided it was time to shift to, Marketing, the internet was blowing up. So that's what brought me to, a marketing role and ultimately to California and ultimately to affiliate marketing.

Dustin: 4:05

Yes. Yes. And I think my first experience with you is as you had a table at affiliate summit working for what's the DNA company used to work for. Oh, ancestry. Thank you. Ancestry. com. And I was working for a coupon site at the time and I was begging you for trademark rights. And I came to your table, I came to your table, trying to ask you like on the spot and you just gave me this weird look and pushed me off and like looking back on it, it was pretty funny, but I liked your attitude at the table and we've been friends since and acquaintances throughout the years and see each other. And so glad that you could make it today and join me in the Nerdatorium here. So why don't you tell us, I want to

Steve: 4:48

mention, I want to mention, one thing that, that you and I have in common, we're both veterans. You're a Marine veteran. I'm an army veteran. And thanks. I just want to thank you for your service, man.

Dustin: 4:57

Same to you. I didn't realize that about we've never had that conversation. We'll have to have that next time. See each other. So speaking of serving, what do you do and who do you serve out there?

Steve: 5:09

I, right now I'm a free agent right now. I'm, I'm looking for a new opportunity. Like I said, I'd been in the B2B space and B2C space. Most recently in the B2B space working for build. com and Pluto that are accounts payable automation platforms. I think that's the B2B space and the affiliate B2B space has matured quite a bit over the last several years. You've got some SAS companies and that notion comes to mind. They have a great product and they have a very robust affiliate program. They're a product led company they've done really well. And if you're a affiliate manager out there looking for ideas for an affiliate program page, go to notion. They have the best page out there. They've got a whole, they've got a whole notion. Document that document doesn't do that do it justice, they got everything you would ever need to use as a notion affiliate partner. That's who I've been serving lately, but looking for an opportunity to, find a company to help me or let me help them grow their affiliate channel.

Dustin: 6:07

Awesome. Yes free agent and your resume is really incredible. Like you've worked for a lot of big companies out there and. And you're an in house manager. You love that. I love that spot for you. And I enjoy that spot as well. I think it's a really good gig and hope you find your way to a great company that you're great with. But our topic of the day is all about Honeygate. This is super hot right now. There's a guy named mega lag that wasn't even on my radar until a couple of weeks ago, who came out with this YouTube video that. Highlights the fact that Honey goes and is taking money out of the pockets of influencers. And if you haven't gone and seen the video, I'm going to link to it below. Go give it a look, but it is a huge topic. Can you tell us a little bit more about what Honeygate is?

Steve: 7:01

Honeygate is basically, MegaLag showed that or he's making the accusation that Honey, which is a browser extension that allows users to find coupons as they're making purchases is basically fraudulent and stealing the commissions from, affiliate Honeygate. Partners, affiliates, and content creators and influencers because the way honey works is, you're on, you want to make a purchase at a company commerce site and you're online and you go to the product and then if you have the browser a browser extension, it will notify you that flash up, Oh, there's a coupon available. So you click on the extension, you go find the coupon, you make the purchase because of last click attribution, meaning the last click in the purchase flow gets credit for that honey. The extension will get credit for that purchase, even though, An influencer or affiliate may have actually driven that user to your site. So Honey gets all the money, gets all the commission for the sale. And the, affiliate partner that's in your program that actually drove the user to your site gets nothing. So that is Honeygate in a nutshell.

Dustin: 8:07

Excellent explanation. I will go a little bit further in saying that it is. a eye opening for influencers out there that they have been working hard in the affiliate marketing space and that companies like honey are out there stealing that last click and stealing the attribution from them. So when their commission conversion rate should be higher and they should be making more money, companies like honey are out there. Taking that away from them. And ironically honey has empowered and paid these influencers to promote their product and take money out of their pockets in the backend. So yeah, really incredible. And just, I've been saying this kind of concept for years. From the affiliate manager's perspective, but it is incredible that an influencer is out there ringing the bell right now and it's getting a lot of buzz. Before we get a little bit more into that, I want to go into exactly what browser extensions are for the audience. It doesn't know, can you explain what browser extensions are?

Steve: 9:14

Browser extensions, you use, I'll just use Google as an example. You, I would add browser extensions. In your browser to, to help you with various things. There's a browser extension from Grammarly that helps you with your, writing, writing content, there are browser extensions that I use Roboform, which is a password browser extension that allows me to store passwords. I can sign into sites really quickly. There's a, thousands and thousands of extensions that do different things. But in the, in Honey's example, you land on a site, I'll say, Walmart or something like that, and you're going to make a purchase or Amazon and Oh, I'm going to buy this product and the browser extension will notify you that there's a coupon available for this product and you say, Oh, great. You click the honey browser extension that you've installed in your browser. It provides you with a coupon. You then put the coupon in the, the coupon box in the shopping cart. You make your purchase, you get your products. I was happy in your world because you got your product, you got a coupon, you saved some money, but if you had gone to, an affiliate site and then they referred you to Amazon, that affiliate's not going to get the commission that they normally would have gotten for referring you. That's how the Honey extensions work, or I should say the coupon browser extensions work. There's lots of extensions out there that are great that I would highly recommend.

Dustin: 10:32

Okay, gotcha. So my browser extension history started in my first role at CJ and Compliance 15 years ago when I was having to test browser extensions for Acceptable practices essentially like the luckily early on In the game companies like CJ tracking solutions. They figured out that browser extensions were doing some of the various things and they had to put rules in place to buy accepted into the platform. CJ was tracking this and we were observing their tactics and honey wasn't one of the first extensions, but they were the first one that really blew up in this industry. I have a story about honey. Myself. Do you have any stories of your use with honey or your experience with them?

Steve: 11:27

I've like I mentioned, most of my most recent history has been with B2B affiliate programs. It's, I have a business product and we're selling our product to another business. And extensions don't, coupon extensions like honey with coupons don't really apply to B2B programs as much. Okay. So I don't have any infamous stories. So I'd love to hear yours.

Dustin: 11:48

Funny thing you mentioned, like it doesn't apply to B2B, that doesn't stop them from joining those programs. They will still try to, they will still try to get the credit, even though it isn't a super relevant niche or Factor for them but my history, I guess

Steve: 12:04

I was going to say, I was going to say in your history there was the does the user have to physically click the extension to set the cookie? The earliest extensions, I think there was the cookie was set automatically. Yeah. Is that correct?

Dustin: 12:18

Oh yeah, you nailed it. And that was one of those things that would get you kicked out of the network is if you were doing pop unders of some sort, or like you were automatically attributing your affiliate link to the program that you were joined, like that's kick out status but honey went about it, my, my first and foremost story of it is I met one of the first five employees of honey. At ASW way back in the day. And I had experienced with browser extensions because I was testing them. And he assured me that honey will not steal that last click. If another affiliate has already gained a click. And so that was their initial intent is they were getting in the door with these companies and they weren't stealing that last click. Unless they were the first click and I love that concept and I was on board with that concept and that is something that they held True for years and I don't know when that changed. It could have been when they got acquired by paypal Maybe it was sometime before And they just swept it on the rug, but it has been going five years strong since then. I know their strategies changed, but that is the first story that I recall of having them in there, but a lot of the exposure that they're getting right now from the YouTube video in your opinion, do you think it's all true? He made a lot of claims and he did a lot of research. But did you see any holes in the stories? Anything that, that you thought was absolutely true and maybe not so true?

Steve: 13:52

I think one of the things that you need to consider with using extensions, it's pretty obvious how they work, if a user clicks on the extension and it's last click attribution, the extension is going to get credit. But I think the responsibility for this falls onto the affiliate manager of that program. What is the strategy? Are you looking to, Get, make all your, all the purchases, bottom of the funnel and honey gets all the credit. Or, do you want to use platforms that allow you to use multi click attribution? If I were managing a program, I would say, I do see some value to my customers for using honey. However, I want to make sure that I compensate my partner that drove the user to my site. So I would use a platform that I could split that commission and say hypothetically, if the commission were say 10 percent of the purchase, we'll give honey. 2 percent of that 20 percent we'll give you, we'll give the partner 80 percent of that and then provide the transparency to your affiliate partners and say, look, we're using honey, we're using this extension browser for coupons. If the commission is 10%, you might see a little less if somebody uses that, that, that extension, but you're still rewarding the, that affiliate for driving the original driving the customer to your site.

Dustin: 15:05

Love that concept. If you have the ability of a tracking solution that will allow split attribution there's very few of them out there that, that can make that happen or what?

Steve: 15:17

Or I have seen this where the advertiser takes it upon themselves to provide coupons. I've made purchases online where You know, there's a link right in the in the shopping cart that says need a coupon and you can click that and the company will provide a coupon for that. Everybody's looking for coupons, so companies need to, in their, the math that they're using for, for revenue, they have to accommodate that customers are going to use coupons. So maybe if you don't want to use the browser or use the platform that, can split the commission, provide the coupons to your users that yourself say, Hey, these are all our coupons. You can't find any other coupons anywhere else. This is the best you're going to get. So use our coupon.

Dustin: 15:58

That's a great point. I love that strategy. Another thing that I suggest to companies, if they really want to work with coupon sites and extensions like Honey. Come up with two affiliate programs. One is for all of your content and influencers have them all bucketed in this really extensive, like great network that you have, and then come up with another affiliate program that is just for coupon sites and extensions and pay them 2 percent and just accept. That you're going to pay both of them. You're going to pay both affiliates. If you get clicks on both of these platforms, you're going to pay both affiliates, but the coupon sites, they get 2%, the content site gets 10%. Everybody wins in that scenario, even though you're paying a little bit.

Steve: 16:41

That's great. That's a great way to do it. If you're on a platform that doesn't have the ability to split that attribution to, I've never heard that idea. That's great. Have two programs, stick your coupons and your extensions in one program, your partners in another, and you can split the commission that way. That's a great idea.

Dustin: 16:56

I thank you. Appreciate it. Not mine originally, but like I came up with it with a couple of friends of mine that and have been holding strong to it. I find it a good strategy for those out there that absolutely want to attribute things like that to their affiliate program and get credit. That's a way to do it. You can work around. So we're talking about value of honey. Do you think they bring any value?

Steve: 17:21

I think they bring value mostly for the consumer, we're all trained to look for deals now we're all trained to look for coupons. I do believe having a extension like Honey in your program provides value for your user. But the responsibility falls on the program manager to determine how they're, how you're going to use honey, whether you use the two program suggestion, like you just made, or you use, you split the attribution. They do provide value for the user and I think they provide value, some value for the advertiser because you're allowing. Your users, your customers to, leverage that coupon to make their purchase. So I do believe there is some value there, but that the responsibility falls on the program manager to make it work for all parties involved in the program.

Dustin: 18:08

Do I think there's a lot of value? I don't think there's a lot, but I think there are use cases for it. In the e commerce and the retail space, if you want to get some additional brand exposure maybe there is some I just haven't found a lot in my experience with it. I just don't work with them all that much. For the programs that I'm working with I keep out all browser extensions. And in fact, most coupon sites, unless I really trust them and there's a real use for them. I just, I love working with content. I love working with influencers and that's my strategy. But as, Another concept we hit on is the attribution level of what we pay them. If we are working with them, should they get a full commission in your mind?

Steve: 19:39

If you are full commission, if there is another affiliate partner that has derived, that's in the click stream, I they are, they should deserve some credit. So I don't believe that they should receive all the credit, they are, it's Look at it this way. A metaphor is that influencer, that content creator put the product, put the sale at the edge of the cliff and the coupon site, the extension comes there at the last minute and kicks it off the cliff. So they both deserve some compensation, some remuneration for that.

Dustin: 20:10

That's fair enough. Another. Point on that is, let's say you do just give them full attribution, but you only pay them 2 percent when you get your content sites, you pay them 10%, right? With that other 8 percent savings, you can take that and bucket it into getting sponsorships. So make that a new budget. For your outreach to campaigns and working with influencers that won't just accept affiliate commissions. They want a sponsorship upfront, use that budget that you saved the money of that 10 percent use it and give it back to those sponsors. I think that's a really responsible way to go about it. If you are going to work with them.

Steve: 20:52

Absolutely. What I'd like to see is I'd like to see, we never will, but say these, these platforms, I would like to say how much of your overall revenue comes from these extensions? How much of your revenue, what's your revenue split between, your transaction fees from browser extension sales versus affiliates and influencers. I'll never see that data though.

Dustin: 21:12

Great question, but you know what platform you should be taking a look at? One that doesn't work with affiliate coupons, and that is Inflection. My team over at Inflection, we, Do not bring coupon sites to our brands that we're working with. We are looking for top of the funnel influencers that are going to make a difference. And then we're giving them closing coupons in their landing pages to help close that deal right now, instead of them going offsite, finding a coupon elsewhere, and then coming back to your site. So help your brand close right now with custom made, Landing pages that are designated to sell to the audience of your influencers. Give us a look go to dustinallens. com slash inflection and check it out and Come check it out and Have you worked with, what's your experience with co branded landing pages?

Steve: 22:13

I've done a lot of co branded landing pages, but I've almost always created them in house, create them in house, provide the link for the partner, make this exclusive to them. So I, I believe they increase conversion. I I'm familiar with inflection. I think that's certainly a tool that I'm going to explore in the future for sure.

Dustin: 22:32

Awesome. Awesome. And yeah, the development of those landing pages, been a pain in the butt for as long as I can remember. Big hurdle of requesting them from development and them getting them made. Yes. Could take months, honestly. It could, yeah. And at Inflection, we can do that in literally five minutes. Either the affiliate can make their landing page the way that they want to. Or the affiliate manager can do it for the affiliate, whatever way you want to go. That is a huge value add that I absolutely love about our technology. So

Steve: 23:01

give it a look. I'm a big, I'm a big fan of providing affiliates and influencers, all the tools they need, make their lift as light as possible so they can focus on creating the actionable content. That's going to drive users to your site versus making them do some of this backend work.

Dustin: 23:16

Super smart. Love that. All right. Back into Honeygate as we start wrapping this up. Why did it take so long? Why did it take a big influencer like Megalag to make this video and make it viral?

Steve: 23:29

I think that why it took so long as it was finally somebody with a huge enough audience that was gonna, that, people needed to respond to him because he has such a large following, this is a conversation that's been going on for many years in the affiliate space. Browsers and coupons and the value they bring. And are they stealing commissions? But it's been inside baseball and now, we have somebody with this huge following that is, made this accusation and finally, people are starting to pay attention. Yeah. I think that's why it took so long.

Dustin: 23:59

I. You mentioned baseball and I attest this to what Barry Bonds went through when through the steroids era. And Barry Bonds was never, he was always accused of using steroids, never actually found guilty of anything. He was just taking steroids the best. And I feel like honey can't be blamed in this situation. They're just cheating the best in that kind of scenario. That's how I attest it.

Steve: 24:28

Yeah. I also, it's also, honey is owned by PayPal and we live in a society now where the concept of too big to fail exists and now that honey is owned by PayPal, that's somehow adds legitimacy to the practice, I think that's what what we're seeing.

Dustin: 24:48

Yeah. When I saw that acquisition, I was terrified. I felt like something bad was going to happen. And it just stayed dormant throughout the last five years. And now it's coming to fruition. But I, do you think this is the end for honey altogether?

Steve: 25:05

I don't think it's the end for honey. I think it's going to, I hope this raises the, the The awareness of the issue in the affiliate space and that, program managers can take the appropriate steps to change or correct their program. So they serve both their customer with coupons via the extension and their, their content and the influencer creators. I do want to mention, and I, one of the early CEOs of honey prior to going to PayPal was Carrie Pollard, who was the president of CJ commission junction. And she went to honey. And when that occurred, I knew that I guess in the back of my mind, I knew this conversation was going to come to fruition at some point, we're here many years later and it finally has. But I think that was a strategic move on honey's part to bring her in to, help them become a valued partner on affiliate platforms.

Dustin: 25:57

Yep. I agree. That was a very interesting signing. I saw the writing on the wall when that happened. I actually love Carrie Pollard. She was one of my favorite people when I was at CJ. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve: 26:08

I don't care. And I, she's a great lady.

Dustin: 26:10

Yeah. Yeah. What about other browser extensions? Are they doing the same out there?

Steve: 26:15

Yes. I'm not familiar with all the browsers. There's a number of them out there. Rakuten has a browser extension. My understanding is, to have that browser extension in your program, they do require last click. So they're basically saying, you want us in your program, you have to give us all the credit for the sale. There's other extensions. There's the Capital One extension. Coupon Cabin has an extension that has, allows for coupons and cash savings, cash back. I think the other, most of the other browser extensions are following the same strategy. Again, program managers, take a deep dive into your program and make sure that you're serving both, your customers and your partners,

Dustin: 26:52

especially your partners. That's what matters most here is taking attribution and money out of their pocket is the biggest reason to not work with these browser extensions. And Yes, I do feel like a lot of them are doing the same thing. So be wary when you are working with them. All right, switching gears, like you're a free agent out there. What kind of role are you looking for?

Steve: 27:15

I'm looking for, a, basically a senior manager director level program management position either in a B2B company or a B2C company. I've managed programs, with multimillion dollar budgets over the course of a year. I've launched many programs I'm looking for a company that is going to value the affiliate channel is going to take the time to grow that channel, to become a significant part of their revenue and new customer acquisition. And I, like you said, I've got a lot of experience in the space and, I can hit the ground running with, Any opportunity and hoping that, 2025 is a new year and it's somehow, in the next couple of weeks or months provides me with a new opportunity.

Dustin: 27:57

Awesome, man. For any companies out there listening, give Stephen a look one of the all time classic guys in this industry, and just a,

Steve: 28:06

Thank you. Epic

Dustin: 28:07

amount of knowledge and I love the guy. Take a look and it's time for you to defend your posts, sir. So I looked into your LinkedIn history and look for something. I saw this this repost of yours, leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say. Now, do you still find this true? I love this statement.

Steve: 28:30

Leaders who don't listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say. Absolutely. I think God gave us two ears and one mouth. I think that says it, it says it right there. The best leaders uplift, lift, uplift the people that work for them. I liked the strategy as a leader of letting your people, Pitch whatever situation you're in, I long ago, I worked in politics and I, politicians who are successful or the ones who let their people fight it out in front of them to get all the information and then make the decision. If you have a leader that doesn't listen. Eventually your people are going to have nothing to say, and they are going to want to find what you want to hear and tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. Yeah, you must have gone really deep into my LinkedIn profile to find that. Thanks for bringing that up.

Dustin: 29:17

Yeah. You've got a lot of posts, but there wasn't There's a lot of you promoting your company, which I thought was great. And, but that was one that just seemed a little bit personal. And I love the quote all itself. And I feel the same way. Like I want to work for a company that is going to listen to the affiliate manager and take in that equation because that their digital marketing experiences is going to be great. And they're good to listen to. All right, as we wrap up, how do we connect with you, Steven?

Steve: 29:46

I'm on LinkedIn. It's LinkedIn, Stephen Root, S T E P H E N, R O T. You can reach out there and I'm more than happy to, communicate about a program opportunity or if you have questions regarding affiliate program management and just want to shoot some questions my way, I'm happy to help you that way as well.

Dustin: 30:02

Fantastic. All right, man. Thanks for your time. Appreciate ya. And for you folks out there watching, keep on recruiting and we'll see you out there.

Steve: 30:11

Thanks, Dustin.

Dustin: 30:12

All

Steve: 30:12

right.