Dustin: 0:27

Hey folks, welcome to Affiliate Nerd Out. I'm your Nerdorator, Dustin Howes. Spreading that good word about affiliate marketing. You're gonna find me here every Thursday at 12 o'clock pacific time. Put it on the calendar and join me and a guest, and my guest today, Mark over at AIM. Welcome to the Nerdatorium, my friend.

Mark: 0:45

Thanks Dustin. Thanks for the, for having me and it's like I was saying earlier, like it's great that you're doing this and it's such a great platform and Just excited to be here.

Dustin: 0:54

Appreciate it. Our backstory is not. Extensive. I think it's a started at the beginning of the year when you were testing out Affistash and wanted to know a little bit more about what it was. And you told me about your role over at all inclusive marketing. I thought it was extremely interesting and a role like many agencies should be having where you're testing out the latest and greatest tools for something that you can use. And you were super friendly with the feedback and we really appreciate it. Thanks for being a new friend, man.

Mark: 1:29

Yeah, of course. And love your energy. So it was easy to chat with you and

Dustin: 1:34

just get along. Yeah. Great. Why don't you tell the audience who you are and what you do?

Mark: 1:41

Yeah. I'm Mark Goku. I'm I'm the business intelligence operations manager at all inclusive marketing and father of two little ones. So that's spending a lot of my time with the kids. But on the. Professional side. What we really focus in my role is understanding data in the landscape affiliate, digital marketing and being able to build tools, the tech stack for our organization that we can scale up actual insights and have a very strategic approaches to affiliate marketing. Yeah.

Dustin: 2:18

Great. And all inclusive marketing. Tell us a little bit more about them. I have some backstories myself, but tell us about what you guys do and who you serve out there.

Mark: 2:29

Yeah. So we're affiliate marketing program management agency. And we serve a lot of different verticals that would travel. We do a lot of outdoors brands and we're getting pretty big in the B2B space as well. It's one of our core businesses now. And yeah if you guys need a affiliate program management services, yeah, come reach out and take a, take all inclusive marketing and look.

Dustin: 2:52

Okay, great. My background with you guys is I've known Sarah Bundy for probably 12 years since I first started going to conferences and she's always been so warm and welcoming and willing to help everybody that I've ever seen her talk to. And she's just an incredible mentor and Just a sweet human being always loved her energy and her vibe and I you know Now she's off doing other things and Charlie came in And took over and Charlie's one of those guys that I absolutely love hanging out with he's always so knowledgeable and opinionated just love All the vibes that I get from everybody at all inclusive marketing. So glad you're part of that crew and our topic today, getting into like your journey and the common pitfalls for systems and tools and implementations that you're going through. And we'll start off small here and tell us about Implementation of tools and what you're doing in your role.

Mark: 4:00

Yeah. So when it comes to building out a text app for your organization, there's quite a few things you need to look at. One. How is the tool providing? Data that is different and unique to what you currently have, right? You need to analyze the data against other outputs that are currently in your tech stack. So you may not know how the cook is, cooking behind the scenes, but you can, you're able to understand. Based on the differences of the outputs the value of that platform. And this then from that point, once you understand that you can then say, okay, how many hours are we saving the process? If we do incorporate them, okay. Incorporate that tool. And then And then the next step, which is one of the harder ones to quantify is the difficulty of adopting it. All right. How do we push that into a process for the team? That's very natural, organic and give us a, a positive ROI throughout the organization as we scale up. So that's the key cores of evaluating tools and, making sure we. Find processes to incorporate them and then onboarding them for our organization.

Dustin: 5:12

Great. And that's got to be a learned trade, much like everything in affiliate marketing. Did you have some kind of background that led you into this role and what you're doing today?

Mark: 5:24

Yeah. So I have a pretty unique story. So I came from the logistics operations. Vertical for 10 years. I worked there. I worked there part time. I had this passion in my twenties to do mixed martial arts and I did it for a while. And then, it fizzled out and I was like, Hey, I gotta start like doing something. And I had this I reached out to Sarah and she pulled me in to all this market and, the, her personality is, as is very infectious and high energy positive. And she's like that all the time, like 24 seven, that's not like an act and anyone who meets her, it's that is who she is, a ball of positive energy. And right away I was. I was down to sign up with her and start my career in all inclusive marketing. And I started as an intern. And before all inclusive marketing, my only other marketing experience was I did a, for school, a marketing competition, and it was for something called Dragon's Den. It's the Canadian version of Shark Tank and it was the product was coffee that helps you sleep and we got second place on that and they love our creatives and then like actually paid us for being second. And I was like, wow, this is a really cool, like doing marketing and then getting paid in school to do something as fun as this. And then, yeah I started as an intern and first thing I learned in the affiliate marketing spaces, building publisher lists is a pain. Yeah. And all I heard from the first few months is Hey grab that a list and bring it to me, or can you create this list? And I never knew what the heck they were talking about. I was like, Where is these lists coming from? And how am I getting it? And then, you learn that people are just like going through SERP results and finding content publishers, different types of publishers to build a list to, to qualify them through affiliate program. And I was like, God, there's got to be a better way of doing this. This is brutal. And then so I saw that and I was trying to find ways to automate it. And, and then we started onboarding this tool and this tool was really exciting to me because it had the ability to pull in network performance data email data. It was able to tag information within the network. So if a publisher joined the program, you get a little tag that joined. And then, if they're click active you can see like when they made their first click and then they had traffic data, regional data. And then sometimes they had social media follower data and all of this was really exciting to me and they gave me access to it and I just dived in and what I really focused on was creating automated workflows. So the first thing is. Gap analysis, right? That's a common thing. Everyone does. And if it's in this program and if exclude them or with them from your your results, and then I started digging in further and then, okay, there's SERP results coming in. And then, I already knew which publishers I didn't want or I wanted. So I created back blacklist and whitelist to really automate. Those SERP results. So I'm only seeing the top opportunities that I want to look at. And then I started building in like email automations where, you know if they joined within the first couple of days, we sent an email, if they're click active, sales active, we have a different segmentation and giving them a different we're engaging with them differently and then we start, I started going down that rabbit hole and started building custom metrics. Um, time it takes for the first click how long did they get their first sale from joining or getting a newsletter or getting some of our guides and you start just going down the rabbit hole of like, building out different. KPIs and trying to optimize them over time. And when I was doing that, I thought everybody was doing that on the platform, right? I was like, and then, so with people request lists for me, I'm turning around within three, four days and other people are spending weeks on it. And the people started coming to me and saying, Hey, what are you doing here? And I'll show them and they're like, oh, great. They're copy and paste it. And then they would try to do the same thing. But. They didn't really dive into the data as much as I did. And so after a while, the results were like fading. And then there's a couple of managers that realize, Hey, this, what you're doing here is something not a lot of other people are doing. And we can really scale it up. And I was like, great. I would love to let's, let's find ways of doing that. So I started working directly with the. Publisher developers within the platform and I was telling them showing the different things I was doing which to them was completely You know, like they did when they build this tool they're thinking Okay We'll just get like people just have keywords put it in there and get a result and then they'll go reach out to it That was as much as they thought people were going to do on it. And I was like, there's a lot more that you can really dive into and they started building out a lot of these specific features based on, the things we're talking about. And then, the tool started having some problems. And the problems is something that we're all, we can all relate to in the affiliate program is When you start trying to enrich records from the affiliate space, like affiliate networks, you get issues with deduplications unverified data points, right? Because you get affiliate publishers who create multiple accounts within a network for different purposes. And that will just Screw up any database, right? And then there's no ways to link a publisher asset from different networks, right? Because the model for a lot of affiliate networks is that, okay, we'll just do the domain, we'll create a serial ID, and then that's it. But if you're trying to link them across different Networks and data sources. You can't rely on their serial ID. You can't rely just on a domain because publishers can have multiple assets and they can have different accounts in the same network. And so they were trying to pull in all this data and the data was creating it. Problems within the platform. And then they had issues with emailing segmentations and getting hit with spam violations. We had to pivot, because of that, some of our missions weren't working. And looked at other platforms and we were like, Oh, let's see if we can build it out ourselves. So we started diving into different tools and try to put them all together. And the. The the automations that I created and some of the insights that I was sharing and they built this role for me and also marketing where I start just managing those relationships and finding ways to expand our access to, to get it within our.

Dustin: 12:10

That's amazing. That's a an interesting journey in this affiliate realm. It sounded like you were innately recognizing high potential partners, which is something that a lot of affiliate managers really have to develop throughout the years. But you had an eye with data first and an understanding of the industry. And it came. Naturally to my strengths are much more into the relationship based and like continuing the conversation if I do see potential, but that potential did not come innately to me. So it's something I had to learn throughout the years, but One thing that's never stopped is I'm always trying to automate or implement tools that are going to help me be more productive and get through it. And it sounds like your role has enabled you to build these things, which I think is just brilliant. Like every agency out there should have this role, but you made it up for yourself, which is an incredible journey.

Mark: 13:12

Yeah, I got a little lucky. And your ability to talk and build relationships is something I'm missing. Like I can talk right now and talk about data, I'm really I could be awkward, socially awkward in other settings. But when you get me, if you get me to nerd out like this, I can talk for days. But yeah, so we all have pros, strengths and weaknesses.

Dustin: 14:20

For sure. For sure. So with this, when you're trying to build out these processes for other affiliate managers to utilize, what are some of those lessons that you've learned over time that have been helpful and for the affiliate managers out there, they might be learning what are some of those lessons that you can teach them to get to where you are at this point?

Mark: 14:42

Yeah. It's. For me, especially since I'm really focused on the data, right? I might not know anything about the client, but I can look at the data and have a good understanding of the landscape they're in and where we can take advantage and opportunities within their space. So as affiliate manager, you're an onboard client, the client will tell you, okay, these are my keywords. These are my competitors. And then you go after looking for opportunities within that niche. My approach is different. So when a client tells me these are my competitors and my keywords, I question it. I'm like, are they really? So there's a difference between what you believe your competitors are and what the traffic data is and how others perceive you as a client and brand their competitors are. And so I dig further and try to get that answer. And I look through the data to, to find that, one example is we had a B2B client, and their service, they have a. An app, a service that they provided for enterprise clients and they're like, okay, these are a specific keywords. And they didn't want to be targeting anything that had the keyword called cybersecurity because it was overlapping. And team was like hey, Mark, can you come over here and take a look at this, we need some help with finding, building out our recruitment strategy and right away. I'm saying, Hey, you're getting a lot of traffic from cybersecurity. Why aren't you looking at that? And they're like their client told us not to and they don't want to be, targeting that space is too broad, and I was like, okay let me just look at it a little bit. So I looked at the traffic behavior and I realized, okay a lot of them from cyber security coming from forums and then I started noticing a data point that kind of stuck out. There's a lot of. Domains that are catering to entrepreneurs and I was like, okay. Why is it? Why is that an overlap? Right and when I started diving into those domains and looking at the back linking You can the picture starts forming right and one of the affiliate programs that we found was targeting That those domains was a laptop affiliate program. And I was like, why are laptops targeting entrepreneurs, cyber security, and then this is this client at ours. And then the more you pull on that string, you realize, Oh, okay, this is what's happening. You get, a founder who's going through these forums, trying to understand how to start their business. And they laptops. And then they buy cybersecurity software, and then they go into our client as like a third part. And then when we build that picture, we're saying, okay, you don't want cybersecurity, but there's all these different spaces that is part of the buying behavior of your target audience, you should be targeting, some of these, touch points. And then we can, you can spread out the strategy a little bit more and give us more opportunity to engage yeah, those different niche audiences. Yeah. Yeah. So we do a lot of that type of data analysis.

Dustin: 17:57

Yeah. And it's good that you're questioning companies. They often see it. Brands will often have a tunnel vision of what they think their ICP is and what they think their brand should be representing. And there might be missing a big chunk with new eyes coming into a program that can. enlighten them to an audience that they weren't thinking about. I've got a brand myself right now that's in the gaming industry. And I've got to go from I asked them a question. Hey, what's your ICP, your ideal customer profile. And what, who are your competitors and what are the keywords that you would ideally want to rank for? And as I look through that, some of those are too draw too broad. And not specific enough, and now it's my job to hone in on what ideally I would want to, and where I see the highest potential with keyword volume. What does your process look like when you come on, when you get a new client on board? You mentioned That you're questioning what they're doing. But anything else that you're like really digging in is a Google search your first step for like the keywords that you think they should be ranking for?

Mark: 19:12

First thing, yeah, first thing I look at the things that are obviously. Missing, right? So we get a lot of clients that are like, Oh, I want a daddy blogger or like these influencers. And if you look at the traffic data and you're not seeing a lot of social media traffic from yourself, your client and the rowdy of the other competitors. You're wasting money. Like you can build a foundation, but it'll take longer to get there. So why don't we capture the low hanging fruit first? And I always, like we build this for different partnership with similar pro like all inclusive marketing, even before my time has been with them from really early on. And so we've been accustomed to really diving into that platform and that data. Pretty Detailed. And so that's my first step. I build a dashboard and I track where the traffic is coming from the overlap, the niches, what type of blogs are the domains are creating, what's trending within those domains and how they are driving traffic within that whole digital landscape. When. When I look at the client's data, I'm big, I'm a big fan of chess. So I think of everything in that way. And what does that mean? In an affiliate program, you're looking at different partner types, right? And in the chess board, it's easy to understand where you might you want to have specialist different types of pieces that do different things. Track different audience segments as part of that buying behavior. One of the things that I see missed a little bit is stepping a little bit back and seeing the overall digital landscape and more than just the affiliate space. SEO, influencer, traffic, everything. And if you step back all the way out and see how all the pieces are moving, then you can understand what is missing and how you can build towards it. One simple example is micro influencers, right? People want to it's hard to work with them. It's, they don't have enough impressions or impact if you do work with them. But if you, Make that pitch to one of those micro influencers there. It's a cheaper ROI. And if you can get them to build out something that you're missing that part of that buyer behavior it will slowly rank and it will slowly start building out traffic and conversions over a long period of time, when you start filling out those gaps in a much more cost effective way.

Dustin: 21:44

And you bring up influencers and I'm going to take my sponsor of the day. One way to find influencers is using Affistash. This is a tool positions like Mark can utilize to go and find and target those niche affiliates based on their keywords. And Mark's gracious enough to help me build a better tool here at Affistash, which I really appreciate. Go to dustinhowes.com/affistash to learn more and get a Three. Get up get your account. 30 day money back guarantee. Go to check it out. All right, mark. With influencers getting back to it I have found that influencers often really hone in on one specific platform, whether it be Instagram or YouTube, but you can. Cross check all of their other assets that are valuable to really judge the potential. So even though they might have a hundred thousand follower reach on Instagram, I'm gonna go look at what their links are in their bio, and see how hard it is going to be to talk them into being affiliate, first of all. If they don't know anything about affiliate marketing, They're not going to have a link tree that is leading to the right call to action. And that is a hard conversation to educate people with. But if I see that they have a link to their website and that website has an email capture and that website has content about pieces of niche products that. It could be very complimentary to the product that I'm reaching out for. Now we've reached some potential and we can find a better spot. So are there things that you're looking for when you find potential influencers that say, Oh, this is going to be a good partnership. We should start reaching out.

Mark: 23:39

There's so many different data points that we look at, but of course, the type of content, what are they capable of doing? Is important. And that conversation of, educating about the affiliate space, if they've never been a part of it, that's tough. But to for them if you find the right one, they're excited to just for the for you to reach out to them, you'd be surprised how engaged they can be. Yeah. But yeah, it's really about what can the affiliate can provide who are they what kind of audience are they engaged with today and how quickly it, can we get them going and coordinated across, the different, strategies we have for within an affiliate program. So it's a lot of different pieces that need to fall into place, but the most important thing when we look at our publisher opportunities is finding ways to segment them and be able to prioritize the right ones. And that's the main focus of building out a strong database is really giving the team the ability to say, okay, this one has more value if you chase after him, spend more time, it's okay if you if certain other opportunities drop off because we have, the data to back up with you spending more time on this opportunity.

Dustin: 24:57

Okay, great. If you're to wave a magic wand out there, and this tool isn't built yet, what is the ideal tool in your mind that's going to help this industry move forward?

Mark: 25:11

Yeah, I would just say more standardization across the different networks, data sources, right? When I deal with clients, they put us, our affiliate metrics in the same bucket as all the other marketing metrics, and it's not, right? The different Attribution data points to have different values and weights to it. And depending on the client, the vertical, you need to be able to adjust that. I would like to be able to have a tool where I can see all my publishers, all of the data from the different networks social media followers I can create custom metrics And be able to create the blacklist and whitelist really easily. And really understand the barriers of engaging with that publisher, right? What's the cost what is their timelines look like in making deals? What are their. A database where I can build out the different assets, can you do, in app landing page notifications or, just so many different types of partners out there and understanding a way of engaging with them in a fashion where they can pick it up really quickly, right? Because, Tech partners, they have a certain, they know what their features are, and they might not, if you make the pitch too broad, they might not pick up on how low hanging fruit opportunity they could be. And so being able to know that ahead of time before making the pitch to them, would just help our team immensely in being able to engage with them easily.

Dustin: 26:39

Oh, excellent way. Love that answer. And yes commonalities and this industry has so many different nomenclatures for words that are the same. And we need so desperately in this industry, but everybody's trying to be quirky and have their own words, which is funny and annoying at the same time. A

Mark: 27:02

hundred percent.

Dustin: 27:04

Yeah. All right, as we wind down here, this whole interview has all been all about optimizing your talents and carving your own role in this industry. Is there anything, any big tips you would want to give somebody for suggestions on how to hone in on their talents and make their own path?

Mark: 27:24

Yeah just from my own experience of my journey. It's really understanding the people around you and their strengths and weaknesses that's what helped me, right? When I first went into inclusive marketing and everyone was such great affiliate program managers, I was like, how can I fit in this organization contribute? And, I started noticing that what are people shying away from at the time it was compliance, right? So I went full on in compliance was building resources, kept up with all the news and even join a panel and I became the compliance manager for a short period of time. And I was able to kind of branch out and be able to help my team members and they were able to give me insights on what they're doing. And then I was able to then expand into the operations role. So understanding people's strengths and weaknesses, building out the strength that you can contribute, and that helps the collaboration piece and building out your understanding and your skillset.

Dustin: 28:24

Beautiful. I love it. All right. How do we connect with you, Mark?

Mark: 28:29

Yeah, through LinkedIn definitely check out all inclusive marketing website and yeah, feel free to reach out. Awesome.

Dustin: 28:37

All right. Thanks so much for sharing your journey and your industry knowledge. We really appreciate you for those of you out there Keep on recruiting and we'll see you out there. Take care