Posts Tagged ‘Brian Littleton’

In anticipation of his keynote panel presentation at Affiliate Management Days entitled 2016 Affiliate State of the Union, our very own Geno Prussakov interviewed Brian Littleton, Founder & CEO of ShareASale. View the Q-and-A below to learn more about Brian’s thoughts about affiliate marketing, in general, and the management of affiliate programs, in particular. Also, glimpse what’s in store for the AM Days 2016 conference.

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Question: If you were to emphasize one important issue that every affiliate manager should be paying more attention to, what would it be and why?

Brian:  Right now – Affiliate Managers should be paying attention to Affiliates.  So much attention has been placed on attribution, cost-control, mobile apps … all of the buzzwords of the day – and all of those are important pieces of the puzzle.  However, in the course of that time Affiliate Managers have gotten away from the core of this industry which is building relationships with Affiliates who can bring you customers.

Question: What do you believe to be the main areas of opportunity in 2016 – for online marketers, in general, and for affiliate marketers, in particular?

Brian:  For retailers, the opportunity is still widely available to work with amazing content affiliates and publishers who are looking for retailers who are serious about this channel.  More and more of these types of affiliates are coming to Performance Marketing – and each time they are disappointed by a retailer either via low commission, or mis-management – that is an opportunity for a really strong retailer to snap up a quality affiliate and long term partner.  For affiliates?  The opportunities are endless and too many to list - the best part about this industry is that an affiliate will come up with something that isn’t even on my radar.

Question: What do you believe to be the biggest challenge advertisers with affiliate programs face, and what steps could help them overcome it?

Brian:  Solving the late-checkout / coupon / attribution dilemma is still important – although technology on ShareASale and others can easily be implemented to help.  The larger challenge comes mostly internally – as many other internal channels such as Search/Email/Re-Targeting/etc… are more likely to be given credit above the affiliate channel.  That mistake leads to affiliate programs incentive loaded for low value affiliates, and as a result, low value affiliates is all they get.  If you want to build a program with quality bloggers, content sites and top-of-funnel affiliates – then you have to get serious about rewarding those affiliates for the work that they do and not making internal excuses to pay them less due to channel conflict.

Question: Please give us 1-3 reasons why marketers should attend your AM Days 2016 presentation, 2016 Affiliate State of the Union.

Brian:  The panel of network and service providers is a fan favorite. We get great questions and have a great discussion every year – we’re really pleased to be included and looking forward to it!

Question: If you were to leave online advertisers, merchants and affiliate managers with one piece of advice, what would it be?

Brian:  The same as I stated above – the opportunities are endless out there in the highly coveted world of content publishing, but it is competitive.  If you want to be in that space, you need to treat the content publisher in a different manner, and consider their perspective.

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Don’t miss Brian’s participation in the keynote panel, 2016 Affiliate State of the Union, at Affiliate Management Days on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, from 8:40am-10:25am. Click here to register for attendance.

I have recently interviewed two prominent figures in the affiliate marketing world: Brian Littleton (CEO & Founder of ShareASale) in the U.S., and Kevin Edwards (Strategy Director at Affiliate Window, and former Chair for the IAB’s Affiliate Marketing Council) in the U.K. The interviews with them have just gone live; and while we’ve discussed many interesting things with each of them, at the end of the interviews I asked both the same question:

If you were to leave affiliate managers with just one advice today, what would it be?

We’ve always heard: “know the affiliate!” And while it is important (extremely important) to know who your affiliates are and what their needs are, both Brian and Kevin also underscored something else: the importance of knowing the merchant’s product/business too… Here are their full replies (with links to respective interviews):

Brian Littleton:

Use your instinct. When it comes to finding a really good affiliate, don’t be fooled simply by statistics or language. Use your instinct and knowledge of your own product and website to help you.

Too many Affiliate Managers are forced into relationships either by lack of understanding or through automatic approval. Unfortunately, their programs can suffer due to it. If you are going to actively manage a program – make sure to use your #1 asset. [full interview on SmallBizTrends.com]

Kevin Edwards:

Know your client’s business and what they’re trying to achieve. Many won’t necessarily have the full picture so work with them consultatively. Don’t sell them propositions that may be ill-fitting or unsuitable, this will only serve to undermine the goodwill you’ve built up.

Be open to the huge raft of online opportunities available to you via affiliate marketing but never lose sight of the bigger picture and how all the pieces fit together. [full interview on Econsultancy.com]

Both Brian and Kevin will be speaking at Affiliate Management Days East 2012, participating on the two-part “The Role of the Network” keynote panel during Day 2. Come see them live!

I am excited to announce that we have finalized the agenda for Affiliate Management Days East 2012 which is set to take place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on 9-10 October, 2012.

There is a total of 32 speakers (see their bios here), including such luminaries of Internet marketing as Joanna Lord (SEOmoz), Hunter Boyle (AWeber), Tim Ash (SiteTuners), David Szetela (Bionic Click) and Brad Geddes (CertifiedKnowledge.org), as well as such affiliate marketing stars as Carolyn Kmet (Groupon), Todd Crawford (Impact Radius), Brian Littleton (ShareASale), Rebecca Madigan (Performance Marketing Association), Peter Hamilton (HasOffers), Kevin Edwards (Affiliate Window), Ali Pasha (Google Affiliate Network), and many many others. It is going to be one amazing show!

The three keynotes I’ve arranged for you will be as follows:

1. Rebecca Madigan will focus on “Navigating Big Issues” giving you a big picture look at the value of compliance, education, managing your CEO’s expectations, attribution, and why you need to think big in order to promote growth in your affiliate program.
2. Brad Geddes in his “Building a Brand When No One Cares Who You Are” speech will discuss how to get customers to care about your business. Both through affiliates, or other channels, you can successfully build your brand, growing a solid database of loyal customers.
3. David Szetela will concentrate on “Search, Affiliates and the Future of Personal Computing” and how you can anticipate the coming paradigm shifts that can either threaten or supercharge the way you do business through affiliates.

There will also be things on the agenda that will be quite different from the our first show in San Francisco earlier this year. The three I’d like to emphasize here are:

1. OPMs — Surprisingly, but we’ve had only a couple of OPMs presenting in SF in April. Many of them have tremendous experience; hence, the surprise… This time, however, we have a quite a few on the agenda (Mike Nunez of AffiliateManager.com, Daniel Feinberg of GTO Management, Robert Glazer of Acceleration Partners, Rick Gardiner of Gardiner Media Group).
2. Panel with affiliate networks — As you can see on the agenda, there will be no morning keynote on Day 2. Instead, we’re doing something very different this time: a panel with higher level execs from all major affiliate networks (the already-confirmed panelists include Jessica Breslav of Commission Junction, Tony Nelan of Google Affiliate Network, Brian Littleton of ShareASale, Kevin Edwards of Affiliate Window, and Todd Crawford of Impact Radius). “The Role of the Network” panel will run for 1.5 hours in the course of which the network reps will discuss what role of the network in areas such as affiliate screening, fraud monitoring, program management and more.
3. New topics — We’ll have sessions on topics which weren’t covered in much depth in San Francisco (e.g.: a session on FTC and state actions, a panel on affiliate automation tools, a session on mobile commerce in affiliate marketing, etc)

So, what are you waiting for? Come register while the Super Early Bird rate is still on (it won’t last for longer than 15 more days)! I’m looking forward to meeting you at the show.