Inside the Affiliate Marketing Ecosystem with Admitad's Evan Johnson

Imagine that you could understand the world of affiliate marketing better, learn about key players in the ecosystem, and get insider tips from the top minds in the field. Well, you're in luck! Join us in conversation with Evan Johnson from Admitad, a tech-whiz with a teaching background, who is revolutionizing this landscape. With his unique perspective and Admitad's innovative approach, we're tearing down the jargon and complexity to make affiliate marketing more approachable for you.

In a world where transparency is paramount, we delve into new laws and regulations around consumer data. We discuss how brands are deepening their relationships with their affiliates and the incentives used to drive better performance. Evan helps us unpack the legal and financial intricacies of international affiliate marketing, highlighting how Admitad eases this burden for brands. Plus, we get a sneak peek into their cutting-edge machine learning algorithm that is enabling faster payouts.

Finally, we get into the real-life stories of success and upcoming trends in affiliate marketing. From online ticketing services to fitness and supplement brands, Evan shares some of the latest triumphs in the field. We discuss how successful brands invest in communication and offer unique incentives to their top-performing affiliates. So, buckle up and get ready for a deep-dive into the world of affiliate marketing with Admitad.

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Connect with Evan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-johnson-a2081062/

Learn more about Admitad/Mitgo: https://www.admitad.com/

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Retail Wire Podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:07

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Retail Wire Podcast. I am your host, Brian, and of course, we've got some great information coming up for you today. Today's episode is a little bit different than some of our other Meet the Brain Trust episodes, because we actually have a good resource for you today from a company called Admetad, and so if you are into affiliate marketing, then you're going to want to catch this episode, you're going to want to listen in, because I have Evan here from Admetad, and so we're going to talk affiliate marketing. We're going to talk about what it is, what it isn't, and then some of the things that Admetad not only brings to the table, but also the things that they're seeing in the affiliate marketing space, ways that companies can win and ways that honestly, I mean we chatted a little bit ahead of this and I tell you there's some really cool stuff they're doing. So I'm not even going to keep rambling right now, I'm just going to go ahead and jump in and say Evan, welcome to the show, man Great.

Speaker 3: 1:06

Well, first of all, thanks for the hype, Brian. It's a pleasure to be here. And it's great to talk to everybody.

Speaker 2: 1:11

The more we talked about it ahead of time here and kind of doing the pre-gaming. If you're in podcasting or if you've ever been on a podcast, you know you talk ahead of time and that's good. So the more I actually got excited about this because I'm going, I've done affiliate marketing for some other companies, like you know. I've have shared the links, I've done all the stuff. You know I've had the downloadable assets that I can send out and everything, and you know you get the story cues. So I kind of understand what affiliate marketing has been, but I don't know if I fully have understood how good it can be. And, you guys, it really seems like Abnetad makes it super easy for an organization to do affiliate marketing, not only from the presenter of the affiliate marketing but from the recipient, right, so sure.

Speaker 3: 2:02

Yeah, we do our best to educate all the people involved. Yeah, I was actually a teacher before I got into affiliate marketing, so making sure that everybody knows what's expected, how the whole ecosystem works, is a key component to making sure everything works smoothly.

Speaker 2: 2:19

Yeah Well, and that's good. I mean, you know you have to have that heart of a teacher, right? You have to be able to inform people, educate people and kind of bring them up to speed so that way they feel really well equipped, right.

Speaker 3: 2:30

Yeah, and it's not just being well equipped, like knowing the tools, but a lot of it is about expectations. So in psychology they always say that happiness is the difference between expectations and reality. That if you expect one thing but it turns out a different way, then you might be upset. But if you go in there having clear expectations, knowing you know, oh, this is how it works, this is what will happen at this stage, Then when it does happen you'll be like, oh, this is just how I expected it, Everything is going gravy.

Speaker 2: 3:03

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's the funny part is, you can even offer a lower quality or a faster pace item or service or experience, and if you're setting those proper expectations, then people are happy with it. They're still happy with it at the end, right?

Speaker 2: 3:20

No more you can sell them a million dollar car and tell them all the things that it does and everything like that. And as long as you set those proper expectations, then they're happy. So that's good, yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about you said you've been a teacher, so jump in really quick and let's before we can jump into Admitad. So who are you? What's you live up in Chicago, is that right?

Speaker 3: 3:46

That's right, I'm in Chicago right now. I grew up around the Midwest, mostly in Wisconsin and Indiana, and then I spent about eight years of my life abroad after I finished college, first working as an English teacher, and then I really liked communicating, explaining things, like getting on the same level of people, really connecting with folks. But then I realized I kind of wanted to make some money. So I moved on from teaching into the technology sphere because I found that there's a lot of really good programmers who can make really good tools, but they're not the best at explaining or marketing or selling their products. So I got involved in the internet advertising sphere about seven years ago. Before Admitad. I was at a mobile app development company and a social media management company, and here I've been with Admitad for about six and a half years. I was over. We're based in Germany, so I was overseas for a while and then in July 2021, I came back to the States in order to found our American office and I've been growing it ever since.

Speaker 2: 4:54

And that's really cool. So I was going to ask, actually, and I think you had mentioned this ahead of time. So, admitad, you mentioned that it has German roots to it. Is that correct?

Speaker 3: 5:06

That's right. That's right. We're based in Heilbronn, germany, and the name Admitad actually, so ad is German for advertisement, as it is in a lot of languages, and then mit means with in German, so literally it means ad with ad.

Speaker 2: 5:25

So pull back that curtain just a little bit before we jump into the deep dive. So what does that mean? Admitad meaning that's your approach here. What sets Admitad apart?

Speaker 3: 5:36

Sure. So we said we are different from other affiliate marketing companies. One because we have this really global perspective. So we have offices in about 12 countries around the world. The United States is actually one of our most recent ones and, like I said, we have an established presence in Europe. We also have offices in Mexico, brazil, the Middle East, india recently opened one in, recently opened one in Singapore, but speaking with folks in Indonesia. So we and that's part of the cool parts about working here is that we got about 800 people from all kinds of different cultures, all kinds of different backgrounds, and so it's been really interesting. It can be challenging at some points bridging those gaps, but once you can, you get access to a lot of different perspectives.

Speaker 2: 6:25

Yeah, no doubt, man. I mean, I can imagine 12 different countries. That's got to have some really cool findings for you and some really deep observation points.

Speaker 3: 6:36

Yeah, and some of our folks have really good frequent flyer programs.

Speaker 2: 6:39

No doubt, and I bet there's a few folks flying for free based on just their corporate travel.

Speaker 3: 6:46

So that's good for them. And then we as a company, we were started by an affiliate. So our CEO and founder, alexander Bachman he actually was working as an affiliate like or as a we also say a publisher, so somebody writing blogs, somebody making YouTube videos, somebody creating content and promoting brands. He was working as one of those in high school and then he dropped out of high school in order to build this network because he was a bit dissatisfied with the networks he was working with that provided his needs. So I'm going to build my own. So we are very much a kind of a bottom up approach. Where we've been there, we know what are the struggles that affiliates and brands face, and so we build solutions in order to solve them. As opposed to being part of, like a you know a big mega corporation, publicly traded, where everything has to be, you know, approved by you know five different divisions and stuff, we were able to act quickly based on the needs of what our clients and partners need. So that's another different genre of us.

Speaker 2: 7:51

That's really cool, like and I think, especially in today's world, that's absolutely imperative to be able to act quickly. Right, you got to be able to shift on a dime because, as we're learning with, you know, machine and generative AI and everything else going on right now, I'll tell you. It's funny how people can think that they, well, we'll accomplish that two months from now, three months from now, and it's going. Nope, you'll be gone two or three months from now. So that opportunity to shift quickly has got to be there.

Speaker 3: 8:20

Right, and you've got to have people at the top who understand what's really going on at the bottom, people who have been there, people who have experienced those pains, because that's how you really drive the right solutions for your clients.

Speaker 2: 8:32

Yeah, so let's dive in. Let's talk about for anyone who's joining here, we're talking about affiliate marketing. We're talking with Evan here from Admetad, and so what is affiliate marketing? As far as just give me the 101 level, explain it to me like I'm three, or, like we said a while ago, like you're explaining to your six month old. So that's good. What is affiliate marketing? And then, what is it not? Cause I think there's probably some misperceptions of what it is out there. Let's start with what it isn't right. What do people kind of come to you with? You're talking about setting proper expectations and they go. Well, here's what I want, here's what I expect. What are some of those common themes that you see whenever people come to you?

Speaker 3: 9:17

Right, and so one thing that drives me crazy whenever I'm scrolling around the internet and scrolling around the internet isn't the best option for your mental health, I should say that. But everybody in the yeah yeah, just kind of swiping brain dead. But everybody, and their brother of these influencers, likes to advertise affiliate marketing as a passive income source, the idea being that you just set up an account, put some links somewhere and then kick back and wait for the money to roll in. That's not how it works at all. I want to be really clear that affiliate marketing can be successful and it can bring you income, but it is not passive. It requires work, and it requires work both on the affiliates end and on the brand's end. Both of these people have to put in work to make this relationship really develop, and so it's important that both people understand that constant communication, constant reviewing of what's working, what's not, correcting course all of that is really important. It is active income, not passive income.

Speaker 2: 10:28

Yep, absolutely I mean kind of to quote a different organization it works. If you work it, so work it because it's worth it, right?

Speaker 2: 10:36

Mm-hmm you gotta keep moving on. That and that's the funny part is like you wouldn't go into. I think a lot of people, especially today, have this grandiose idea and I think it's the influencer culture, right Like. I think it's the social media hype of everybody that wants that quick, get rich quick. I don't want to have to work, I want to be on vacation sipping a Mai Tai any time of the year. I want my family to enjoy this stuff. But the reality is, when you get married, you don't just tell your spouse I love you one time and then you walk away and go.

Speaker 3: 11:07

I expect this marriage to fly really well, right and so- you know, I saw a great analogy about that, so I had to interrupt that Some people want to have a wedding and some people want to have a marriage. Ooh, okay, yeah, and so, as opposed to just being like a one time event, kind of set it and forget it, where the other is, like something that develops and requires investment over time.

Speaker 2: 11:30

Yeah, absolutely yeah. I think you know the more you nurture it, whether it's affiliate marketing or anything else, really the more you pour yourself in, the more you're going to draw out from it. So yeah, like you're saying, affiliate marketing is not this set it and forget it kind of thing. It's not going to solve all your financial woes just because you created an account and then ran maybe a couple of Facebook ads or something like that, right? So what does you know? We said you know nurturing it, jumping in. What is some of the best affiliate marketers out there do? What does their daily routine look like? Or what's something that you see being good habits to form?

Speaker 3: 12:08

Sure. So let me take a step back and kind of describe the ecosystem and describe who's the players, who's all involved in this, because there might be some folks listening who are hearing about affiliate marketing for the first time. Yeah, so what? Affiliate marketing is the definition of the word. The term affiliate marketing means that somebody is advertising your products, but they're not your employee, they're an affiliate. We also call them a partner or a publisher, and here's an analogy I like to use.

Speaker 3: 12:39

Let's say that you are Nike, you're making, let's say, air Jordans yeah, and you're really good. But you want to make sure that your advertisements are reaching a diverse set of customers, because you have your TV ads, you have your newspaper ads, you have, like, your own internet ads, but you want to make sure that people are talking about you so that it seems authentic. Yeah, and me, I'm a sneakerhead. I really like connecting, I love collecting shoes, I live for shoes. Every single time there's a new shoe comes out, I'm standing outside the block. I am somebody who people believe I am an authority, an independent third party authority on shoes. So you're Nike, you release your like Air Jordan. I don't even know how many Jordan, let's say, air Jordan 50s. I am a sneakerhead cool guy and I say, wow, these Air Jordan 50s are really, really worth it. Guys, these are, I don't know, super hype, super dope. They're bustin'.

Speaker 3: 13:46

Inclusive limited edition. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can use all the well, I can't use all this slang, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:54

I got good-. No, you're showing your age. No, I was joking.

Speaker 3: 13:57

That's right. I got good things to say about these shoes and I'm writing, I'm putting it on my YouTube channel, my Instagram page, my Facebook page, my blog. I'm saying these shoes are great. Use my code I don't know sneakerhead20, and click this link in order to get 20% off these Air Jordans. So when my followers click that link and use my code to buy your shoes, you pay me a commission for that sale. You say all right, evan, you brought me a bunch of cool, a bunch of customers, thanks to your work. We're going to give you this reward. Yeah, that's affiliate marketing.

Speaker 2: 14:40

But you're not employed by them, right? You're like 1099. Is that correct? Not?

Speaker 3: 14:45

even 1099. No, so how the relationship the relationship works is it doesn't require a contract between me and you.

Speaker 2: 14:52

Oh nice.

Speaker 3: 14:53

In between me, the publisher, the affiliate, and you, the brand, the merchant, the advertiser, there's a third party called the Affiliate Network, okay, and the Affiliate Network handles the legal relationship, handles the payment, handles the technology and acts as a matchmaker. To say that, like, hey, nike, I know that you're looking this month, you're looking for 10 new bloggers, like here's 10 new bloggers that can talk about your shoes. So those are the three parties in affiliate marketing. You've got you, the advertiser, selling products, you've got me, the affiliate or publisher, trying to advertise those products and you've got the Affiliate Network, which connects us through legal, financial, technological and through service.

Speaker 2: 15:43

Okay, man, that's, yeah, that's. I mean to think of jumping in like we were talking a little bit of also ahead of time, but like sounds like you guys are taking on pretty much all the heavy lifting right, like that third party, the Affiliate Network really does take on the heavy lifting part of the relationship.

Speaker 3: 16:03

Yeah, yeah. So, on the one end, we are the ones who make it all happen from a technical perspective. So when a user clicks on that link, we're the one telling you the brand that, hey, this user came from exactly this affiliate. Yeah, and they made this purchase at this time for this amount, and we can see all that in our dashboard. So if you, when you Nike, go into our platform, you can see exactly. You know, I had yesterday, I had 100 sales coming from these 10 affiliates and we can say exactly what were those 100 sales, who are the affiliates that brought them, what were the amounts, and then you can confirm or deny them on your end. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 16:44

Because another important part of affiliate marketing is that you pay only when there's a sale, okay, okay. So I know a lot of there's always in the advertising world. There's the classic Wannermaker's dilemma. You ever hear about this, huh? So Wannermaker ran a department store back in the 20s and he had this famous quote about his dilemma, saying that half of the advertising money I spend is wasted. The problem is I just don't know what half. Yes, okay, I'm following. And so it speaks to this issue of, like, a lot of advertising has kind of transparency issues that, like you know, if you're putting up a billboard on the highway, you don't know if everybody who passes by that billboard is actually you know your target audience, right, yeah? Whereas with affiliate marketing, these people made the purchase. They're like you pay the affiliate when they bring you sales. So it's a pretty clear cut relationship and that's nice to understand.

Speaker 2: 17:54

Yeah, it's very much an if this, then this kind of equation to it. Right, if they clicked, if they purchased, well, then you know it was contributed to exactly that. There's no questions out there, you know, in the same way as like if you're saying, if you saw a sign, but then you went home and you got served an ad online, then you may have gotten, you know, let's call it Planet Fitness, right, and Planet Fitness is great about smattering their advertisements everywhere, and so they hit a lot of different people because, similarly to the conversation here, really anyone is their target audience, which, by the way, I love their approach to this because it's so soft but yet it's so like, passionate, and what I mean by that is anyone can get 10 bucks a month, right, anybody can do that. So it's funny because, from the marketing side, you kind of understand they're not banking on people showing up. They're banking on people not showing up, which is okay, that's a good model, because you always have that opportunity to show up, and so, like, if you're like my wife and I, we have the black card, and so not only do we utilize the black card everywhere, you know every day here, or at least you know four or five days a week. But then also it has additional, you know affiliate kind of or affiliated I should say benefits, because you have different, you know different discounts in their app and stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 19:16

But then you also, like I was in New York last week and it was super hot, I was sweaty, nasty, I was like walking around downtown, the water bottle was empty and I was like you know what? There's a Planet Fitness right up the road over here. I'm going to go in, I'm going to swipe in, fill up my water bottle and you know, kind of reset myself a little bit and then head it out for the rest of the day. So you get those benefits right From the perks, from being affiliated with that brand In the same way, I would assume. Obviously I understand it's a loose connection here, but the idea would be that through an affiliate marketing you're reaping the reward, the benefit, the affiliation of getting paid when you talk well about their product and people actually buy, sure, and you, you as the in our example, the brand knows about the affiliates Like there's there's complete transparency.

Speaker 3: 20:05

Like a lot of the brands we work with actually want to approve the affiliates themselves first, which is totally fine. They have a complete right to see where are there, where's their brand placed on which websites. Because I know that, like there's on internet advertising you can there's been some weird stuff where you know if you're a respectable brand and you get posted up on next to some not respectable content, then that raises a lot of eyebrows.

Speaker 2: 20:32

Yeah, yeah, and what have you seen? Actually, that serves up the next question I was just thinking of was what? What have you seen kind of in recent years? You know you said you've been with the company a little over six years, I think now. So what have you seen happen with thinking directly of transparency, with advertising and sponsored content? What have you seen kind of shift? And how has? How has Admetad kind of approached that? Because I know, like you know, now you have to use, you know, hashtag, sponsored or hashtag ad and things like that, when 10 years ago you really didn't have to. There was sneaky stuff going on, and so has that been a first of all, I guess my first question would be has that been a good or bad thing for Admetad? And then the other thing is how have you navigated that? Sure?

Speaker 3: 21:19

So it's been a good thing for us, because we've been able to adapt to it.

Speaker 2: 21:22

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 21:23

And there's been a lot of new, not just on the side of brands wanting to have more transparency which we're completely fine with we provide, like, full transparency but also on the regulatory side. So there's a lot of laws around transparency and what you do with consumer data. For example, we're a German company, we're based in Germany, and so we have to be in line with a lot of the EU regulations, which are actually more stringent than the United States. Yeah, so, if you remember a thing, there was a thing called the GDPR General Data Protection Regulation that came on 2018. So that requires now now, when you go to sites, you have to, like, say that, okay, I do accept cookies. Or, like sites have to have disclaimers saying that, like you know, this is we do use cookies in our site. Like, you have to actively opt in as opposed to opt out. So we've been able to adapt to that.

Speaker 2: 22:19

Yeah, instead of going back through afterwards and going well, you visited us, so now we, you know we absolutely get to serve you at. Hey, are you okay with me? Following you around the internet for a while, and it's funny because I've even noticed my own habits of the more I've understood now about GDPR and the different cooking laws and regulations out there. Now it's really nice to be able to go look, I'm only here for like a one-time purchase, I'm only here for a short thing, so I can opt out from that.

Speaker 2: 22:52

And then you know, I think that one that saves me a lot of headache, right, as a user. It saves me a lot of headache because I don't want to be followed around by every single website that I follow or that I go to. But on the opposite side of that, from the advertiser, I mean, I got to imagine that probably saves a lot of dollars on ad budgets too, because when people are opting themselves out or just say not opting in actively from the beginning, they go. Well, that's clearly not our audience, so I don't want to go after them, right, right, and that brings you asked me what trends I've been seeing, and so that brings me to my second point.

Speaker 3: 23:28

A lot of advertisers are really now, as opposed to casting a wider net, they're casting a deeper net that a lot of them are really like doubling down on what partners, what affiliates, really work for them. So, for example, you can see that like every month, if you're a brand, you can see these are the top 10 affiliates of my brand. Now, as you can say, I'm going to try and recruit, you know, 100, 1000 more, and you're more than welcome to do that. But a lot of brands, in addition to doing that, have really been saying OK, I really want to deepen my relationship with those top 10 affiliates. So we've seen a lot of things. For example and not all of this is new, but we've seen that a lot more.

Speaker 3: 24:09

A lot of people have been doing it in our industry is things like exclusive promo codes. Like, if you're the top performing blogger in my affiliate program, I'm going to give you not just the standard 10% discount, but a 15% discount to give to your users. People have been using bonus scales. So let's say, if you reach 100 sales in a month, instead of me paying you a 10% commission, I'm going to pay you a 15% commission. So there's really like incentivize the high performers.

Speaker 3: 24:44

And then we've also been seeing that a lot of our affiliates are bringing such good results that brands are willing to pay them fixed placements. So not just a commission on sale, but like, ok, if you're a large website that is doing product comparisons, and I want to, my brand wants to be like on the front page of your website. Or if my brand wants to be like on the first paragraph of your email newsletter, like I'm willing to pay an extra like $5,000 a month for that placement, yeah, and so like that really deepens the relationship and it really incentivizes that affiliate to do more and more and more. So we've seen that a lot of advertisers are really like doubling down on the affiliates that work and that that has been a lot more effective.

Speaker 2: 25:29

OK, that's really, that's really cool to know because, like I've always kind of wanted how that's, how that's working in the back end and like what you guys are seeing, because you know, again, like I've been an affiliate for a couple of different brands, love their stuff, love their their product, naturally, so it kind of worked in for me to just naturally promote that Right and so. But then, but then to see how that works for some of these larger scale successes, I should say, because you know I've got other friends out there who they've been doing the affiliate marketing, affiliate marketing thing for a while and they're they're very successful at it. You know they really invest a lot of time, a lot of effort and it's paying off for them. And so you know, it's really cool to see that that, like we're saying, it's not a set and forget it, but it's something that I think that's where it makes so much sense.

Speaker 2: 26:19

If you're already passionate about a brand or a topic or a product or something like that, then you know it makes sense for that brand to work with you and be an affiliate. It's not really sweat off their back right, like it's not providing a ton of demand for them, but it's generating a lot of good hype and they, like you're saying they they pay when you help them sell. So, right, you know, it's like my friends you know saying, hey, my, you know, my son's got to eliminate stand out front or something. And we see a neighbor that says, hey, you should go down there and grab some lemonade from this kid, he's really good. And it's like, well, you know, he didn't work for me, the guy didn't owe me anything. But at the same point I can go back back to him afterwards and say, hey, cool, thanks so much for sending those people down. You know, why don't you guys come over for a cookout later or something?

Speaker 3: 27:06

You know yeah, and that's that's what they, what they used to call. It is just word of mouth, yeah, yeah, and that's what affiliate marketing is, on just a grander scale of the Internet. And word of mouth, we know, is like one of the most effective ways, effective techniques of persuasion because you're believing a credible third party yes, as opposed to just the person selling you the stuff, telling you their information which you might believe has bias in it.

Speaker 2: 27:33

Yeah, absolutely. So let's let's jump. Let's jump forward a little bit, because I know you said you're in 12 different countries, right, so that's got to have a pretty big impact right on on not only understanding the, the EU regulations, like you talked about, but what are you seeing some benefits to operating in that many countries? What's, what's some of the key stuff that you're? You're able to take from that and really make Admetad kind of stand out.

Speaker 3: 28:01

Right. What's what's really nice is that, because we're in 12 different countries, we have the infrastructure and the local language support in a ton of different markets that can help people not only in their own markets, but in order to cross borders. Yeah, for example, I'm here in Chicago. I'm based in the United States. A lot of the brands we work with are either American brands who are trying to go abroad, or they could be European and Asian brands who are trying to come into the United States.

Speaker 2: 28:32

Okay.

Speaker 3: 28:32

Likewise, we're working with American affiliates who are trying to generate sales outside the United States, or we have, you know, european and Asian affiliates who are trying to bring sales into the United States. And so one of the advantages of working with us and not just us, but an affiliate market in general is that we handle that legal and financial relationship. So again, if you're Nike and I'm the affiliate, we don't sign a contract. Yeah, the relationship is that you, nike, pay the affiliate network and the network pays the affiliate. So if I'm the affiliate and let's say I'm in Japan, for example, but I'm writing a blog about Nike shoes in Japan, in Japanese, and you want to have a relationship with me, you can sign a contract with Admetad United States and Admetad Japan branches will pay the Japanese affiliate.

Speaker 3: 29:40

You don't have to have a bank account in Japan. You don't have to have a specific legal setup in Japan. We handle that for you, so you can have one window into many different countries.

Speaker 2: 29:53

And so that takes. I mean, that's what I was saying a while ago if you guys shouldering a lot of the responsibility, I mean that that takes that and kicks into hyperdrive there, because I can imagine, like I know, how frustrating it can be like right now just trying to send payments to friends or family over in a different country, right, and so, like, just using person to person payments can provide a little bit of frustration there. But you guys are handling, like you, payouts to affiliates no matter where. So if I'm based here and I'm really wanting to go into the Asian market, right, I can break into China or Japan or something like that through this affiliate marketing and not be. I don't have to worry about setting up all those bank accounts, the different transaction fees and regulations and everything. You guys handle all that for us.

Speaker 3: 30:45

We do a lot of work on the back end. Our finance guys have kept pretty busy but yeah, that's a lot of the service that we provide.

Speaker 2: 30:52

That's insane. I was just going to ask do they ever sleep, or do you just keep cranking up on top?

Speaker 3: 30:59

Well, so 12 countries means that there's always somebody, there's always some time zone that's working. But yeah, we handle all the currency exchange, all the payments and one of the we've really been focusing on the payments our network specifically.

Speaker 2: 31:13

I was going to ask how do you get paid, Like you mentioned a while ago, like the brand pays in and then you pay the affiliate. But yeah, how does that work?

Speaker 3: 31:22

Yeah. So how it works is that if the affiliate brings in, says that they brought you 100 sales and our platform records 100 different sales, then you, as the brand, you actually go in there and you say like OK, these sales were legit. Or if you say like you know, let's say you see that 20 of those sales were their credit card was declined later on. So you say like or there were some other kind of fraudulent case, and you say like OK, those 80 of those sales went through. 20 of those sales did not go through.

Speaker 3: 31:55

So you as the Advertiser, the brand, have a certain amount. You have, like, let's say, 30 days to review those sales, say where they were they false or were they true? Yep, and then you have another 30 days to pay us, the affiliate network, and then at that time the affiliate can withdraw his money from our network. So from the affiliate Bringing the sale on his end to him getting his money, it can take up to 60 days. Oh, wow, okay. In the traditional sense. However, we've realized that a lot of people don't want to wait 60 days for their money, and it's not just because they want to take the money and go buy like the latest gadget, but you got to understand a lot of these like content creators, affiliates, influencers this is their business. They need that cash flow in order to reinvest in their business.

Speaker 2: 32:46

Yeah, because they're. They're also paying their own bills, for sure, but then they're also going out buying ads. They're they're buying more product that they can, you know, push and and really show that brand off, or you know that that service or anything. So no, absolutely they there. They need that quick flow.

Speaker 3: 33:03

Yeah, and for anybody who's run a small business, no. Is that like cash flow is king?

Speaker 2: 33:08

Yes, 100%. Yeah, we can. We can get into that discussion later. But there's like the whole topic of returns right now and the amount of money and product that is literally just Floating around in the ether somewhere in the back of FedEx and UPS trucks for up to 30 or 45 days Occasionally sometimes, or maybe gets lost in their own warehouses and and as a brand, you need that back in your inventory, right.

Speaker 3: 33:31

So, anyways, right, different discussion right, and so we know that that cash flow is a huge problem, especially for the small and medium businesses who actually work with us as affiliates. And so what we did is we developed a machine learning algorithm which can accurate, accurately predict with like 99% certainty that if you, the affiliate in that example I brought I spoke earlier about me bringing in 80 sales, me I'm sorry, me bringing in 100 sales and 80 of those being accepted by the brand, the machine learning algorithm we have can actually predict Okay, based on your history of the affiliate and based on this brand's history of declining and accepting sales, we can predict at that moment that you make those sales, will this sale be accepted or not by the advertiser.

Speaker 2: 34:23

Wow.

Speaker 3: 34:25

So, at that, that what that allows us to do is it allows us Admitab to pay the affiliate before the advertiser pays us, because in that, in that example, the affiliate brought in 80, brought in 100 sales, but we know that we predict that 80 of them will be Accepted. So we can just say, okay, we're gonna pay you for those 80 sales out of our money and then you can get that cash flow Instantly, as opposed to waiting for 60 days.

Speaker 2: 34:55

Yeah, okay, so yeah, you guys are really Expediting that a ton then for for that payout. So your shoulder like essentially what I'm hearing here is your shouldering the burden of the risk, right of like, of the payout. But it's not, it's not really doesn't sound like too much of a risk. Whenever you understand that you guys have this algorithm working on the back end to say, look, based on previous transactions, based on histories, you know, maybe it's a I don't know. You know, obviously I'm sure this is proprietary and everything but like, maybe it's based on that specific users, previous purchases, or maybe it's based on a Regional or a time of day that the purchase was made, or anything else like that, you guys are able to basically mitigate that and say, hey, look, based on this we've, we can say with pretty good certainty that this transaction will go through or won't go through or yeah, it's, it's fine, let's go ahead and let's go ahead and expedite this payout. Then the brand pays you guys in that back end, kind of a kind of an escrow account, right?

Speaker 3: 35:58

Yeah, one of the things my mom always told me growing up is that past, past Behavior is the best predictor of future behavior. Yep, and I always hated that when she wouldn't let me eat candy. But now that I'm in the business world I see that that's true and we just have access to a lot of data so we can really crunch those numbers and shoulder that risk.

Speaker 2: 36:18

Yeah, absolutely, and that's really cool. So so you guys have pretty much I think you guys call instant pay. Is that right? Like it's correct service there? So then, what else? Do you see? What's? What else is going on with admin tad? I mean, I saw something. You guys had a really recent release of something called admin tad rise. Is that right, yeah?

Speaker 3: 36:36

Yeah, because we've been seeing that there's a growing trend, a growing entrepreneurial trend, especially on the internet, of not just people trying to work as affiliates and be Publishers, but people trying to start their own brands, people trying to start their own stores. I'm sure you have a lot of your listeners are trying to get something started off the ground, right? Yep? So we've, we've seen that a lot of people, if they want to Build up their own stores, they want to test a lot of different marketing strategies first and kind of dip their toes in the water and kind of get their hands dirty a little bit themselves to understand before they scale up with like a large scale Kind of marketing strategy. So we've created admin tad rise, which is our Self-service platform.

Speaker 3: 37:25

So if you're a smaller brand and you're an entrepreneur and you want to manage things yourself, at least To get the your own, you know personal sense of it because I know a lot of times, as I mentioned before, if you want to grow a business, you really have to understand from the bottom up.

Speaker 3: 37:41

So If you want to set up everything yourself, with the help of some of our experts, we have this solution called admin tad rise. You guys, and this will mean that you control everything yourself. You set it up, you recruit the publishers, you have access to all the publishers. We have you and access to all of our standard tools, but the only difference is that you are running you or your team is running the campaign instead of us. It is a bit cheaper, and so that helps a lot for the more cost-conscious smaller businesses, and it's kind of a learning experience as well. As I mentioned, we do a lot to educate, we provide a lot of educational materials and we do have some support available. This, but we've seen this is a growing trend that more and more people are starting their own, especially their own online shops, so we make this an accessible option.

Speaker 2: 38:32

Okay, yeah, no, I like that because you know, that's one of the things I think you know you mentioned starting from, you really have to understand the whole process from that ground up, and so I think this is kind of that. It sounds to me like rise is kind of the Kind of that perfect middle ground, right where where the, the brand, is still able to kind of have their, their hand held a little bit. So they're they're not totally walking on their own, but yet at the same point, you're really enabling them to go out there and and really learn what they need out of an affiliate program. And then go okay, well, now it's once they scale to a certain point, they go hey, look, I can't keep doing this myself, I have to hand this off to you, right?

Speaker 3: 39:12

So right, and at that point they'll be able to say like okay, I see that this channel is driving Results, so I'm willing to invest in it, as opposed to saying like, right off the bat, I don't know what this is gonna bring me, I don't know how much money I'm willing to put up.

Speaker 2: 39:25

Yeah, especially yeah, if you're in that small to medium business, right, if you're what? Five million or less ish in revenues, then I mean you, really You're. You're still trying to figure some stuff out, you're still trying to make sure that you don't overextend yourself somewhere. So it sounds like the admin tad rise would be a really good opportunity Just to kind of like you're saying, get your, get your toes in the water a little bit, start that process and then prove, yeah, it can actually work.

Speaker 3: 39:51

Yeah, that's what we've seen, and that, and that's what's really important as a company, is making sure that you have Different variations of your product for different folks at different points of their own journey.

Speaker 2: 40:01

Yeah, absolutely Well, so, okay. So we're thinking, like you know, rise is definitely changing a lot of the way that newer affiliate you know options or opportunities can be out there. So what's you know is there like a you don't necessarily have to say a specific brand if you don't want to, or obviously reasons, but like what? Are there any success stories that you can think of? Recently that you guys have seen with Admit ad that that you just you know, somebody came to you and said hey, I'm looking to do this, whether it was with Rise or whether it was with your full service opportunity here? Is there someone or some field or anything that you can talk about that maybe came to you and they go wow, I totally get it.

Speaker 3: 40:52

Sure. So actually recently we've been seeing a lot of success with kind of the online ticketing sphere.

Speaker 3: 40:58

As people are getting out of COVID, we've seen that a lot of online event brands we've had a lot of success with that recently that they're really ramping up their program and they're trying to get access to a real diverse set of affiliates and so they've been working with our managed service and they've seen a lot of success because our managed service, our managers, are really good at their job and so they're able to look through not just our catalog of affiliates but through the wider web as well and attract new affiliates to their programs, and when they bring them in, then they're able to say, ok, after a month or two this guy has already become a top performer. Like I mentioned, just adding that communication. So we've seen I just mentioned online service, online ticketing services recently A lot of our brands which have seen success are the ones that really take advantage of that full communication and they're communicating with us. They're communicating with the publishers. They're saying like, hey, I see that this guy is doing really well, I want to give him something more. Like I see that the fire is fueling, burning, I'm going to put more fuel on that.

Speaker 3: 42:05

So, like for brands who want to make the most of their affiliate marketing, it's really like take advantage of who is bringing you sales already because they have an audience, and really like double down, as I mentioned before on maybe that's individual promo codes, bonus scales or whatever, but I can say what differentiates brands that are successful versus brands that are not successful. Is that the brands who maybe aren't as successful just kind of say OK, I'm going to pay 5% for a sale and then I'm going to come back here in six months. Ok, if we're looking for, like, what's a successful advertiser versus an unsuccessful one, whereas the ones that are successful are like, ok, I'm going to have my weekly call with my network rep. I'm going to see who joined the program. What are the reasons why they joined? Like, maybe we wanted to bring on these kind of publishers but they didn't want to join. Our problem, why Like? It just boils down to like active investment in communication. That's a differentiator.

Speaker 2: 43:07

No, that's really now really quick. Because I'm just curious, like, when you say online ticketing, are you talking like events? Are you talking sports? Are you talking concerts? Are you talking events, sports?

Speaker 3: 43:16

concerts, all that yeah, that's all been doing really really well with us, yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:21

That's really cool. And what do you think is driving that? Is it just mostly the fact that everything's kind of opening back up and so they're going, hey, let's. I think I think you know just to speculate a little bit before you give the answer. Like, it seems to me that post COVID, it's funny, all the different things that people got into during COVID, right, and so things that I never thought I would get into in different types of music, different types of art or things like that.

Speaker 2: 43:48

Suddenly we're coming out of COVID and I'm like, okay, now how do I engage with more people who like this Right? And so you know, like during the whole time I got into whiskies and so I really started understanding whiskies more, and so you know, I've been looking for more tasting events. I've been looking for more opportunities to get out and meet with other people to go. How do I learn more about this? And so I would see that, you know, is that like just kind of going back to the original question is, is that like the original question is is do you think it's because we're coming out? Everything's opening back up? It's just that opportunity for people to really take what they discovered during the shutdown time and talk about it again.

Speaker 3: 44:30

Yeah, yeah. And people, people, people have. When they got, when they got locked down, they discovered new passions. They got into it over the past year or two and now they're talking about it. And now, especially because, like, more and more people want to work from home, they see that like, oh, if I work as a publisher, if I work as an affiliate, I can stay at home talking about my passion and still earn money.

Speaker 2: 44:49

Yeah, man, that's super cool. Oh well, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you know. I know we've covered a lot of ground in the last like 40 minutes here, whatever, but is there anything that we haven't talked about that you're just like Brian, I need you to, I need you to know about this one thing. Is there anything that you're?

Speaker 3: 45:08

That's all that I wanted to say. I was curious. You mentioned you had, you had some affiliate background. You wanted to share your story.

Speaker 2: 45:15

Yeah, I just you know. So specifically it came into you know some fitness brands, stuff like that, different supplements and stuff, and so overall, very great experience. It's just it's very interesting, you know, because especially hearing how you know different brands can take longer to pay out right, and the same thing goes for I do a lot of contract work as well for different things, and so it's funny because you definitely do find yourself wanting to work more with those brands who pay out quicker because you know that you can count on them. And so, whether it's an affiliate marketing, whether it's a contract, you know job or something like that, I am very conscious of who I do work with and I'm very, very conscious on that.

Speaker 2: 45:57

So you know the opportunity for, like Admetad, to be able to do the instant pay and get that. You know I've waited as much as 30 or 45 days, you know, to get my pay out whenever I was like, hey, I referred this, you know five different people to come buy your product or get signed up for your recurring subscription, and yet I'm kind of just over here on the side waiting right, and so the opportunity I think that to me was where it was just kind of like a light bulb moment for me of going like I don't know why any brand would not want to work with Admetad, just from the sake of making such a more streamlined experience, not only from their side, but it shows love to their users, right, it shows love to their publishers because it makes it so much easier, really.

Speaker 2: 46:50

And of course if you work across internationally and stuff like that, then there's obviously all the red tape that you could get into. But it looks like you know Admetad actually covers all that.

Speaker 2: 47:00

Yeah, we're trying to help out the little guy. Oh, so good, so good. And especially you know, like we've seen, you know, such a rise in that influencer culture, right, and so we've seen such a rise in the diverse, I should say, offerings you know from people. And so you know, we find out that you know maybe our favorite fitness representative or favorite person that we follow that doing deadlifts or something we find out that person's also into plants and they also like to you know, do you know?

Speaker 2: 47:33

they like to raise begonias at home, or something like that, so they're interested in there and they can offer all these different things that they're already naturally invested in. Right, they're already there. I think it's so cool and I think affiliate marketing. What growth I mean? I guess I could speculate, but I'd be stupid if I did. I'm sure I'd be way off. What growth have you seen in affiliate marketing, even over just like the last five years? I'm sure it's got to be exponential, right?

Speaker 3: 48:03

Yeah, we've been seeing really good growth, Not just in our company but in the industry as a whole.

Speaker 2: 48:08

Yeah, absolutely. So now is there anything, I guess, coming up? I know we just we talked about rise and you know it's been out for a couple weeks now a couple months, a couple weeks. For a very short time. Are you guys, I would imagine, kind of already working on that next project, or is that kind of hush-hush for now?

Speaker 3: 48:30

We're starting to build up our relationships for Q4. So making sure that our busy season really is between October and December, as a lot of retailers are. So making sure that we got all our ducks in a row, making sure that everything's working flawlessly for that is going to be what we're working on for the next several months.

Speaker 2: 48:49

That's good man, it's really good. Well, if people want to know more about Admetad, I would imagine is it Admetadcom. Is that correct? Yeah, I'd imagine that's right on the money. And then, if they wanted to, I always like to offer this. But if they wanted to kind of get to know you better and kind of follow along, maybe not even the connection, but are they able to find you on LinkedIn?

Speaker 3: 49:10

Sure, I'm on LinkedIn. Yeah, yeah, Evan Johnson, Chicago Illinois, working with Admetad. I'm actually listed under our parent company, Mitgo.

Speaker 2: 49:18

Okay.

Speaker 3: 49:19

But yeah, find me out, I'll be. I don't post my workout videos on LinkedIn, though, unfortunately Nice nice, I get that.

Speaker 2: 49:27

See, not quite the audience there, but I will post a link to both Admetad and to your LinkedIn down here in the description notes of the show. So if you're interested in connecting with Evan more or learning about Admetad now I feel like maybe we need to put an affiliate link for Admetad down here in the description or something.

Speaker 3: 49:50

Sign up, yeah, work with us. That's great, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 49:53

Absolutely so. Thanks so much, Evan. I really appreciate you taking time to be here. Hey, it was a real pleasure, Brian.

Speaker 3: 49:59

Great to get to know you.

Speaker 2: 50:00

Yeah, sure thing, man, I look forward to chatting more and I look forward to seeing what Admetad does in future conversations and kind of like where you guys grow, because it just sounds like you guys have had some really cool experiences so far. And, like I say, I look forward to circling back in six months or a year from now and just kind of seeing where you guys are at. I'd love it. Yeah Well, thanks so much again for joining us on this episode of the Retail Wire Podcast. We really appreciate you being here.

Speaker 2: 50:28

If you're listening to us right now and you're just on the audio, only don't forget, you can actually look and see what Evan and I look like over here. You can visit our YouTube channel. That's on the, you know, youtube's for retail wire, good grief, the YouTube's, that's it. So, but you can see what we actually look like, get a little bit deeper, dive into kind of some of the conversation that we were having, and but again, we are on all your favorite podcast platforms out there. We're on Spotify, google, apple podcasts, any of that. So go find us, mash that subscribe button because we got more great content coming out for you here and we'll see you next time on the next episode of the Retail Wire Podcast.

Speaker 1: 51:10

Thanks for tuning in to the Retail Wire Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the episode. Be sure to subscribe to us on your favorite podcasting platform and leave us a comment for a chance to hear it read on the next show. See you next time here on the Retail Wire Podcast.