"Depoimentos falam muito" - Lee-Ann Johnstone, AffiliateINSIDER

Lee-Ann Johnstone, CEO of AffiliateINSIDER, joins the latest series of affiliate interviews at Affiliate Grand Slam

Lee-Ann Johnstone, an award-winning digital marketing strategist who was also named one of the top 10 most influential women in iGaming, talks about AffiliateINSIDER, her culture, mission, and about her training program, how to manage and work with different partners, and why affiliate management is a rewarding career �C follow her story below.

About two decades ago I changed careers and entered the world of online marketing. I found it a very interesting area to explore. I had been working in marketing for about five years and was really looking at the next big trend. At that time, the internet was a new thing, a shiny new tool; I left my position as head of marketing for a small financial services company and joined an online media company and started my career again. First I did a lot of planning and media buying, then I started working with ad networks. Then I started working with editors and partners.

Since then, I’ve worked with the agency side, the network side, the client side, and the affiliate side. So, I have a 360-degree view of how the affiliate industry has developed from the beginning to where it is today and how we are going to move forward.

In 2019, you were voted one of the 10 most influential women in iGaming by IGB Affiliate. You’re also an award-winning digital marketing strategist. What does this mean for you?

It means a lot because it is the result of a lifetime of work and learning. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m so interested in helping others develop their careers in this industry and why at AffiliateINSIDER we’ve created our AMPP training course, which stands for Affiliate Management Performance Program. I’m very interested in helping new people get into the industry and learn how they can build successful careers like I have in affiliate marketing, because I truly believe that in the digital landscape, it’s one of the most exciting spaces to work in.

It also means a lot that in this position, which I am fortunate enough to hold, I help others learn and develop their programs and careers as well. It also means being an industry ambassador. It’s obviously humbling to be considered someone influential, but the main thing is that I want people to still know that they can approach me at any time and ask me questions because the rising tide lifts all boats.

That’s really my role here, helping the next generation of digital marketers rise through the ranks to learn, innovate, and grow in our industry based on the knowledge and experience I want to share.

When and how did AffiliateINSIDER take off? What is AffiliateINSIDER and What do you do at AffiliateINSIDER?

Well, that’s a bit of a heavy question, because I don’t think we’ve taken off yet. We are still very much at the beginning, since we are only a few years away. To be honest, I don’t really do much. If you look under the hood of AffiliateINSIDER, my team is really fantastic. They drive and drive the business, but they’re also an amazing support structure that allows me to step outside of day-to-day management and keep up with what’s happening in industry trends and contribute to the conversations that are happening within our industry.

At AffiliateINSIDER, I talk about affiliate marketing, help people understand affiliate marketing a little better, and really support the brands and partners that work with us to grow their affiliate programs. However, it’s not just me; in fact, it’s the entire AffiliateINSIDER team that contributes to this story.

Tell us a little more about AffiliateINSIDER’s culture, mission, and values.

At AffiliateINSIDER, we have a culture of continuous development and learning. We encourage our team to continue learning and developing their skills because without learning, testing, iterating, and optimizing these tests, we can’t help our customers grow.

Our mission is to evangelize the world for affiliate marketing.

I think it’s pretty simple.

We are very passionate about this industry and making sure that people who want to use the performance model understand the strategy and planning metrics needed to make this model successful for their business.

In terms of our values, we are honest. Honesty and a straightforward approach are probably something that customers expect the most when dealing with AffiliateINSIDER, whether working with a media team, our content team, or our agency team.

We also have a very strong remote work culture, which was obviously a result of the pandemic. I think the one thing you can always be sure of is that you’re going to have a straightforward and honest approach to whatever problem you’re trying to solve. Lots of collaborative work with our customers to deliver the KPIs and support they need.

At AffiliateINSIDER, you organize training and coaching for affiliate managers. What can you tell us about these programs? How do they help and benefit participants? Who are they ideal for? Can you provide some examples?

AMPP, which I created about two years ago, is really something special and a bit unique. It’s for affiliate program managers who really want to level up, who want to understand the structures that contribute to building a successful affiliate program, and for those who want to gain the confidence they need to really present and market their brands in a better way. This program is really a coaching program and it’s ideal for anyone who’s been in an affiliate management role, you know one or two years, or even someone who’s been five or six years in that role and really wants to advance to the next level. It’s really offering a mix of the kind of structure and guidelines that we offer our clients and our agency, but also helping affiliate managers understand the environment they’re working in and develop the skills they need to drive their programs forward.

I think in terms of benefits for the participants, the testimonials speak volumes. If you look on LinkedIn and type in AMPP, one of the coolest testimonials we had was from Rebecca Ciala, Head of Affiliates at Hollywoodbets.

She’s been on the course and she absolutely loved it. She really posted some lovely things about us on LinkedIn and why this course helped her in so many ways.

Nowadays, many brands work with multiple publishers and managing all of them may not be so simple. Based on your experience, how can brands successfully manage and work with different affiliate partners? What strategies should be employed?

Yes, it’s true. Working in affiliate marketing is no longer so simple, simply because we have so many different channels that partners operate on, it’s not just websites anymore. The development of social media platforms has really allowed more and more people to enter the affiliate and performance marketing space. Figuring out what your strategy is, because there is no longer a one-size-fits-all program for all the different types of content, curators, and editors you can work with, can be quite tricky to navigate. The main thing is that brands need to understand how to work with different types of partners. They need to be flexible to really allow these partners room to test and try new things and figure out how best to partner with the brands that they’re working with.

It is also necessary to think and plan. We are living in a very unstructured environment; Things have changed a lot in the last two decades in terms of online. It is very important that partners collaborate with the brands they choose to promote. It’s also important for affiliate managers to really analyze the data available and use it to make informed decisions about how they want to work commercially with their partners. That one-size-fits-all commission model or compensation plan is simply no longer enough to work with partnerships in a truly engaging way.

So keep an open mind, keeping the fluidity of your commercial moving with supply and demand, and really just having open relationships with affiliates is incredibly important to ensure that your program is successful on the move

Why is affiliate management a rewarding career choice?

If you want to work in an environment where no two days are the same, then affiliate management is the career path for you. I always say that it’s not a job, it’s a vocation. Most people fall into affiliate marketing and affiliate management by accident, but the ones who end up staying are the ones who are really passionate about this industry. I think it’s a bit like lunchbox, you either love it or you hate it. However, if you’re lucky enough to learn from a mentor or someone else who is passionate about the industry, I think it sets you up for a successful career.

The fact that affiliate managers have to know a little bit about everything is also quite gratifying because, as I said, no day is the same. Today, you may be dealing with a bit of administration, tomorrow you may be making a business deal of your life and the next day, you may be traveling to an event. It really has a little bit of everything, and you can experiment with many different types of digital marketing working in the affiliate space.

It’s a rewarding career; It is not an easy career because it requires a lot of skill. It’s not just about customer support, account management, relationship management, or sales. There are many different techniques that are involved in working in this career. It is important that if you are going to enter this career, you understand that it really is a full-time job. It’s not something that you can just try and become very good at very quickly. It’s something you need to invest time and effort into, and continuously develop and learn, because the industry is changing around you all the time

What are the skills needed to be a good affiliate manager?

This is a very important question because there are many different types of affiliate managers. There are affiliate managers who are incredibly good at analyzing data, analyzing, and optimizing campaigns based on the numbers. There are those who are incredibly good at building relationships and getting new sales and business. Both skill sets are very important to have on your team. Depending on what kind of personality you are, you’ll kind of gravitate towards these two different avenues of the affiliate program.

I think the skill set is definitely a little bit of analytics, understanding digital marketing, the ability to build relationships from scratch, without having any kind of introductions or warm leads. I believe that being an extrovert is definitely advantageous, but it is not mandatory, because even an introverted person can be a good affiliate manager. I think specializing in a particular affiliate program management location is really important because you might be someone who is quite technical and who handles the kind of ad operations of an affiliate program, or you might be someone who is quite creative, who wants to create campaigns, deal with the designers, create interesting content, and maybe manage events. So, I think thinking about what your skill sets are, where you fit into your business, and the structure of your affiliate program is also really important

How to improve affiliate management?

That’s a very easy question. I think affiliate management always improves when there is an open dialogue. I also think that having transparency in your program and being mindful of your partnerships will really make for a good affiliate program. Plus, it’s what affiliates will want to engage with. I think there’s a lot of work to be done in the industry in terms of transparency, in terms of understanding data, because we also work across multiple platforms, and sometimes not all of the data is available for us to make informed decisions.

I’d like to see people consider affiliate marketing and the performance channel less as a channel that requires a budget and more as an open business partnership. So allow affiliates to try new things and be a little bit creative and not just do things the way we did before. You need to be open-minded.

How do you see the future of affiliate marketing?

The future is bright. I think we’re entering a really interesting time in the online world where things like the metaverse or cryptocurrency are coming into the picture with NFTs.

I think it will be very exciting to see how these areas are navigated, and it will certainly be interesting to see how technology keeps up with these new trends. So seeing how we’re going to be able to integrate these things into our day-to-day marketing strategies and how our partners are going to actually integrate and use these new channels and types of integrations that we can have with our consumers.

I think the future of affiliate marketing will be incredibly interesting, but it will be fast. Therefore, keeping up with trends and integrating them with traditional marketing tactics will become quite interesting. So, I think it’s a good time to join the affiliate space right now.

We attend SiGMA every year because it’s a great opportunity to meet partners, publishers, and affiliates. It’s also a great way to understand what’s going on in the industry. I also had a great time in November in Malta, which is always a lovely place to visit. In November, I was moderator of the panel “” and panelist of the panel ““.

We really enjoy getting out and meeting people in the industry so we can listen and hear how other people are experiencing this space and learning and innovating in their businesses as well. So, it’s a great opportunity to network and continue learning as well. We love participating in the events and I am a big fan of SiGMA.

Tell us a little about yourself �C after all, business is done with people, not just companies! Your hobbies, favorite book, favorite quote, if you like games, etc.

Interestingly, I like the outdoors. I live very close to the coast. I’m an absolute water baby. You’ll always find me on the water, in the water, and near the water. My hobbies are standup paddle boarding (SUP), diving; I love being on the beach and I’m very lucky to live by the sea.

My favorite quote is an old African proverb, “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go along.” That’s very dear to me because obviously I was born in South Africa, but it’s also very, very true. So, this rings true in affiliate marketing, where often, to experience this growth, you can’t go it alone, you need to go with your partners.

My favorite book. It’s been a long time since I read books. I read a lot of books about industry, thought leadership, and entrepreneurship. However, one of the best marketing books I’ve read is The Business Model Canvas, which is a great book for affiliate managers or digital marketers to read in terms of strategy and planning. This is probably the last book I can think of at the top of my head.

I also believe that business is done with people. So, I’m quite approachable and I really love meeting people at events and hearing about what they’re doing and how they’re learning. I believe that I am a very sociable person by nature and at heart. I’m looking forward to meeting many new people at events.

Read more about SiGMA’s Affiliate Grand Slam here.

Join us for SiGMA Americas �C Toronto:

Toronto is the perfect hub for SiGMA’s growth in North America, becoming a nexus of networking and business development in the region regarding land-based, iGaming, sports betting and more. Home to a massive iGaming industry, Toronto will be home to SiGMA Group’s initiative to unite the continent’s industry pioneers for 3 days of networking, workshops and awards. To learn more about sponsorship and speaking opportunities or to find out how to attend the event, please contact Sophie at [email protected].