Awin Talks

Join Awin Talks co-hosts Rob and Kevin on this month’s episode to hear more about what the brand new edition of the forthcoming Awin Report 2021 will include. The Awin Report is our annual look at the state of the global performance and partner marketing industry and, given the last 12 months, the new publication has a lot of ground to cover. 

As the end of 2020 nears, the Awin Talks team discuss their highlights from the year, and we hear from a selection of affiliate industry figures about their hopes and fears for the channel in 2021.

Kevin, Rob and Joelle discuss the main takeaways from another record-breaking Cyber Weekend, and Button’s Michael Jaconi joins us to talk US digital trends

Commission Factory CEO Zane McIntyre discusses Awin’s acquisition of the leading Australian affiliate network and APAC trends to look out for in 2021.

We speak to online ad regulation expert Rupa Shah to find out what affiliates need to know about online disclosure.

We speak to Sian Gabbidon about launching her own fashion brand and using Awin Access to support its online growth.

On this month’s podcast episode we interview key figures at the trade body ISBA about their recent research on the programmatic sector, and we also find out more about how affiliate marketing works Down Under.

Our latest episode of Awin Talks features interviews with the CEOs from two of the leading technology solutions in the affiliate industry, Increasingly and Uniqodo.

The global lockdown has had a profound influence upon how people are shopping, accelerating the adoption of ecommerce, and introducing huge swathes of new users to online consumer options.   At Awin we’ve been tracking some substantial changes across specific sectors and verticals in the last month and Craig interviews our Client Partner Team to find out more about these on this month’s episode. Joelle Hillman and Alex Parmar-Yee join him to reveal some of the top trends and what they tell us about changing consumer habits.   Kevin then speaks to Awin’s Global Operations Director, Peter Jack, to quiz him on Awin’s newAccess initiative. Access was launched initially in the UK at the start of the year as a means of providing smaller businesses and entrepreneurs with a low-cost, low hurdle means of starting an affiliate programme.    In the wake of the pandemic and recognising that small businesses were particularly exposed during the lockdown, Awin made the decision to scrap set-up fees for the service and make

With the onset of Covid-19 already causing huge disruption to the high street retail sector and underlining the need for businesses to embrace digital technology, this month’s interview with Miya Knights came at an opportune time. Miya’s role as Head of Industry Insight at Eagle Eye Solutions, a technology platform that helps brands engage customers across multiple channels – both online and offline, meant she was able to offer some incisive insights on the convergence of these two experiences.    It’s a theme that Miya discussed at length in her featured article in this year’s Awin Report and she was able to elaborate on many of the points she made in that editorial during our conversation, as well as speculating about the potential implications that the coronavirus might have on the brick & mortar retail world.   Our guest co-host, Luisa Richardson from our UK New Business team, then spoke to Chris Johnson, Operations Director at Smarter Click, to discuss his extensive experiences working in the affilia

On the February episode of Awin Talks we speak to Ricki Jones, Chief Commercial Officer at referral marketing solution Soreto, an Awin affiliate.

The first episode of 2020 is live now and we get things started in the new decade with a couple of in-depth discussions with three leading industry figures.   First up, Rob Davinson, Awin's Content Analyst, discusses the state of the travel sector in the affiliate channel with Colin Carter, Director of the travel site Weather2Travel, and also Maria Chatterton-White of the tours and activities specialist, Viator. We get the respective views of a publisher and an advertiser working in the travel sector on some of the challenges they face in today’s climate, and what particular nuances of the travel sector can play out in the affiliate industry.   Kevin Edwards, Awin's Strategy Director, then speaks to Kate Knight, attending in her capacity as a representative of the newly-formed Publisher Board in the UK. The Publisher Board is a new working group of affiliates representing a variety of different websites in the UK that have come together to advocate for improving standards in the channel and building partnersh

This month Rob speaks to Jamie White, Sales Director at the publisher company Student Beans. Jamie discussed the Student Beans proposition, how affiliate marketing is integral to their business, and what they’ve learnt about their younger, Gen Z audience from working with them so extensively. Jamie also discussed his recent foray into public speaking and how that went at the recent PI LIVE conference in London. Kevin and Rob discuss the recent performance Awin witnessed over the course of Black Friday and the wider Cyber Week, and Kevin hears from a selection of colleagues about their highlights from the last 12 months. Rob then puts Kevin and Craig’s industry knowledge to the test with the annual Christmas podcast quiz, with Craig keen to defend his crown...

This month is a vitally important one. It’s peak season with Singles’ Day and Black Friday ensuring a huge amount of sales activity over the course of the month and millions of online shoppers looking for the right deal for them. Therefore we invited James Maley, Head of Business Development at RevLifter, on to the podcast to discuss how their personalisation technology is helping retailers to deliver the right deals at the right time to consumers during peak. Awin’s Product Marketing Manager, Ed Chaput, also drops in to give us some product updates and reveals a podcast exclusive on one of the new technology partners being made available soon within the Awin MasterTag. Finally, Kevin, Craig and Rob discuss the recent IPMA awards, PI LIVE 2019, the new UK Publisher Board initiative, and the implications of an affiliate advertising disclosure ruling from the Advertising Standards Authority.

Big news is announced this month with Awin investing an equity stake in Australia’s leading affiliate network, Commission Factory. Kevin takes the opportunity to speak to Commission Factory’s CEO and co-founder Zane McIntyre about what the investment means as well as about some of the local nuances of the Australian market. From Australia to the US. Earlier this summer Rob interviewed Tricia Meyer, Executive Director at the local trade body the Performance Marketing Association, about their inaugural study of the US affiliate market at Affiliate Summit East in New York. The publication represents the very first time the industry has been formally assessed out there and provided clear evidence that the channel is in healthy shape. We feature an excerpt from that on-stage interview in this month’s episode. And finally, Rob speaks to Greg Hoffman, CEO and co-founder of the OPM (Outsourced Programme Management) agency Apogee about the state of the US affiliate industry and his views on its likely prospects for

Working with trade bodies can be an incredibly productive way of amplifying the voice of your industry to a wider audience. This month we chat to Clare O’Brien and Emma Sutton from ISBA, the trade body that represents leading advertisers. As the organisation increasingly focuses on performance marketing, Kevin chats to Clare and Emma about some of the challenges the dizzying array of digital technologies presents to brands. He also discusses how affiliate marketing can position itself to better communicate its benefits to a more senior audience. Also this month we revisit our publisher picks slot to identify a couple of partners – one new, one existing – who are shaking up the affiliate space. Tazmin Hansen from the publisher team shares her thoughts and advice about how to work with these publishers. Kate Irvine also joins us as she asks for your vote in securing a speaker slot at this year’s PILive. Kate explains the rationale behind her two ideas, ‘What can Affiliate Marketing offer Generation Z and ‘Affil

This month we’re chatting to founder of Manchester agency R.O.EYE, Mark Kuhilow about the new partnership between his company and Awin, offering brands a more nuanced view about the value affiliates bring in the purchase path. Mark explains how the idea for developing their attribution software, SingleView, came about and the methodology used in determining how affiliates complement other digital channels. He also shares how brands have used it to focus their attention on those affiliates driving more incremental value. Read more about the partnership here.   Awin has used the market leading business intelligence tool Tableau for a number of years and Craig chats to Kevin about the company’s recent annual conference and the main topics that were discussed at the event. Craig also discuss how Awin is investing in business intelligence and how it’s being used to optimise affiliate campaigns and expedite additional insights as well as uncover the impact of more macro topics such as Safari’s ITP updates.   Finall

This month the podcast features a variety of audio highlights from Awin’s recent annual conferences in the US and the UK. Every year, Awin hosts its own industry events where its partners can come together to meet, network and learn more about the current trends within the affiliate industry. It’s a hugely valuable opportunity for businesses of every shape and size and both events had packed agendas, filled with content from a host of speakers.   In Chicago Rob appeared on stage to interview a trio of contributors to this year’s Awin Report to hear more about their thoughts on the state of digital marketing and the affiliate channel.    Tijs van Santen, CRO at Button, discussed the evolution of mobile and the profound influence that is having upon ecommerce right now. Kim Westwood, MD of Shopping Links, explained how influencer marketing is becoming increasingly professionalised and how it has been adopted by the affiliate channel to great effect. And Gary Kibel, attorney and partner of Davis & Gilbert LL

This month, Craig and Rob co-host the podcast with Awin colleague Clementyne Lavender, the recent winner of the performance channel’s Industry Rising Star award. Clem sheds some light on the gruelling process involved in being assessed for the award and describes some of the experiences she had as the network’s Media Partnerships Manager that helped swing the vote her way.   Our main interview is with Sophie Parry-Billings, Senior Marketing Manager, EMEA at the agency Acceleration Partners, and focuses on the industry initiative Turn the Talk. Turn the Talk is focused on empowering people and improving the diversity of voices from across the performance industry. Sophie has been instrumental in promoting the initiative and she explains why it’s such an important subject, what they’ve achieved so far, and the initiative’s plans for the future.      Finally, Craig hosts another round of Publisher Picks, asking Clem to highlight two new publishers on the network for listeners to make a note of.

This month, Rob and Craig co-host the Awin Talks podcast with Carina Toledo, Awin’s Influencer Partnerships Manager and find out more about the state of influencer marketing in the affiliate channel. Carina also participates in our very first Publisher Picks segment, highlighting two publishers on the network to make a note of, and how brands can collaborate with them. Dawn Quigg, Awin’s UK Client Services Director then takes on interviewing duties for us this month and has the pleasure of speaking to Rachel Said, Head of Affiliates at Genie Goals, a UK performance marketing agency. Rachel has worked within the industry for many years, building up a wealth of experience in advertiser, network and now agency roles. Dawn asks Rachel about what she’s learnt from those varying perspectives, how the affiliate industry has changed during the time she’s worked in it and what she envisages it looking like in the future.