Why personalised affiliate recruitment still outperforms automation (and what the best affiliate managers do differently)

If your affiliate recruitment is generating lists but not conversations, this episode is your reset. Frederic Jean-Bart, founder of Performance Partners, has spent 17 years building relationships across every side of this industry: affiliate networks, brand-side program management, and as an affiliate himself. Lee-Ann and Fred get into why the era of AI-generated outreach is actually making human connection more valuable, not less, how deal making with high-quality affiliates is where real program growth happens, and what separates elite affiliate managers from everyone else hitting send on the same mass email.

Listen to Find Out More About:

• The exact communication gap between what affiliate managers send and what top publishers actually need to see before they say yes
• Why media buyers are among the best affiliates for scale but require a completely different recruitment and relationship strategy than any other partner type
• How AEO and brand citation are starting to change where affiliate influence happens in the customer journey, and what that means for program strategy
• Why Fred's advice to his 2009 self comes down to one word and what that means practically for anyone building a career in this industry
• The rapid fire breakdown on CPA versus revenue share, the one book Fred says every agency owner should read, and why boring operations beat exciting chaos every single time
• What trust actually looks like in practice with high-value affiliate partners, and why paying on time is as much a relationship signal as any personal outreach
  
  

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[01:51] Fred introduces his 17-year career spanning network, brand, and affiliate sides of the industry and why building Performance Partners came out of working with nine-figure e-commerce brands

[05:05] Lee-Ann shares the exact outreach emails she receives that get deleted instantly, and what three pieces of information every affiliate needs before they'll respond

[09:35] The case for getting on video calls with key partners and why the human ability to convey excitement and credibility over a call still closes deals that email cannot

[15:30] Why media buyers are the most powerful affiliate type for scale but also the most burnt out by programs that overpromise, and what building genuine trust with them requires

[17:40] Partner diversification as risk management, why brands default to influencers and coupon sites, and how Fred approaches segmentation from day one of a new program

Call to Action
A huge thank you to Frederic Jean-Bart for joining us this week. If this episode has made you rethink how you're recruiting affiliates and managing partner relationships, KonverJ works with brands at exactly this level, building programs that are built on strategy, not spray and pray. Find out how we work with brands here.

And if you want conversations like this one landing in your feed every week, subscribe to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast so you never miss an episode. Share this one with an affiliate manager you know who's still relying on volume over quality. It might be the nudge they need.

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Why tracking everything your affiliates do matters more now than ever before (and what conversion protection tells us about lost revenue)

If your affiliate program isn't tracking properly, you could be losing millions without realising it. Adam Ross, CEO of Awin and 21-year industry veteran, reveals exactly how AI-powered search is fragmenting the customer journey, why deterministic tracking alone won't survive the next five years, and how Awin's Conversion Protection Initiative has already recovered over $250 million in previously untracked revenue. Lee-Ann and Adam discuss his leadership approach, why probabilistic tracking methods are becoming essential, and what the convergence of influencer and affiliate marketing means for program growth.

Talking Points Include:

• The seismic shift happening in content attribution – how LLMs are citing publisher content to answer consumer queries, why this value currently goes unrewarded, and the new tracking signals needed to expose it
• Why different traffic deserves different tracking methods – different traffic has different value and possibly needs different tracking methods and different reward mechanisms, ending the era of treating all affiliate partnerships equally
• The conversion protection wake-up call – how forcing tracking upgrades revealed $16 million in additional commission and what this tells us about invisible program value

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why Awin does quarterly seasonal product releases to bring meaningful improvements to advertiser and publisher experiences, with the winter release focused on simplifying what is still an incredibly complex channel to help everyone get much more value out of the space
• How the new platform aims to get smaller advertisers to money-making partnerships as quickly as possible without needing account management support, using 25 years of data to know which partnerships work, what rates to pay, and how to increase active partnerships
• Why Adam is extremely bullish about affiliate's future, noting that while this disruption is probably going to be much bigger than past changes, affiliate is a wonderful monetisation infrastructure that can be quite agnostic about how end user experiences evolve
• The exciting new influx of AI startups connecting at scale with multiple brands looking for ways to monetise, where the CPA model works very well for AI recommendations based on personalisation
• Why the convergence of influencer and affiliate marketing continues accelerating and why people will always want to buy from other people, even when using AI for research
• What it means that there's got to be an acceptance that in a lot of cases, the old ways of tracking from a technical perspective are no longer going to work, whilst deterministic tracking remains super important as the base
  
  

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[01:15] The unlikely journey from dentistry student to affiliate marketing through a recruiter who saw potential beyond experience

[18:55] Why different affiliate traffic has different value and needs different tracking methods and reward mechanisms

[27:00] How Awin's seasonal product releases bring quarterly improvements and what the winter release means for platform simplification

Call to Action

Master the tracking evolution that's reshaping affiliate marketing success. Adam's insights into probabilistic measurement, AI disruption, and conversion protection reveal exactly why upgrading your technical infrastructure isn't optional anymore. [Subscribe to the Affilia

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If you're running an affiliate program based purely on last-click attribution, you're missing the complete picture of how customers actually buy. Phil Thompson, Partnerships Manager at fintech publisher Zilch, shares insights from their platform's 5 million UK customers to reveal shopping behaviours that challenge everything affiliate managers assume about consumer loyalty, price sensitivity, and partner value. Lee-Ann and Phil discuss why traditional cookie tracking leaves critical gaps, how to leverage first-party data without expensive integrations, and why the grocery shopper who seems loyal to one brand is simultaneously spending three times more with competitors.

Talking Points Include:

• The affiliate channel's unique negotiation problem that happens after the sale instead of before, and why payment processing data fills gaps that cookie consent leaves behind
• How Zilch's fee-free credit model converts competitor customers by offsetting the cost of interest-free installments through merchant commissions rather than charging consumers late fees or interest
• Why price-led marketing is lazy marketing and what Valentine's Day dinner-for-two campaigns teach us about emotional storytelling that actually changes consumer behavior.

Listen to Find Out More About:

• The exact moment UK consumers became willing to abandon brand loyalty for fee-free payment flexibility, and what this reveals about post-peak shopping psychology
• Why Phil refuses to position Zilch campaigns as integration-heavy when they run on standard Visa rails, and how this changes the barrier to entry for testing new publisher types
• How Intelligent Commerce tracking uses merchant ID data to close attribution gaps that cookie-based models leave wide open
• The demographic shift that took Zilch from Gen Z fintech app to cross-generational payment tool, and why cost-of-living pressures create opportunities for value-focused affiliate partnerships
• Why diversification matters more than ever when clicks still exist but shopping behavior fragments across devices, apps, and privacy-conscious browsing

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[09:05] How Intelligent Commerce works: using merchant ID and payment processing data to fill attribution gaps that traditional cookie tracking misses

[13:16] The consistent age-group patterns Zilch sees in 2025 spending data, and why everyone hunts for value right now, not just younger demographics

[22:22] Why one-month campaigns don't typically move consumer behaviour needles, and the longer timeline required to shift shopping habits permanently

[25:07] Phil's call for affiliate managers to stay open to testing and learning, even after being burned by publisher types in the past

Call to Action

The affiliate programs that thrive this year won't be the ones clinging to 2019 playbooks. They'll be the managers who embrace data partnerships, extend attribution visibility beyond cookie tracking, and recognize that publishers deliver value across the entire funnel, not just at conversion. Ready to build a program that leverages first-party shopping intelligence? Work with the KonverJ team to audit your current partner mix and identify the data gaps costing you revenue. We'll help you move beyond last-click thinking and build partnerships that capture the complete customer journey.

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When Tricia Meyer's name was called as this year's Pinnacle Award winner at Affiliate Summit West, there was a moment of silence. Not because the room disagreed, but because Tricia herself didn't believe it. After two decades of watching her heroes receive that same recognition, the publisher-turned-executive director of the Performance Marketing Association finally earned the industry's most prestigious honor. This conversation explores what it actually takes to reach the top without losing yourself, why being kind isn't a weakness in business negotiations, and how staying curious about industry changes for 20 years reveals patterns that help you stop panicking about AI, zero-click search, and whatever disruption comes next.

Talking Points Include:

• The attorney who left law for affiliate marketing when she realized publishers could earn more than lawyers and built a 20-year career that started with mom blogs and evolved into executive leadership
• Why community platforms fail but weekly calls succeed isn't just about affiliates – the same principles apply to how industry associations create genuine connection versus performative membership
• The shocking truth about affiliate marketing's growth that most brands miss – independent studies prove the channel is outpacing e-commerce itself, not just riding the online shopping wave

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why Tricia created custom tracking tools using AI to solve AI-caused attribution problems, and how small publishers can do the same with vibe coding platforms like Lovable
• The critical section being added to PMA's retailer agreement guide about AI usage, plagiarism, and disclosure requirements in affiliate terms and conditions
• How Google's constant testing of citations in Gemini (from detailed paragraph attribution to zero citations to YouTube video insertions) reveals nobody knows what's coming next
• Why publishers might strategically rewrite content to feature competitors if brands don't properly value their contribution to LLM-driven traffic
• The new AI Council launching to address both publisher optimization for LLMs and technology solutions for brands dealing with compliance and tracking
• How fintech and B2B affiliate marketing represent massive industry segments the PMA is finally addressing with dedicated resources
• Why analyzing five years of industry study data would reveal cyclical patterns that help predict where apparent disruptions actually lead
• How Open Attribution is creating free membership opportunities to discuss citation tracking and publisher rewards in the age of LLMs

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[06:02] Working from the bottom of PMA working groups to executive director, and why being an attorney made Tricia the perfect fit for part-time leadership

[[19:54] Three critical areas where affiliates need preparation for 2025: LLM optimization, proving publisher worth through journey tracking, and staying educated on rapid changes

[27:00] Why affiliate program terms and conditions need AI clauses now, covering content generation, plagiarism, and disclosure requirements

[30:11] The five-year prediction: fundamentally everything stays the same but with different technical details, just like the last 20 years of disruption

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The OG Publisher's Blueprint for Building Partnerships That Actually Last

Your affiliate program has hundreds of approved publishers, but only a handful are actively promoting you. Sound familiar? Stuart Miles, founder of Squirrel and former owner of Pocket-lint (which he grew to 12.5 million monthly readers before exiting), reveals why most affiliate managers are accidentally destroying publisher relationships before they even begin. Lee-Ann and Stuart discuss why product feeds matter more than commission rates, and the six tactical shifts that separate transactional affiliate programs from genuine partnerships that drive consistent revenue.

Talking Points Include:

• The relevance test every affiliate manager fails – how understanding audience profiles transforms your outreach from spam into valuable partnership opportunities
• Why making it harder for publishers to link to you kills conversions – the 15-minute friction point that costs you thousands in lost sales, and how removing barriers between story ideas and affiliate links changes everything
• The coffee shop approach to publisher relationships – why the best partnerships happen outside of product launches and promotional cycles, and what real-life relationship building looks like in 2026

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why standardised product feeds matter more than you think, and how retailers without them are losing visibility across major publisher platforms
• The exact moment Stuart realised Pocket-lint competitors were stealing his affiliate links, and what Amazon's phone call revealed about attribution tracking
• How international audience expansion forced Pocket-lint to build automated localisation, and why showing UK readers US pricing destroys conversion rates
• The pub test Stuart used with new journalists to determine if a story was actually worth publishing, and how this filter led to explosive audience growth
• Why retailers that can't beat Amazon on price can still win publisher placements through customer service ratings and relevance scoring
• What happened when Stuart's team spent more time finding affiliate links than writing stories, and the efficiency breakthrough that led to Squirrel's creation

Call to Action

Ready to transform how you work with publisher partners? The strategies Stuart shared didn't come from theory – they came from two decades in the trenches building one of the world's most successful consumer technology publications. If you're serious about moving beyond transactional affiliate relationships into genuine partnerships that drive consistent revenue, subscribe to Affiverse's Affiliate Marketing newsletter for weekly insights that help you stay ahead of industry shifts. Our team translates complex partnership strategies into actionable frameworks you can implement immediately.

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Why Your Affiliate Program Might Be Losing Traffic Without You Realising It

When 62% of AI citations reference affiliate sources but only 20% link to direct providers, something fundamental has shifted in how consumers discover financial products. Jon Ostler, CEO of finder.com and digital marketing veteran since 1997, reveals research that should worry every affiliate program manager: AI is scraping content from publishers, summarising their expert analysis, then sending consumers directly to providers while cutting out the affiliates who created that value. Lee-Ann and Jon discuss what this means for content publishers who've invested millions in editorial teams, how the performance model needs to evolve beyond last-click attribution, and why the publishers who survive will be those who understand their true value isn't just traffic anymore.

Talking Points Include:

The research findings that sparked this conversation - Jon analysed best-for-finance product searches across AI engines and discovered AI overwhelmingly cites affiliate content while bypassing affiliate links, fundamentally disrupting how publishers monetise their expertise

Why this isn't plagiarism in the traditional sense - AI doesn't reason from first principles but delivers consensus answers by absorbing content investment from publishers, raising urgent questions about compensation models when your editorial work powers AI responses but generates zero clicks

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Jon's LinkedIn research that quantified exactly how AI citations reference affiliate content while bypassing affiliate monetisation
• Why branded search and direct traffic increases often mask AI influence you're not being compensated for under current attribution models
• The specific vulnerability AI systems share with early search engines and why chasing short-term exploitation breaks long-term brand building
• How Google's antitrust position creates pressure to maintain ad revenue growth even as AI overviews reduce organic click-through rates
• Why Reddit strategies and multimedia affiliate approaches create the consensus signals AI relies on when formulating answers
• The exact metrics Jon tracks beyond sales figures to understand genuine community health and identify which publishers drive sustainable value

Ready to Master the Next Evolution of Performance Marketing?

If this conversation with Jon Ostler revealed gaps in your current affiliate strategy, Affiverse Agency can help you navigate this transition with confidence. Our team specialises in helping affiliate program managers rebuild their partner ecosystems for an AI-influenced world, from identifying which publishers bring genuine value beyond last-click attribution to structuring commercial models that reward upstream influence. Whether you need strategic partner segmentation, innovative attribution frameworks, or simply expert guidance on what deserves your budget investment right now, we've worked with programs at every stage of this evolution. Visit Affiverse Agency to explore how our consulting services can transform uncertainty into competitive advantage, or reach out directly to discuss your specific program challenges. The publishers and program managers who thrive won't be those who mastered yesterday's best practices but those who understood tomorrow's fundamentals before their competitors did.

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Why Auto-Approving Affiliates in 2026 Is Like Leaving Your Front Door Wide Open

If you're still auto-approving affiliate applications or letting every partner type into your program without a clear strategy, this episode explains exactly why that approach will cost you this year. Ishtvan Torpoi, known industry-wide as "that affiliate guy," joins Lee-Ann to unpack the MegaLag controversy, distinguish between coupon browser extensions and cashback models, and reveal why the vast majority of affiliate management work happens after launch, not before. This conversation delivers the strategic framework you need to build programs that actually drive incremental value rather than just revenue on paper.

Talking Points Include:

• The browser extension distinction that most managers miss including why cashback browser extensions operate fundamentally differently than coupon extensions and how to set different commission structures for each
• Why more affiliates doesn't equal more conversions and how one wellness brand caught an 800-install fraud farm within 24 hours by watching data like a hawk during new partner launches
• The three non-negotiables for 2026 from monitoring performance data properly to changing default payout models based on customer lifetime value to implementing compliance monitoring before problems emerge

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why European brands lag behind US brands in customer lifetime value thinking and how that affects willingness to pay higher initial commissions for quality partners
• The exact process for testing whether browser extensions actually improve cart abandonment rates or any other claimed metric before committing to partnerships
• How to structure commission differences between browser extension triggers and website-initiated traffic to reward genuine customer journey starts
• Why reading affiliate sales pitches isn't enough and how to test partners as actual users to understand their real impact on your funnel
• The data infrastructure investments that separate £30 million brands still doing manual analysis from brands with five data scientists building proper warehouses
• How to spot bot farms and fraud attempts within 24 hours of new partner launches by monitoring specific conversion ratio patterns

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[12:10] How to determine which of the 18-19 affiliate types make sense for new program launches based on internal marketing capabilities and desired speed to revenue

[22:00] Why brands at every size from startups to £30 million operations struggle with data aggregation and proper tooling investments

[27:45] The three non-negotiables for 2026: watching data like a hawk, changing default payout models, and implementing compliance monitoring

[30:50] Quality control processes that prevent fraud, including conversion validation checks and why auto-approval creates cleanup work rather than preventing problems

Call to Action

Huge thanks to Ishtvan Torpoi for sharing the frameworks he implements across diverse client programs at every stage of maturity. If this episode clarified where your program strategy needs adjustment, subscribe to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast so you catch every tactical insight that helps you build programs delivering genuine incremental value. Join us at the ELEVATE Summit in July 2026 in London, where strategic conversations happen between sessions and partnerships form that transform programs. Early bird tickets launch in January.

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The Year Affiliate Marketing Proved Its Power While Rewriting All the Rules

If you thought affiliate marketing was mature, predictable, or figured out, this year proved you spectacularly wrong. Lee-Ann Johnstone takes you inside the most transformative year our industry has ever experienced, where UK brands delivered £16 for every £1 invested while simultaneously watching 60% of searches end without a single click. This isn't just a recap of what happened. It's a master class in how the smartest operators adapted when zero-click search, AI integration, and algorithm chaos threatened to upend everything we thought we knew about performance marketing.

Talking Points Include:

• The shocking numbers that prove affiliate marketing dominates digital marketing with £19 billion in UK basket revenue, $113 billion in US e-commerce sales, and ROI figures that make other channels look obsolete
• Why 60% of searches now end without clicks and what the smartest publishers did differently when AI Overviews decimated traffic by up to 89%

The three business lessons that changed how Lee-Ann runs Affiverse including why saying no to clients actually increased demand and how community building became the antidote to algorithm dependency.

Listen to Find Out More About:

• Why independent bloggers overtook major media outlets in content affiliate spend for the first time, and what this shift reveals about authentic voices versus corporate content farms
• The exact community building strategies that made some programs resilient when algorithm changes devastated others, and why owning your audience relationships transcends platform dependency
• How Affiverse reached nearly a million podcast downloads, trained over 3,000 practitioners globally, and launched the ELEVATE Summit and RAV Awards while doubling agency clients
• The innovation that genuinely worked this year, from community-led programs building true partnerships to video-first publishers seeing engagement rates that dwarfed traditional content
• Why data privacy will define winners and losers, and what first-party data strategies look like for brands that excel at collection and leverage
• The specific metrics proving affiliate marketing delivers ROI other channels can't match, with sector-by-sector breakdowns showing 11:1 to 21:1 returns

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:

[10:30] The UK and US industry numbers that prove affiliate marketing delivers ROI other channels can't match, with specific sector breakdowns

[35:45] The three business lessons that changed how Lee-Ann approaches agency work, event planning, and community building

[56:00] What's coming in 2026 and 2027, including specialized roles, attribution evolution, and data privacy defining winners

[1:02:15] Affiverse milestones across media, agency, and community impact, plus what's launching in 2026

Call to Action

This episode captures the year that separated operators who adapt from those who wait for best practices to emerge. If these insights sparked ideas for how you'll approach affiliate marketing differently in 2026, subscribe to the Affiliate Marketing Podcast so you never miss the strategic frameworks that help you stay ahead. Join us at the ELEVATE Summit in July 2026 in London, where the industry comes together not just to learn, but to actually move forward. Early bird tickets launch in January.

Send me a text with your questions