StackCommerce + Penske Media

[00:00:00] Rob: Hey Sam!

[00:00:07] Sam: Hi Rob!

[00:00:07] Rob: So I've heard a rumor that today's episode is going to feature the Rolling Stones. I mean how on earth have you managed to pull that off? I didn't even know you knew Mick and Keith.

[00:00:16] Sam: No. Not Rolling Stone, the band, but Rolling [00:00:20] Stone, the media house. Well, more specifically, a parent company, Penske Media.

[00:00:24] Could you imagine if I hid that fun fact from you for the last seven years? I

[00:00:27] Rob: mean, I have heard you sing karaoke before, so I wouldn't be totally surprised if you somehow heard a musical in. In fact, should we take the opportunity to now debut your vocal talents to the podcasting world? Maybe a little rendition of the Stones, I can't [00:00:40] get no satisfaction.

[00:00:40] Sam: Absolutely not. I can say with complete confidence that I'll never happen on this podcast.

[00:00:46] Rob: Okay, well, I guess you can't always get what you want. Hi, I'm Rob, and this is Sam.

[00:00:51] Sam: Hi!

[00:00:52] Rob: And you're listening to Awin-Win Marketing Podcast.

[00:00:54] Sam: If you don't know us yet, and there's a good chance you may not actually, because this is only our second episode, welcome [00:01:00] back!

[00:01:00] We hope you're as happy to be here as we are.

[00:01:02] Rob: Well, I don't know, Sam, I think, you know, a few people might know who I am. I was the host of the beloved Awin Talks podcast. Uh, you, not so much.

[00:01:10] Sam: Mm, yeah. Okay, I mean, says the man who can't clap on cue.

[00:01:15] Rob: So, it's 1, 2, 3, and clap, and then clap.

[00:01:18] Blandine (Awin-Win Marketing Podcast Producer): No, you clap on [00:01:20] cue. Oh my god!

[00:01:21] Sam: Oh my god! Why can you not follow instructions?

[00:01:23] Rob: I am! The instructions are hard to interpret.

[00:01:26] Sam: Let's clap on 3. So, 1,

[00:01:29] Rob: 2, 3.

[00:01:30] 1, 2,

[00:01:33] Is that good enough?

[00:01:35] Blandine (Awin-Win Marketing Podcast Producer): You know what? I think I've got it.

[00:01:38] Rob: Um, well, today's [00:01:40] episode is going to get everyone a bit more excited, I think. So let's tell them a bit about what's happening.

[00:01:44] Sam: Yeah, let's do it.

[00:01:47] On today's episode, we're spotlighting a more unique affiliate partnership between StackCommerce and Penske Media. Ever heard of either of them?

[00:01:54] Rob: I didn't think so, but then I started Googling Penske Media and realized that they were actually the global media [00:02:00] company that owns iconic brands like Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, Rolling Stone, obviously, and more.

[00:02:06] Exactly. Exactly.

[00:02:06] Sam: Exactly. Some really impressive publications and media channels under their remit. Not familiar with StackCommerce?

[00:02:11] Rob: No. You know, if I'm being honest, those guys I didn't really know. So how do they actually fit into Penske Media's affiliate marketing journey?

[00:02:19] Sam: Well, we're both [00:02:20] familiar with the traditional affiliate or OPM agency model, right?

[00:02:23] Rob: Yeah, yeah.

[00:02:24] Sam: Well, StackCommerce has reinvented that model, partnering with the world's leading publications to become a key solution provider for performance marketing and content commerce opportunities.

[00:02:34] Rob: Okay. Yeah, that's interesting. Um, you weren't kidding when you said they were unique then.

[00:02:38] Sam: I never kid Rob, but our [00:02:40] listeners shouldn't take my word for it.

[00:02:41] So let's press play and dive deeper into this partnership

[00:02:50] Jim Harriman: at StackCommerce. I'm the VP of of sales and services. I oversee essentially all things revenue and how to execute on that revenue.

[00:02:58] Sam: That's Jim Harriman, VP [00:03:00] of Media Sales and Services at StackCommerce.

[00:03:02] Jim Harriman: I got into affiliate. I, I think how most people get into affiliate. it. I started my journey in 2006. Uh, I had just got out of the air force.

[00:03:14] Nobody in the, in the private world needed airstrikes called for them. So I did the next best thing and found my [00:03:20] way to affiliate and uh, doing it ever since, but been a blast.

[00:03:23] Sam: Joining us remotely is Scott Ginsberg, Penske Media's vice president of performance marketing.

[00:03:28] Scott Ginsberg: My journey goes back about 20 years in affiliate.

[00:03:31] I started out as another big network for about 13 years and That's actually where I got to know Jim. We spent probably about what, six, seven years together as coworkers. And then when I [00:03:40] finally left and I went over to S, he was actually one of the first phone calls I made when we built out the team and I hired him about two years ago to join me there.

[00:03:48] And I ended up leaving to join. here, which is Penske media. And I came here to really help to monetize through commerce across all the different sites.

[00:03:57] Sam: Scott told me he has always been like publisher side, [00:04:00] Jim. It sounds like you've done a little bit of both. Do you have a preference? Do you like being more like publisher facing advertiser facing?

[00:04:05] Jim Harriman: You know, because Scott's always been publisher, I have to say advertiser where it's at, just so we can maintain our competitive. Yes,

[00:04:12] Sam: that's fair.

[00:04:13] Jim Harriman: I will say I do enjoy being in roles and organizations where you have the opportunity to work [00:04:20] across multiple models, right? Advertisers and publishers alike.

[00:04:24] Sam: Absolutely. You get a little, you get a little, a little taste of everything that way. Yeah, exactly. Scott, can you please describe for us the main challenge you face as a mass media or editorial publisher in affiliate marketing?

[00:04:37] Scott Ginsberg: So it's really trying to [00:04:40] introduce upper funnel awareness, engagement, and content in a last click world.

[00:04:46] So for example, when we do a media buy and a brand is used to working with last click, they might be expecting a seven to one ROAS or an eight to one ROAS. And so what we need to do is not only sell them and educate them on [00:05:00] why content or upper funnel makes sense, but also why should they invest that dollar that they could earn seven on maybe to just earn a dollar on, right?

[00:05:09] So for the last sort of eight to 10 years, my task was how do we keep that part humming, but really start to bring in some of the more upper funnel, Content [00:05:20] sites. So whenever those sites popped up, I know brands were like, yes, we really want to be on that site. But the way those sites worked is very different than some of your more promotional sites.

[00:05:29] So it's really trying to figure out the economics, figure out the right cadence to get content to perform adequately in the affiliate [00:05:40] ecosystem.

[00:05:40] Sam: Jim, I'd love to hear your perspective, you know, coming from stock commerce. Is this like a common barrier that a lot of the publishers that you work with, especially editorial publishers are facing?

[00:05:49] Jim Harriman: Yeah. Yeah. It hits the nail on the head. Believe it or not, even, even advertisers are, you know, marketing managers within their organization know that the affiliate channel isn't just a lower funnel channel [00:06:00] anymore. Uh, but within organizations, there's still this struggle to try to elevate the conversation and kind of get buy in that, that affiliate should and can be used.

[00:06:09] To engage a consumer at, at any stage, wherever they are, whether it's upper funneling content, uh, like Scott or lower funnel with, you know, coupon and deal toolbar, things, things of that nature. And so we struggled [00:06:20] with that a lot and across the board with, with our partners, uh, through all the Penske properties, as well as our, the other publishers that we, we represent.

[00:06:27] That's an ongoing discussion and battle. Um, just trying to secure budget and investment from brands that are so used to engaging on that last click lower funnel customer and convincing them to feed that lower funnel with that upper [00:06:40] funnel activity.

[00:06:40] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a great segue to our next question.

[00:06:43] You two have obviously worked together for a really long time, and I would love to hear from you. Take care. How have you navigated these conversations and these challenges?

[00:06:51] Jim Harriman: Can we say, Scott, we begged and pleaded? No, I think, um, you know, as silly as this is to say, and Scott, uh, [00:07:00] Correct me, at any point with this, it really comes down to education and building relationships within organizations up the chain, up the echelon within the company.

[00:07:08] And really getting buy in to use their affiliate program to engage with consumers at every, not to say funnel again, but every stage of, of the funnel and convincing decision makers to [00:07:20] give us the, the opportunity to prove out to them that the value we're bringing is impacting their business and in a positive way, they might not see the, the instant return like they would with, uh, again, maybe coupon and deal or loyalty or lower funnel activity, but over time we can certainly show.

[00:07:35] That there's a net gain to that organization if they [00:07:40] consistently engage with Publishers like Penske properties from like a content perspective

[00:07:46] Sam: Scott. Do you have anything to add to that?

[00:07:48] Scott Ginsberg: Yeah, my first thought was education as well But I would also argue that transparency with data is also really important where you know We can educate and I think historically There's been a need [00:08:00] for more data, whether it's page user impressions or clicks, et cetera.

[00:08:03] So I do think also really using that transparency to help tell that story and educate the brands has really helped to sort of get them to understand what's the value of content. How do we view it both from like a last click, but also as a part of the ecosystem or [00:08:20] part of the chain in that consumer journey.

[00:08:22] Jim Harriman: At the end of the day, performance always wins. And, you know, to add on to the education piece. What does success look like in, in our space and the content space? Uh, again, brands tend to look for a five to one, six to one, 12 to one return on ad spend in content. You're not necessarily going to get that. So [00:08:40] what, what does success look like and why that's, that's different with.

[00:08:43] I think every brand, and in some cases it can be based on a vertical when we have that conversation and we're able to come to a consensus with the brand, what success looks like they're usually off to the races after that.

[00:08:55] Sam: I want to dig a little bit more into this education piece because You, Jim, [00:09:00] are coming at from almost a building awareness perspective and educating different people in an organization about like different benefits of affiliate where Scott was talking about it from a very like data driven perspective.

[00:09:11] Scott, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about like, are there certain questions that you ask or certain KPIs that you know are really important to a brand or a company that you're talking to and you're like, [00:09:20] I want to come in from the data angle. I think, you know, it's actually a brand that doesn't know anything about affiliate and for us to really move the needle.

[00:09:26] It's more of like a. Awareness building piece.

[00:09:29] Scott Ginsberg: I would say on the data side, it's also like properly setting expectations as to what this can be. I think oftentimes because brands are used to just testing with some of these last [00:09:40] clicker promotional elements, I think to Jim's point, they bring that like mentality of, I need this ROAS.

[00:09:45] And I think part of our job is to explain to them. What is content and how does it work? And I think we are able to use data to again, really showcase the branding and the engagement, but also really help them to understand through all the things that make affiliate great.

[00:09:59] Sam: [00:10:00] Yeah, absolutely. I had a conversation last week with Sarah Beeskow at the Performance Marketing Association who was saying that oftentimes because affiliate is great on this like performance model and it's so transparent and You know, we really pride ourselves on the fact that like you are getting back exactly what you spend in it.

[00:10:15] But Sarah made a really interesting point that sometimes the right conversation is to [00:10:20] say like, why almost having like a not as great return on ad spend is actually better for you in the long term. Put a little bit more into it. You get more of the upper funnel and brand consideration and brand awareness.

[00:10:30] It's not like a hard one to one sale. I don't know if that like speaks to either of your experience, but, but Jim, it seems like you have something to chime in there. Yeah,

[00:10:37] Jim Harriman: no, absolutely. There is. So again, putting [00:10:40] myself in the advertiser shoes when I was an advertiser and I'd go in front of our, you know, CMO and CEO to present the quarter results for affiliate, there was always value placed on the channel, but the expectation was, did he hit that return on ad spend?

[00:10:53] And what did you execute on? Where were we placed? And we'd have presentations with these great screenshots of, you know, [00:11:00] coupon and deal sites and toolbar engagement, and even some technology publishers that, that we were partnering with. But nothing beats a reaction when you have something on rolling stone.

[00:11:11] Oh, here's an article that we had published on rolling stone or on variety or on one of the she media properties and your CMO is trying to figure out how you just got that done. [00:11:20] Now you can't show that return on ad spend like a coupon on deal site,

[00:11:23] Sam: but you have the wow factor, but

[00:11:24] Jim Harriman: you have the wow factor.

[00:11:26] And again, it's a Scott's point earlier from a data and analytics standpoint, as long as you set things up properly from the get go. You can quantify the investment in the value, and you might not get that last engagement, but that awareness, [00:11:40] that branding, that involvement with just these upper funnel publishers really helps carry the brand, not just from a consumer perspective, but from a value perspective within the organization itself.

[00:11:49] Sam: Absolutely.

[00:11:50] Scott Ginsberg: Yeah. I think I just add on to that. We always have to educate the brands too. It's not in a vacuum, right? And I think you have to understand that the consumer's interacting with a lot of different things [00:12:00] throughout the day. So it's really just understanding how are you interacting and Jim's right, where we often benefit from the, wow, I had a great article about my product on that site now.

[00:12:10] Did that consumer buy instantly? Maybe or maybe not. But we do know that by them reading it, they might have gone to their local store. They might have actually clicked on a different affiliate link. But at the end of the day, [00:12:20] that experience did help to ultimately influence that consumer to take the action the brand wanted.

[00:12:25] So how do we properly get credit for that happening?

[00:12:32] Rob: Awin-Win Marketing Podcast is brought to you by Awin, pun intended. Awin's a global affiliate marketing platform [00:12:40] that helps ecommerce brands called advertisers. And online trusted authorities, called publishers, connect and create partnerships to deliver huge commercial benefits that are a win win for all.

[00:12:50] Awin advertisers see an average ROI of 13 for every dollar they invest in their programs. And they see those returns while achieving a variety of marketing [00:13:00] goals. Acquiring new customers, increasing their AOVs, boosting retention, growing brand awareness. So what are you waiting for? Start your Awin affiliate program today by visiting Awin.com.

[00:13:19] Sam: [00:13:20] Is there a success within your partnership that you can talk our listeners through?

[00:13:24] Jim Harriman: We had a bit of an uphill battle with a large consumer electronic retailer that really wanted to invest in the channel to engage that consumer that wasn't necessarily ready to buy. Again, talking about kind of feeding that lower funnel activity.

[00:13:39] But didn't quite [00:13:40] have a way to sell internally. And so what we had done with Penske Media and Scott was kind of devised a long term strategy over the course of the year, a number of different content plays and traffic drivers designed to get eyes on to that content that was developed and set up a proper tracking methodology that would [00:14:00] allow This team internally to measure the impact of that content even further down the funnel through attribution modeling and things of that nature.

[00:14:09] And at the end of the day, and without maybe even too much of the way, because I'll let Scott do that, we ended up taking a client that was very hesitant and investing even, you know, 5, 10, 000 in a content play. [00:14:20] To become one of the largest spenders that I think to date we've ever seen and uh, continue to spend year after year after year in that upper funnel activity because they were able to see so much positive downstream results from it.

[00:14:32] Scott Ginsberg: Yeah. It's a good example of what content can do. And I think the other benefit for that retailer is not only did they get more efficiency, they got [00:14:40] all this sort of content, but also for them. They had some pretty big competitors and linking away from Amazon was a big KPI for them. So through engaging with us, we were also able to get them some of that market share back as well as earlier.

[00:14:53] It's not a vacuum. So there's things that we could quantify and showcase of the success, but there was a lot of other things that went with that [00:15:00] partnership that they were able to benefit from. And I know getting that market share back and owning the consumer ended up being something that they still really value.

[00:15:07] Since the campaign or through the campaign.

[00:15:08] Sam: Yeah, absolutely. I think for our listeners who are maybe less familiar with affiliate or less familiar with attribution modeling in kind of upper funnel, what are those KPIs that they can track and look for and measure?

[00:15:19] Jim Harriman: [00:15:20] So I think it will vary by brand and by vertical, but a, a lot of the KPIs that we use for upper funnel measurement would be things like page views of an article.

[00:15:28] I think more popular and more requested would be clicks from that article to the actual destination. Depending on the type of content, if page views aren't necessarily an option, which they usually are, we can also [00:15:40] use impression trackers. If it's a single placement, which typically a content it isn't or a longer form article, or if it's a piece of content, that's part of an inclusion.

[00:15:49] We can measure through impressions based on where that inclusion is located on the page. And so those elements will ultimately be tied down again into downstream activity just through attribution modeling. So we can start the measure [00:16:00] over time and then from there what we can do, especially if it's evergreen content.

[00:16:04] We can start optimizing over time, the content and the landing pages and the elements on the page to try to improve those metrics and increase that downstream conversion and then more sophisticated, we can even ultimately see where the customer converted through or whether it was [00:16:20] director, whether it was SEM or SEO, or even another publisher.

[00:16:23] And we can start to see, Hey, there's some commonalities with what we're doing where the majority of our content ultimately converts through search or ultimately converts through publisher X. So let's try to optimize to, to that. And that's when we, over time, it doesn't happen overnight, but over time, that's when we really start to see success in these [00:16:40] campaigns.

[00:16:40] Sam: Jim's outlined for us, a host of metrics brands can use to measure upper funnel awareness and engagement, bringing this to affiliate beyond traditional last click. There's now the opportunity for retailers to layer in these assist metrics into their tracking. Scott, I have a question for you. I know you brought this up when we spoke a few weeks ago.

[00:16:57] Obviously having assist tracking is key to [00:17:00] measure the true effectiveness of Penske's efforts. How do you navigate these conversations with brands to get them to use assist tracking, particularly those that are commercially minded or solely focused on that last click model?

[00:17:10] Scott Ginsberg: Yeah, no, and I actually had a really good example even partnering with Awin.

[00:17:13] This actually helped us with that electronics retailer a couple years back where we were looking at about a one to one ROAS and trying to [00:17:20] secure the renewal. And honestly, once we started to look at that assist metrics and it ended up being, I think, north of like 20%, it really showcased that like, yes, if content's doing its job, it's able educating, it's influencing, but ultimately there may be another party that converted that consumer.

[00:17:36] I think a savvy consumer at this point knows to look for that deal to [00:17:40] knows to look for that offer. So I think our big win is still gaining some credit and still being able to demonstrate to that brand, like look at the whole ecosystem, what we were able to sort of influence above and beyond what that direct attribution was able to give us

[00:17:53] Sam: over the course of your partnership with Jim and it's dot commerce.

[00:17:56] What have you enjoyed most about working together? I think it was Answer [00:18:00] wisely,

[00:18:00] Scott Ginsberg: Scott. I was going to say, I got to be careful. It was, I think, the ability to bring something and to solve for something that's, quite frankly, had never been solved before. Jim and I came with about 30 years of combined experience and we knew that we were There was an appetite for content, but there was no playbook.

[00:18:16] There was no script to be able to solve for it. So, you know, it really [00:18:20] took leveraging our relationships and some of our contacts, but also testing, refining, learning, and just really trying to solve for this. And we kept doubling the business year over year. And I think grew it to the point where it is through that sort of iteration and learning.

[00:18:33] So I think it's just sort of tackling that head on. Realizing, you know, we're doing something different and just committed to solving [00:18:40] for that. And ultimately we did. And I think it's been a huge testament to the growth of content through some of that

[00:18:45] Jim Harriman: effort. I'll go back even further just through my, I guess, my career and working with Scott.

[00:18:50] We've always been on separate sides of the business, you know, publisher and advertiser, at least in most cases. And Scott is extremely collaborative at any point in time, whether it was. [00:19:00] You know, our, you know, role here at, at StackCommerce while Scott's at brand cycle or whether we were working in the same company, just on different sides of the business, going to Scott with thoughts and ideas on how we could do things different, how we can move the needle more for advertisers through his publisher partnerships or vice versa.

[00:19:15] Scott coming to me like, Hey, we have these goals or these objectives or these ideas from these publishers. [00:19:20] What can we do with advertisers to make this happen? Being able to work with somebody For yep, 15, 16, 17 years now in that capacity has been a lot of fun. And what's been really interesting is we haven't always been at the same company, of course, but somehow we continue to, you know, work like this with one another.

[00:19:38] And it's been really, really [00:19:40] fantastic. And I can't think of, you know, many other opportunities or industries that could be in that would afford that type of. Partnership and opportunity. So that's been a lot of fun.

[00:19:48] Sam: It is really interesting hearing you both say that because this is a common theme we're hearing in all of these conversations we're having about the podcast is the importance of relationships, how valuable they are, how much effort they take, but [00:20:00] how worthwhile and how much you get back out of that relationship building.

[00:20:03] And it's not just if you're a brand building those relationships with a publisher, if you're an agency building relationship with your brands or your publishers in like a direct one to one nature, it's the holistic relationships that you make. In this channel.

[00:20:14] Jim Harriman: Yeah, couldn't agree more.

[00:20:15] Sam: What is your one single best piece of advice you would give to a business looking to get [00:20:20] started with affiliate marketing?

[00:20:21] Jim Harriman: Don't go in with preconceived notions of what the affiliate channel is. Enter the affiliate world as if there's multiple channels kind of within. If you're open minded, if you're willing to invest the time and money over time, you can use the affiliate channel to achieve. Goals that

[00:20:40] you just didn't think were possible.

[00:20:41] Sam: Scott, same question for you. What's the one single piece of advice?

[00:20:44] Scott Ginsberg: Make sure as it relates to publishers, you know, your audience and who you're talking to, right? Cause what's going to work for a content site could be very different than a deal site or very different than a loyalty site. And even within those, there's just different models.

[00:20:57] So I would say, do your homework and educate yourself [00:21:00] on how does that site engage the consumer. Because ultimately, if you know that going into it, it'll save a lot of back and forth and you'll know, are they the right fit to be able to promote the brand? And it'll save a lot of that, uh, that hassle.

[00:21:12] Sam: Absolutely. Is there anything you haven't had the opportunity to share yet that you wanted to share?

[00:21:16] Jim Harriman: I mean, who are your favorite employees been after all these years? No, I'm [00:21:20] good.

[00:21:20] Sam: Thank you, Scott. Jim. Really appreciate you joining me today. Thanks for being here.

[00:21:23] Jim Harriman: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

[00:21:24] Appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much.

[00:21:30] Sam: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Awin-Win Marketing Podcast. In two weeks, Rob chats to VOXI, Vodafone and SaleCycle to dive deep on basket [00:21:40] abandonment in the telecoms space.

[00:21:41] Rob: But until then, if you need more affiliate marketing insights to tide you over, take a moment to browse our archives on Spotify or Apple.

[00:21:49] We've got five years’ worth of our old podcast, Awin Talks available on there. And as always. Plenty to keep you informed and entertained. Thanks again for listening to Awin-Win Marketing Podcast where we show you how [00:22:00] affiliate partnerships always offer a win win.

[00:22:02] Sam: See you next time.