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Brian Marcus (@bmarcus31) is the VP of Global Marketing at TUNE, the pioneer in partner marketing management and mobile measurement.

Brian is a man of replicating success at some of the world’s most well-known brands. He was able to bring a wealth of growth knowledge to Teespring after building eBay’s Seller Partner Network through affiliate and partner marketing back in 2012.

Before eBay, he took the reins and scaled the Google Affiliate Network back in 2008. Brian holds an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Affiliate marketing is often considered the red-headed step-child of digital marketing, and puts a bad taste in many peoples’ mouths. Brian smashes this misconception to pieces and provides a very compelling case for anyone who wants to grow their customer base through what could be one of the best return on investment (ROI) channels for any startup.

This episode is particularly valuable for anyone who wants to leverage niche blogs, influencers, or rebate sites to share their audience and drive “warm” customers to consider and buy your product on a consistent basis, at an amazing ROI. Who wouldn’t want this?

Please help grow the show with me…

by reviewing, subscribing, or downloading 2 episodes. If you do any 1 of the 3, I’ll enter you into a $50 Amazon gift card contest, which we’ll announce the winner of every other Thursday. A $100 contest if you download 5 episodes!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Tune In, Stitcher, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

Show Notes

• Could you tell the story of your lunch with the CEO of Performics and how it changed your career? [04:02]
• When did Performance Marketing become a thing? In the history of marketing [09:02]
• Cost per acquisition was a cost model early (in history of marketing)? [10:38]
• So affiliate marketing wouldn’t exist without Cost per acquisition? [12:13]
• What is affiliate marketing? [13:09]
• (in affiliate marketing), a publisher is a website property? [13:31]
• Example: Amazon partners with a website that does book reviews, and sets up an affiliate marketing relationship [14:45]
• How would (a publisher) pre-qualify people on their site? [16:56]
• What makes affiliate marketing such an incredible Return on Investment? [18:29]
• Why are publishers called “value-added pre-sellers” and what do they do special? [20:41]
• How are publishers warming up audiences to your (or any brand’s) product they are promoting? [21:48]
• What makes for a great affiliate partnership? Great performance marketing results and great revenue generated. [25:09]
• What it was like building Ebay Partner Network and how did you work with other networks who were connected to hundreds of bloggers [27:25]
• Why transparency and rules of engagement is important in quality affiliate partnerships [28:18]
• Why there is a fear of disintermediation in affiliate partnerships [29:40]
• Why trust is a big part of the affiliate marketing channel [30:42]
• Why knowing the Lifetime Value of your customer gives you leverage in an affiliate partnership [31:09]
• Example: Lifetime value of a credit card customer (Ex. Citibank) [32:45]
• How advertisers (brands) have great control over what action you pay out on [33:41]

Links from Episode

• Connect with Brian: Twitter | LinkedIn | Tune
• Teespring
• Ebay Partner Network
• Performics (owned by Publicis Media now)
• JC Whitney
• Commission Junction
• Rakuten (Linkshare)
• Overture (Yahoo)
• Cost Per Acquisition
• Cost Per Clicks
• Different cost models in paid advertising
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• DoubleClick
• Affiliate marketing
• Amazon
• Amazon Associates Program
• Slick Deals
• Black Friday
• Rakuten Rewards (formerly Ebates)
• Affiliate Summit
• Tune

Ready for Part 2? Listen to it here!