Meredith’s experience in the industry dates back to 2002, when she started media buying for a local South Florida advertising agency representing Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group and Capella University. More than 1 year ago, Meredith started her own company Merit Digital.

Utilizing over 15 years of online media buying experience, Merit Digital can offer expertise in CPA, CPC and CPM media buying for email marketing, display, native ads, social media, mobile marketing, co-registration, pay-per-call and incentive marketing.

I know Meredith and she has great knowledge of online marketing industry. She always cares about her clients. Don’t waste time and contact her if you need any marketing consultation.

1. Meredith, please tell my readers how you got your start in the online marketing world.

I started back in 2004 at a company called TheUseful, where I did all of the online media buying for their promotional offers. I managed both the CPM and CPA media buys until 2013.

2. What did lead you to a current position as an Owner of Merit Digital?

I realized after over 11 years in the online marketing industry that I could start my own media company. I really like working directly with advertisers to help them optimize their campaigns, landing pages and media buys to find the right consumer.

3. Is it difficult to build your own trusted brand and engage affiliates and advertisers to your network?

I have so many close friends in the affiliate world that have helped me out. Through those relationships, that I spent the last 11 years creating, I have received some great referrals which has lead Merit Digital to the success it is today.

4. As I know, you work only with publishers who have email traffic. Where did you get all their contact? How did you engage them to work with you? Because Merit Digital is still a new company, it’s only 1 year on the market.

I actually work with email, mobile, display and social publishers. My past experience and through several trade shows and referrals is how I have cultivated my relationships.

5. Why do you use mostly email traffic? Do you think it still works as good as it was before?

Email is still a very effective medium for advertisers because of its targeting and relevancy.

6. What do you think makes a great affiliate network?

I do not consider Merit Digital an affiliate network. We are more of a media company, working directly with advertisers, consulting them on their business and buying media on their behalf. That being said, I think honesty, trust and paying on time are vital to the survival of any company. I have found that many advertisers work with me because I am transparent with them on traffic sources and I give them my honest opinion about each one. I also make sure that I pay all of my publishers on time, which is rare in today’s current marketplace.

7. Your business takes a lot of your time at the moment. Do you have free time? How do you spend it?

Merit Digital takes up a lot of my time, however I also write fiction novels in my spare time. It started as a hobby but has become a real passion for me.

Morgan Simon manages SPC’s digital, content, social and event strategies.

Prior to working at Schaaf-PartnerCentric, Morgan was the Marketing and Business Development Manager at UnsubCentral, a PostUp Company. She got her start in affiliate marketing working at HasOffers by Tune.com, where she focused on researching, prospecting, engaging and onboarding new accounts. Morgan loves the performance marketing industry. If you want to know how to help clients launch, manage and grow their affiliate programs, read her interview.  I know that Schaaf-PartnerCentric is one of the providers of the highest level of service for affiliate program management. If you need help from the most experienced team of affiliate program managers, you will definitely find them in Schaaf-PartnerCentric.

1. How was Schaaf-PartneCentric founded? What was the purpose?

Schaaf-PartnerCentric was founded as Schaaf Consulting in 2006 by Brook and Forrest Schaaf. Brook was well-known as affiliate program manager for Zappos.com, Shoes.com and Edmunds.com. He grew one of the programs from $25,000 to more than $1,000,000 in monthly sales in fewer than two years. Schaaf Consulting built a strong reputation on its ability to drive success for clients while using best practices to reach attainable goals and provide sustainable growth for the affiliate channel. 10 years later, after acquiring both PartnerCentric, Inc and Paulson Management Group, Schaaf-PartnerCentric is now home to the largest and most experienced team of affiliate program managers in the industry.

2. How many people does work at the company right now? Your team consists mainly of affiliate managers. What are the crucial traits you pay attention to when selecting future team members?

Schaaf-PartnerCentric currently has over 30 awesome, full-time employees. When selecting future team members there are quite a few things we consider. Experience in the affiliate industry is something we consider highly valuable, our Affiliate Program Managers have an average of 10 years in the industry. We also look for individuals who are motivated and passionate about the affiliate industry and going above and beyond expectations to help our client’s affiliate program’s thrive.

3. How the average manager can apply to jobs you have? What should be done to work for Schaaf (experience, education, contacts, etc.)?

Our current openings are listed on our careers page along with qualification requirements – https://www.schaafpc.com/contact/affiliate-marketing-careers/.

4. Please name 5 tips how to manage the affiliate program properly and maximize its revenue by several times.

Here are a few tips we wrote to help maximize affiliate program management in Q4:
https://www.schaafpc.com/6358-2/. We really take the time to get to know all of our clients businesses and goals and then maximize their affiliate program around their specific needs.

5. It’s interesting to find out more about a brand ambassador program. How does this work? Do you have your own brand ambassador team?

We do not have a brand ambassador program at this time, though we are lucky in that all of our employees tend to be very knowledgable and passionate about affiliate marketing – making them great unofficial ambassadors.

6. What was the most formidable task you have ever had with your clients? What was the company name? How did you solve it?

We’ve been fortunate enough to work with many different types of clients solving many problems and growing several affiliate programs; you can see examples of a few of these on our case studies page: https://www.schaafpc.com/affiliate-marketing-case-studies/.

7. Why do you think Schaaf-PartneCentric is successful in managing affiliate programs?

I think there are quite a few things that make us the best OPM. The first is simply our level of experience across all of our team members. To have an average of 10+ years of affiliate experience for program managers is almost unheard of; and it means our team is able to make educated recommendations for our clients based on years of experience. We also have multiple team members working on every account. Besides a dedicated Affiliate Program Manager, each of our client’s also has a Marketing Analyst who is constantly reporting on what is and isn’t working. We also have an Approval and Compliance Specialist who is constantly ensuring that our clients remain compliant and adhere to best practices.

8. Affiliate marketing has become more complex over the last few years. How have these changes affected the company?

The performance marketing landscape is constantly changing, and we pride ourselves on staying ahead of the curve when it comes to these changes.  From incorporating mobile to our strategies to launching an entire product (REACH) focused on engaging brand influencers, we constantly try to stay at the forefront of digital marketing trends.

9. Do you have company holiday parties? How do you and your team unwind after stressful weekdays?

We do have holiday parties! We had a great one with this past December in Austin, TX. Because so many members of our team are remote, we also sent each of them a bottle of champagne and video streamed the event so our entire team could cheers to a great year together. Each of our team members have different ways to unwind after busy weekdays, for me nothing beats a walk with my husband and dog around our neighborhood pond.

Stephanie Robbins is a prosperous Affiliate Manager with many years of online marketing experience. She is passionate about helping people to create a flexible lifestyle and she always creates win-win-win situations. Stephanie is a great specialist who helps brands incrementally grow revenue through affiliate management. She knows what she is doing. It was a pleasure to talk to her and to know more about her. I recommend everyone to invite Stephanie to join your team!

1. Stephanie, you have more than 20 years online marketing experience and 9 plus years in affiliate marketing industry. Why did you choose marketing? How did you start your affiliate manager career?

I went into marketing as a copywriter. I graduated from college with an English Literature degree. Originally, I wanted to be a lawyer. However, I changed my mind after one day of shadowing an actual lawyer. I had to look at my skill sets and passion….writing is what stood out. I quickly became passionate about marketing and the analytics that surrounded the field.

Affiliate marketing came into my life as an option for a client of mine, etnies.com. I had launched their ecommerce store. We were doing search engine marketing and email marketing. We needed more exposure. In my research, I came across affiliate marketing and fell in love immediately. It is such a great return on investment with long term relationships and a cost per acquisition format. After my first conference, Shareasale’s Think Tank, I became hooked. I loved the people and the entrepreneurial spirit of the industry.

2. What projects are you running now? How do you pick companies to work with?

Right now I work with 100percentpure.com, grokker.com and Amoils.com in the health and wellness niche. I also work with content affiliates for Chegg, an online textbook and tutoring company.

I only work with companies I can authentically represent. I either have to use their products or would use them in the future. I find I am much better at what I do, if I love the product and services.

I also look for companies that complement each other. With 100% Pure, Grokker and Amoils, I can find an affiliate who wants to promote all three brands. This type of relationship gives me an opportunity to work with and educate the affiliate. Those relationships are the most profitable for me and the affiliate.

3. What niche markets do you work with? What are the most profitable?

I focus on the health and wellness niche with an emphasis on natural health. These are the most profitable because you are meeting an urgent need from your follower. The consumer has a great incentive to purchase..to feel better. I believe health and wellness are profitable because they lend themselves to content niche affiliates along with the higher conversion rates.

4. What sales channels do your affiliates use drive high quality traffic?

My most successful affiliates use organic search engine optimization to drive highly targeted traffic to the affiliate site and as a result my brands. Many affiliates are successful with Facebook ads as well but the learning curve can be steep.

My blogger affiliates maximize their social media and email channels for success as well as monetizing their evergreen already optimized posts.

5. What marketing strategies do you use for developing social media for different affiliate programs?

My top affiliates utilize multiple social media channels to reach their goal. Facebook groups are popular with my affiliates as a way to reach the followers’ feed. Twitter is also a great tool. What all my affiliates have in common is a clear call to action and solid content with added value to point the follower to.

6. Please, advise how to build new affiliate program from scratch.

Starting an affiliate program from the ground up takes strategy, work and patience. The first step is making a plan how what you want your program to look like. What niches are you wanting to approach? What is your coupon strategy? What type of affiliates will not be allowed in the program.

The next part is outreach.  As an affiliate manager, the largest portion of my job is outreach. When I launch a program, the first thing I do is reach out to my existing relationships. Once the existing relationships are on board, I perform regular outreach to ensure the program is constantly growing.

7. How much should an affiliate get paid? I’m sure that you heard that question several times when launching an affiliate program from scratch.

Yes, I do get this one a lot. There are many levels to the answer. An affiliate
gets paid as much as the affiliate can generate. If an affiliate puts up one banner with minimal effort, the affiliate is not going to get paid much. However, if the affiliate creates unique content and markets that content, the sky is the limit. I have content affiliates who make between $4-$5,000 a month. However, it took time for these affiliates to develop their content and optimize their site. That is the good news and bad news about affiliate marketing….you get what you put in. And the best news is there are no limit.

8. You just returned from Affiliate Summit West. How was it? What interesting could you learn from there?

Affiliate Summit keeps getting better each year. This year, they introduced the Rev Share breakout. It is for CPA (versus CPC affiliates). I was able to represent both Grokker and 100percentpure.com at this event. It met great affiliates who were truly interested in the program.
I also did my first Ask the Expert Roundtable about blogging tools. It is an informal setting where I had between 8-10 affiliates at a time engaging and asking questions about affiliate marketing for bloggers. I presented everyone with a handout on the top blogging tools for affiliate marketing. You can check out my handout here http://robbinsinteractive.com/wp/useful-affiliate-tools-for-bloggers/

9. Is it hard to keep up with trends in affiliate marketing?

Yes, affiliate marketing is constantly changing which certainly keeps me on my toes. Attending conference such as Affiliate Summit and Affiliate Management Days are great resources for staying on top of the industry. I also love reading Feedfront and industry blogs from such as amnavigator.com, greghoffmanconsulting and affiliatetip.com. I also keep up with online marketing trends on Internet Retailer, Forbes and Fast Company. I do a lot of reading ☺

10. Can you recall any funny story from your job?

The very first conference I went to was Shareasale’s Think Tank in Newport Beach. It was the first time I had ever left my babies overnight. It was also the nicest hotel I had ever stayed at. I was so nervous about making a good impression that I forgot to eat. As a result, I ended up fainting in the middle of the event. It was incredibly embarrassing and not how I imagined making a first impression. Now I always bring snacks. So if you see me at a conference, you can count on me for an extra energy bar.

11. Do you have a hobby? What do you do to take your mind off work?

As you can tell from my niche, I am passionate about health and wellness. I practice yoga and meditation regularly. I also have two small children that do a great job keeping my mind off work. We are an active family who love to kayak, hike, bike, backpack or really do anything outdoors.

Cristian Miculi – Senior Manager, Alliances at Avangate. He has a strong background in project management, sales, marketing and professional attitude to everything. Cristian enjoys creating content geared to affiliate marketing and sharing best practices with the industry via webinars, events, blog posts, etc.

Cristian always opens for a new and exciting challenge. His newest one is the alliances role at Avangate Affiliate Network. He has a deep understanding of the affiliate marketing world, performance marketing and related technologies for tracking, promotion and monetization. And today you have the opportunity to get to know him better and learn how to deliver quality work being an Affiliate Manager.

1. Cristian, I know that you have worked in the publishing area for about 3 years. Please tell us about your experience you have got before Avangate.

Indeed, I got my first job while in college – I was working as an online editor at IDG Romania. Initially I thought I would keep that job just for the summer, but since I was also contributing to articles in the magazine I discovered that I liked creating content and so I stayed for almost 3 years there.

I went through all the stages – from online editor to hardware & software tests editor for PC World, online manager and in my final months – editor in chief. In parallel we also launched an online store for which I helped with product management.

These first 3 years helped me develop my skills on content creation, online marketing and driving relationships with customers and agencies.

2. How did you start your cooperation with Avangate? 

As I’m constantly looking for new challenges, Avangate seemed at that time in 2008 a normal step for me to grow professionally. I came onboard as a Communication Specialist, but in one year’s time I was handed the Avangate Affiliate Network with the specific goal of growing it. And I did so, working with both advertisers and affiliates: from approx. 2,000 affiliates we got to 35,000+ affiliates at the end of 2012, that were generating a consistent percentage of revenue for the company.

I then focused on the managed affiliate services side that I had started in parallel, signing and managing experienced outsourced partners to help with that.

My last professional step within the company was when I expanded my role into the newly created services team, covering both affiliate services, online marketing services and the alliances role.

Along all the operational and strategic bits and pieces, I have always enjoyed creating content geared to affiliate marketing and sharing best practices with the industry via webinars, events, blog posts, etc.

3. What are the main things you are currently working on as a Senior Manager of Alliances?

I’m currently focusing on growing the alliances ecosystem we have created at Avangate with technology, agency and integration partners. The goal would be that each of our customers to be able to get the pieces they need to grow their business by simply working with us and connecting with our specialized partners.

In the same time, I’m the subject matter expert for affiliate services and online marketing services.

4. How can affiliate managers motivate their affiliates?

This depends on many factors: vertical, niche, size of the company and what the company goals are, etc. Of course, money (bonuses) always work and something that motivates affiliates is getting credit for the subscription renewals of the customers they initially brought onboard – works best with weekly / monthly subscriptions.

Some affiliates are motivated by exclusivity – having something to promote that cannot be found anywhere else – whether it’s a product, a service, a special subscription type or a coupon. Works best for saturate markets.

All these should be offered based on the affiliates’ performance.

5. What are the main factors advertisers should consider when choosing affiliate networks?

I think the top one should be relevancy – whether a network has worked with similar advertisers. This way, there are greater chances of generating revenue via the specialized affiliates in that network.

Another important one would be the capabilities of that network – supporting the advertiser’s business model, tracking & attribution models, recruitment opportunities, communication tools, support, cross-promotion, add-on services, etc.

As an advertiser I would also look at what the network is offering to affiliates, since many of them may be reluctant in joining one’s program just because they’re on a network they don’t prefer. Payment options and frequency, network campaigns, special tools and support are just a few of the things that affiliates look at when working with a network.

6. Please share your secrets of a long-term cooperation with affiliates and getting them to deliver more quality traffic to offers?

Constant communication especially with the top performers, personal touch (meeting them at events), exclusive offers and supplying the affiliates the tools they need to successfully promote you.

7. How do you choose advertisers and affiliates with whom you want to work?

Here at Avangate, in the context of our network, we don’t actually exclude anyone that wants to work with us, advertiser or affiliate, as long as what we can offer meets their requirements. We also work on setting the correct expectations on their side regarding the affiliate channel.

8. Could you suggest some good resources for affiliate managers to learn from?

I would definitely recommend Geno Prussakov’s affiliate blog and his „Affiliate Program Management: An Hour a Day” book.

Then, I think that every affiliate manager should attend at least once the Affiliate Summit and/or the Performance Marketing Insights events – there are very interesting educational sessions there plus some strong networking that can be done.

Also, depending on the company’s niche and existing affiliate program, one could check the major affiliate networks’ blogs.

9. What essential achievement as an affiliate manager can you be proud of?

When we started the managed affiliate services at Avangate, I was working hands-on on the projects for our advertisers. We had many projects running and in the end got mostly very positive revenue increases. What I’m particularly proud of is the fact that in all the cases when we were working jointly with the advertisers’ in-house affiliate managers we were able to share our knowledge and get them to continue growing the program.

10. What do you like to do in your spare time?

I very much enjoy traveling, driving and playing the keyboards with the band that I’m part of. Also, I’m a fan of TV cooking shows, although I don’t cook so often myself.