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Always Be Testing
#67 The Role of Strategic Partnerships in B2B Tech | Zoe Mackay - Head of Publisher Development - Goloot
00:39:45
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- [00:00]
Ty De Grange
Foreign. Welcome to another edition of the Always Be Testing podcast with your host, Ty degrange. Get a guided tour of the world of growth, performance, marketing, customer acquisition, paid media and affiliate marketing. We talk with industry experts and discuss experiments and their learnings and growth markets, marketing and life. Time to nerd out, check your biases at the door and have some fun talking about data driven growth and lessons learned.
- [00:36]
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Always Be Testing podcast. I'm your host, Ty De Grange and I'm thrilled to have Zoe McKay with me today. Zoe, how are you?
- [00:46]
Zoe McKay
Hello. I'm doing very well, how are you?
- [00:48]
Ty De Grange
I'm doing good. It's Happy Friday. We've got a long week weekend. It's been a long week to say the least. But we have a long weekend coming up with Veterans Day. So I'm excited to take a little break and I know our team is as well.
- [01:02]
Zoe McKay
Absolutely.
- [01:03]
Ty De Grange
Yeah, it's going to be good. We're going to jump into all things B2B SaaS partnerships. For those of you who don't know, Zoe McKay is an awesome affiliate marketing leader, awesome person to know in the B2B SaaS space, leading strategic partnerships at TechnologyAdvice. So we're have a fun conversation and I'm sure you'll have some, some good learnings to chew on. Maybe kicking off. Zoe, would you share with us a little bit more about technology advice and just your current role there?
- [01:33]
Zoe McKay
Yes, yes, of course. So as you mentioned, I lead strategic partnerships at TechnologyAdvice. We are a portfolio of digital publications. So we have some websites like FIT, Small Business, TechRepublic, TechnologyAdvice, eWeek, e Security Planet. I could go on and on, but basically we do it all. We have a ton of different websites where our subject matter experts are writing for the B2B audience, helping them identify what tech makes the most sense for them and really guiding them through the purchase journey. And so my team is responsible for all the strategic partnerships that we have to cover all of those industries. But yeah, that high level, that is technology advice and what I do there.
- [02:19]
Ty De Grange
Beautiful. Our team at rbl, as you know all too well, are so invested in tech and have been fortunate to really double down and have great working relationships with technology brands and advertisers. And so we're, we're kind of the chocolate to the peanut butter. We love to, you know, form together a great partnership with technology advice with you, your team. And so we're grateful for that. And it's interesting to kind of Share how it works with folks that are not as familiar. And so that's what we can kind of dive into a little bit today for those who are not as familiar. Are you doing cpa, cpl, flat fee? How does it work for brands that are kind of. How do you assess those brand opportunities that come to you in the technology space that want to work with technology advice?
- [03:02]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, so like most publishers across industries, deal terms and really depend on the industry and the industry standards. So I would say, you know, it really depends. We work on all different kinds of deal terms. We do work on flat fee and upfront as well. So we have, you know, the performance side of what we do with our websites and then we also have really wonderful sponsorship opportunities across technology advice and across our websites to really get involved and in front of our incredibly engaged communities and audience. So not a direct answer, but you know, we do work in a lot of different ways with affiliate partners.
- [03:47]
Ty De Grange
The Always Be Testing podcast is sponsored by Round Barn Labs. RBL is the growth agency. They are a leader in efficient customer acquisition and pound for pound, the most experienced team in affiliate marketing. For the last nine years they've worked with brands like Oculus, Amazon, Grammarly, Ebay, Atlassian, Scotch, Quarter, Live Nation, Hatch, Puma, Hoppin, StubHub, Recess, PacSun, SunBasket and more. They've generated over 100 million in media, spend over 250 million in traffic generated, 500 million in revenue generated. They go beyond the data to give you the why and their revenue generating recommendations to grow and create a paid marketing flywheel for your brand. So if you're a consumer E comm brand looking to go from 8 to 9 figure revenue per year, or an enterprise brand looking for a higher quality of data, rigor and growth, check them out atroundbarn labs.com.
- [04:52]
And when you're kind of thinking about structuring kind of like an ideal partnership, you know, between a technology brand and all the properties that you have available, what are some of the elements that you try to consider and kind of package together and kind of make sure that are part of that arrangement? How do you kind of think about that?
- [05:11]
Zoe McKay
You know, I really think where we focus the most is it is our audience, right? So what fits our audience? What is the best audience intent? Right. Where are we going to meet that? And that's really where we kind of start any question on a partnership, does this match the intent of our audience? Does this match what they want from our content? You know, I think as any publisher in this industry knows, Google has been Very clear in what they want. And what they want is the best answer. And so that's our goal, to provide the best answer with subject matter experts, with our partnerships, and really make sure those two things are in tune.
- [05:49]
Ty De Grange
That's amazing. We'll come back to Google at some point in this talk, I'm pretty sure. And you kind of mentioned the content and my brain goes to like the writer itself. How do you do such a great job of kind of like courting those great voices and kind of balancing like that authenticity with like the brand, the brand listing and the reviews. I'm curious to know more about kind of like that editorial side of the business. How much do you engage in that and how do you kind of like keep those folks happy and kind of doing their best work for you?
- [06:20]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, I mean, we work very closely. Right. I think one of the best things about technology advice is how closely our departments work. The editorial team is very, very closely working with business development, with SEO. And we all work on kind of like the same goal, which is providing this incredibly high quality content. And partnerships are just an extension of that. Right. And that's how we see them. So, yeah, I mean, we work, we have in house subject matter experts that we work with that, that build out content for a lot of the industries that we were discussing that we write about, which is quite a few, just looking at how large our portfolio is. But yes, we do work very, very closely. I think kind of going back to what we were talking about with Google, that's incredibly important. Everyone knows that all the publishers know that, all the brands know that. We're seeing so many shifts in the algorithm and how people are ranked and why they're ranked and, you know, the information that's coming out in that space. You know, scrolling through LinkedIn, it's like all you can see, at least probably it's my algorithm. But you know, it's just all these suggestions and it's so interesting. And so, you know, I think for us it's really trying to focus on that best answer. Everything goes back to that. And the editorial team, you know, that's their main focus as well.
- [07:41]
Ty De Grange
Yeah, it's so interesting. So our team, you've obviously followed along with all of the Google changes and challenges in particular, particular that, you know, content sites in the affiliate world have been hit with or experienced or maybe have found a way to avoid. I was blown away when our team did a pretty thorough analysis this year, which I'm sure you recall, where we looked across a lot of different verticals Obviously we have a sample size. It's not maybe the largest, but it's pretty sizable. Especially if you think about all the content sites. With all of our clients and the decline we saw a year over year with a number of the content sites, not all, certainly some are doing very well. But in aggregate the decrease was pretty, pretty measurable. And I think it was. Kevin Indig, who's a pretty prominent SEO thought leader, said almost the exact same percentage that we were measuring was what he was finding in a lot of the data that they were seeing. I'm wondering, like, have you guys kind of navigated that challenge? And like, I feel like there's a lot of talk and there's a lot of reality and there's a lot of like, what do, what do individual portfolio brands are doing? So without giving away the secret sauce, I'm just curious to know, like, how have you kind of navigated all that?
- [08:53]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think like any publisher, it's every month it's something new, right? Yeah. There's always a new update, there's always a new something. Google's doing something at all times. And so, yeah, I mean, I will say, you know, we have an absolutely fantastic SEO team. They are just phenomenal. We work incredibly close with them. You know, they're always staying on the cutting edge of SEO, making sure that we have all the best, best practices. And not to sound like a broken record, but I think, you know, largely it's always, at least in my opinion, it's always back to the basics. Right? It's back to the basics. What does anyone want to see? It's high quality content. You're not going to ever do well with anything besides that. And so really always focusing on that as our North Star is the most important thing for me.
- [09:42]
Ty De Grange
Yeah. And I think like Google has its challenges, but they've also been, I think pretty helpful. This is probably somewhat controversial because I know there's people on some sides that are like, they've lost the script, they're not giving us the signal we need, yada, yada, yada. I think there is a way to kind of give them what they want to some extent, give the users what they want. And I feel like technology advice is an example of how to do it correctly without, you know, painting it with rose colored glasses too much. I think there's a lot of value in like the brand building and like the specific voices and the, the authenticity and realism around like how you're thinking about, you know, reviewing and writing. There's A lot that obviously goes into that and it's great to hear that obviously the investment in SEO is there. Yeah. I don't know if you have any other thoughts on that, but it's, it's, it's very fascinating. It's not an easy thing to navigate.
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Zoe McKay
Yeah, no, absolutely. You know, I, I probably have a million and a half thoughts on that, but I will let us, let us move on.
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Ty De Grange
Yeah, exactly. It's a, it's a tricky one and I think, I would just say that like I think technology advice is one that's navig navigated it well and one of the winners in the space and you know, I think there's plenty of folks that are doing it right which when people enter into the affiliate world and we talk about affiliate a lot obviously on the show, for good reason, there's a lot of fear out there about this stuff. And I think the fortunate thing is there's so much that can be done that doesn't necessarily feed into that and still is very successful in the content world of affiliate. It's still a very viable play. It's still a very important play. And with partner like technologyadvice, it's sort of a no brainer if you're remotely related to tech.
- [11:18]
Zoe McKay
Yeah. Well, you even posted on LinkedIn I think early was it today and you said, you know, it's, it's a, it's a world that's really misunderstood and I loved that. I think I actually loved it with, with my mouse, but thought that was great.
- [11:34]
Ty De Grange
Thank you, I appreciate it. That was, it was cool to get the good response and it's something we've talked about a lot and shared a bit. So it's cool to see other people feeling that same way. It's surprising how it requires a lot of education and discussion and putting into perspective it's not just a, you know, set and forget. It's not just a plug and play, it's a, it's a mix of human and algorithm and content and it's multi channel. There's so many interesting aspects to it. I think that's what draws me and other people to it. It's constantly changing like a lot of performance marketing. So appreciate you sharing that. Are there aspects that you've seen in terms of maybe talking to your team or talking to clients where you've, you've kind of had to, you know, kind of put on that education hat or debunk myths in affiliate marketing? Like how does that show up for you? Or does it.
- [12:24]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, I think it does. I, you know, I think the biggest thing is probably, and you know, this more than anyone is affiliate can be done so many different ways, so many different ways. And so, you know, really informing people how you do affiliate partnerships, you know, what technology advice does and how we work with affiliates, how we have organic ranking content, right? You can do affiliate with, paid, with organic socials, emails. Like there's so many different ways to go about it and the different kinds of brands that you can work with. And so I feel like that's, you know, that's largely the biggest kind of teacher hat that we put on is, you know, really having people understand the immense value that our portfolio of brands that TechnologyAdvice is able to offer. I will say, you know, you mentioned a little bit earlier that, you know, something's always changing with Google, right? It's always, it's always changing. And I think that's also something that we all learn together at the same time how to address this, what we can do to ride these positive waves or move around difficulties, whatever that could be. And something that I'm thinking of right now, right, is AI. AI overviews. What does that look like? How does the actual search engine result page shift and, and flow every other week? It feels like. And what does that mean for affiliate partnerships? And that's something that is brand new that I am really excited myself to learn more about. And I know, you know, we're already looking at technology advice has seen a lot of success showing up in those AI overviews. And so it's something that we're currently really excited about.
- [14:05]
Ty De Grange
That's amazing. That's so near and dear to what we're seeing. I'm beyond thrilled and excited and hopeful and passionate about all the AI changes and stuff coming. It's hard to keep up with it all. It's, it's slightly overwhelming. I was lucky enough to host a panel here at the Capital Factory in Austin, which was a blast. And they had a bunch of AI focused marketers on there who've dealt with AI, who are investing in AI companies, who are building an AI company who are at Fortune 500s that are already using it quite heavily. So it was a fun one. And the AI overview thing was, was a huge, you know, shift and change, obviously. And that going back to what I shared about, you know, Kevin's data on SEO and our data, that was a, that was a material part of that change that challenge in that step, change that, that a lot of sites are seeing. And so how do you kind of Adjust to that. Just like we all gotten things that we have to adjust to over the past, you know, 20 years in performance marketing. It really does, like you said, take a willingness and ability to like rethink assumptions and stay up to date on updates that are coming from Google and other providers and platforms. So I think you nailed it. Yeah, it's. I had another thought on AI. I think the interesting thing, I'm. I don't know how you are, but I am using a ton of chat GPT. I'm using. I've kind of found perplexity to be really interesting and really helpful and just like it seems like a better visual result that I, that I like and I can see the sources a little bit more effectively. I don't know how your behavior's changed, but it feels like I have shifted a lot of audio questions to them. Personal, professional. It's just been really helpful and it's kind of wild to see like how my own user behavior is changing. And so my hypothesis is like that's just going to continue for a lot of individuals. Obviously it's small sample size, but I'm not sure what you're seeing there any interesting things you're seeing in the tooling or the user of your own behavior on AI.
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Zoe McKay
I feel like I'm a late adopter as someone from Silicon Valley, which I think is the funniest part.
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Ty De Grange
You mean both?
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Zoe McKay
Yeah, typically a later adopter of. I want to see how things play out. I want to see what kind of value it starts to add and if there's any issues that arise with it. Like when Google first rolled out the AI overviews and didn't go too well. Right. There were some interesting results that were given and seeing, you know, just watching how the industry reacts to that is so valuable I think for me. And so yeah, I, you know, of course I was on chat GPT. I think I was one of the earliest probably people on it, but I didn't really use that for any of my personal or professional was more fun. You know, I was testing it, trying to figure out would it answer the questions that I was asking and could I beat it. Right. And I think that was the most fun trying to ask the most nuanced and niche questions that I could. But yeah, I feel like not yet. Probably hasn't fully changed any of my, my personal behavior. Yeah, I see it, you know, interacting with and changing so much around me that I'm short.
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Ty De Grange
I like that you were trying to beat the, the chatgpt. I'll Go. And I appreciate, I respect your competitiveness.
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Zoe McKay
A little healthy competitiveness is always good.
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Ty De Grange
It's all good. Kind of, kind of test and see invalidate. Right. Keep them on their toes.
- [17:37]
Zoe McKay
Yeah. And in partnerships, I feel like that's very important.
- [17:40]
Ty De Grange
Absolutely. I love that. Yeah. It was so funny. I was on a webinar this week hosted by Reforge, who I'm obsessed with, and talk about tech. I mean, they are just like the growth educators of tech, it feels like, for product and for growth. And I've taken way too many of their courses. It's just so fun. But they had an AI expert on first name was Chang. She was really impressive. And she was talking about how, like, where they're at in the AI adoption curve for SEO, where they're out in AI adoption for a number of areas, even influencers, which was really fascinating. And it feels like there's definitely like a hype phase that we're in right now that's quite high. I don't think we're quite maybe at peak, but maybe close. And then I feel like some might disagree with that. Feels like there's still a way to go, obviously on consolidation. Who are the winners? Like, what is the value? Like, you talked about, is it consistently delivering what you're asking? Are there errors? Because, like, obviously you alluded to them when they first rolled out. There was a bunch of issues. They're still inconsistencies and errors and accuracy now. So when is that going to get resolved? But I was very impressed. I found it very interesting that it might be even available for members and non members. But I would definitely take a look because they asked her specifically, like, okay, to get your results to show up in perplexity. And ChatGPT, it was like she's starting to report the ability to do that, but like, she couldn't comment on the signals that she has. There's very little insight into how so. Like that SEO playbook for Google, it's not even there yet for AI and these platforms, which I thought was fascinating.
- [19:22]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, it is interesting, you know, just as a publisher trying to kind of, you know, ask ChatGPT questions that we would answer, you know, on. On the site and see who they're involving is really interesting who they're citing. I was very excited to see technology advice pop up in a handful of those responses already. But yeah, I think that's like another kind of untapped area that's going to be absolutely huge, trying to figure out how to be competitive in that space because it's so open to everyone and everyone's using it for personal, professional, whatever it is. That's something I'm definitely excited to see kind of roll out in the next couple of years.
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Ty De Grange
That's awesome. I'm not surprised that technology advice is already showing up. I would expect you guys to. So that's a testament to the brand and content machine you guys have built up and the quality and hopeful that continues. I no doubt it will. Speaking of what you guys are doing when it comes to like data and KPIs, is there anything that you kind of go through in terms of a checklist or kind of a best practice or like what are some of those KPIs that you're kind of working through with your team and with brands that are, that are testing out and growing on the technology of lice platform?
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Zoe McKay
You know, I think brands always have. Just like any company, everyone has their own unique set of KPIs, right. And they come to you with them. And that's always something established at the very beginning of a partnership. Just kind of metrics of success, whatever that looks like. You know, I think, I think for my team and for working with partnerships and really understanding kind of the metrics of success that we have for the partnerships and how, you know, in the same kind of verticals and how they compare to one another, you know, we really look at the, how our audience engages with multiple partners and really looking at insights kind of more broadly across an entire vertical, what those conversion rates look like and really trying to identify, you know, what is the optimized asset, what is the optimized thing that is leading to a higher conversion rate or is leading to an increase in clicks or whatever that could be, the click through rate, conversion rate, anything. And sometimes that's on the publisher side, right? Sometimes, you know, I think you'll always see higher click through rates for a free product, a freemium product. Right. But sometimes that's also on the partner side and that's something that technology advice and my team is, you know, really kind of, I think uniquely good at helping our partners with and really understanding how they differentiate from the competitors in their space and how we would suggest they optimized based on the hundreds of partnerships that, that we currently have.
- [22:10]
Ty De Grange
That's awesome. Very cool. I had something, I'm going to try to recall it here as I fumble my question. Is there kind of like a example or like a poster child, give the brands out there something to shoot for and without sharing the name of the brand perhaps or the Specific secret sauce. Do you have maybe examples where a brand, a partner of technology vice, really kind of nailed it, just like the whole end to end strategy. The result, the. I'm curious because I feel like there's a lot of great businesses out there that and even teams like us that don't necessarily know how to fully follow the best practice for your team or maybe know how to unlock it properly. So I'm wondering if you maybe have some examples that are like, man, this brand really nailed it. This is what they did really well. If you could be like that, if you could try to emulate some of that within your KPIs, within your strategy, it would be a win.
- [23:04]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, I think without naming brands, I think that there's a lot of really great lessons, I think across multiple brands. So this isn't unique to just one partnership that we have. But I do think that really understanding the publisher that you are working with, really understanding the audience that that publisher is working with, really understanding the SEO, the paid, the email, whatever channels that publisher has that you are engaged with and understanding why you add value to that user, to that audience member, that is key, you know, and I've talked about this at events that I think both of us have been at previously. But really understanding like how do I match the intent of that audience and offering that as valuable information to the publisher, to the partnership rep that you work with so that they can go and really kind of, you know, bolster that effort with their internal teams. I think that's like one of the most important things that we've seen. Also a willingness to kind of funny that this is always be testing, but always test, right. Always test out your landing pages, always test out your CTA language, always test out everything, right? Because I think one of the biggest value adds of working in affiliate and working across all these publishers is your ability to do that so freely with affiliate links and testing them out, rerouting them, you know, a B testing. There's so many options. And so really where we've seen a lot of success is working very closely with the brands that, you know, use us as the option. Right. For all of the audience and for all of the impressions that we can drive to really test out what performs best with our audience. And so, you know, I, I think a broader answer to your question, but a very, very important one is like really understanding, although it takes time, it's so important for the success, I guess, of the campaign long term.
- [25:11]
Ty De Grange
Love that. That's just music to my ears, not just because it's the pod namesake. But obviously it's good reason. I mean we, we truly want to emulate that, want to live that. And it takes some time for, for a number of sophisticated businesses to kind of like get into that cadence and get into that mindset and to carve out time, space, budget, expectations to do that properly. It's much easier said than done. But what an amazing reminder. I absolutely love that. So thank you. Yeah. Speaking of that, if there's other learn, like learnings is just such a huge piece of the, of the pod and the, in the conversation. If there's other maybe experiments or learnings that you want to share, obviously without disclosing any brand names, that's always, always fantastic to learn or hear about. Obviously the audience and team can learn more and ask you further. But if you have other like examples, it's always nice to hear those. Maybe some that surprised you or maybe were like, oh, wow, that was expecting that. Or that that didn't go as well as planned or that performed really well. If there's examples that you want to share, I'm sure the audience would love to hear.
- [26:16]
Zoe McKay
Yeah. I mean, probably so many that I don't even know where to start here.
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Ty De Grange
Yeah.
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Zoe McKay
But I will say I think one of the things like I really love in terms of engagement and I, and I feel like is, you know, very straightforward, but is always an interesting reminder is just always adding value. Right. Your product alone probably is amazing. I don't know we're talking about a random product here, but it's probably amazing. Why is it amazing? And how specific can you get to the exact audience that you are speaking to and put yourself in the shoes of that audience? You know, if I'm a contractor looking for payroll for one employee, what, I don't know, whatever it is, what could that look like? Right. Why, why does your product add very specific value? Right. And that's where I think we kind of get these more focused conversion rate improvement plans. Hyper focused on that audience that you are, that you're speaking to. Another one in terms of adding value. Right. Is downloadable content. It's awesome. It's awesome. People love it. People really enjoy getting something that is going to add value to their business. Right. And that's a higher funnel lead. But that is still really, you know, an important piece. Educating the audience that you want and in turn educating them and probably putting your product in there as a CTA is a really important thing as well. I have a twin who had a restaurant and he, you know, like building out this really cool company and building, you know, hiring people and all of this. And you know, I'm sure he got a lot of resources from fitsmallbusiness.com I know for a fact he did because.
- [28:01]
Ty De Grange
I, I love that.
- [28:03]
Zoe McKay
But you know, it's really, you know, understanding how that ties in.
- [28:06]
Ty De Grange
Yeah, gotta help out, you know, bro, and your, your, your twin there. That's amazing.
- [28:11]
Zoe McKay
Always.
- [28:12]
Ty De Grange
That's so cool. I love that. What a cool story. In leading a team, I'm sure you have some good recommendations around just what's worked and you know, how do you handle handling and managing folks and supporting them and, and trying to build out that high performing team in the, in the SaaS world and the technology advice world. I'm just curious to know if there' counsel or advice you have for how you do that or ways you do that.
- [28:36]
Zoe McKay
Well, yeah, well, I will say technology advice really has some pretty beautiful core values that I suggest everyone goes and checks out on their homepage. But you know, managing within those core values I think is really important. The team that I have is phenomenal. They really, really are, they are incredibly high performing partnerships team. Very, very dedicated to the many websites that we have and to the affiliate partnerships that we have. You know, we, as you know, you work with us, we really, really focus on long term strategic partnerships. Right. Like long term win win relationships that we consider evergreen, that we want to just, you know, build out for a very, very long time. As long as that the products are relevant, people are searching for those products. You know, I think just probably more from less partnerships and more just a management thing. I really believe in radical transparency and requesting kind of constant feedback loops about myself as a manager, about the team structure, about what's going right, what's going wrong and really kind of fostering an environment where everyone feels like they're allowed to speak up and that they can speak up about anything that they perceive to be something really positive or negative or opportunities for growth. Really giving everyone a seat at the table.
- [29:59]
Ty De Grange
It's awesome. Easier said than done and always hard to know. How radical do you get with your radical transparency? Yes, no, but in all candor for no pun intended, the Radical Candor book is so spot on. And I think some of the dalio knowledge gets a little maybe some polarizing out there for folks that are not as into it. But I think some of his principles around on candor are just so valuable. And I've always been a huge fan of one minute manager. We don't always nail that and stick that landing. But I feel like it's so valuable to, for folks to know where they're at in somewhat more real time and not be waiting for surprises as much as we possibly can. Give people feedback and proactive. It's something that I think a lot of teams, some teams struggle with and I think that the teams that are really high performing are pretty well aligned on that. They kind of know where they're standing and so I really appreciate you sharing that. Those are some good ones.
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Zoe McKay
Yeah, yeah. I will just say, you know what you said, I think really high performing teams all feel an investment in that goal. Right. And whatever that goal is, to create fantastic strategic partnerships to really build out partnerships across the portfolio. Really like ownership in that goal I think is so valuable and whatever the goal is for that team, you know, really making sure that everyone does feel like they have, you know, not only a seat at the table but that they're like very, very involved and they're a piece of that success.
- [31:29]
Ty De Grange
Yeah, I like that. Getting that alignment is. Yeah, it's so important. So important. Show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome. Kind of have to little Warren Buffett love there, but yeah, it's. It's important to kind of ensure people are rowing in the same direction and takes a. Take some work. So congrats to get to where you have been able to do that with a great team. So it's not easy.
- [31:52]
Zoe McKay
Yeah. Thank you. I feel very lucky to have the team that I do.
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Ty De Grange
No, it's awesome. It shows and kind of how you all show up and how we work together and how you are. So that's well done. Speaking of well done, we're taking down the home stretch here. We're going to talk about some fun stuff since we talk software all the time with technology advice and you and I do talk software on occasion. What is there some tools out there that you, you're using that you love or want to share with the audience? Just anything. Could be personal software, could be professional software. Just since we're in that space. What, anything that you like out there?
- [32:30]
Zoe McKay
Oh, so many things. So many things. I mean, I think I am Slack's number one supporter. I love Slack. I love working on it. It has changed the game of communication. So that's obviously on the professional side. I don't use that personally yet. But I will say on, on a fun side, I was never a person who grew up playing games of any kind, like no video games or anything. And I was just introduced to the world of Xbox.
- [33:04]
Ty De Grange
Oh, and watch out.
- [33:06]
Zoe McKay
I'm having a great time and I am learning how to play. And so that is a very shout out to Microsoft. I'm having a lot of fun.
- [33:14]
Ty De Grange
That's awesome. Talk about another world. Talk about an amazing world. I'm blown away by how much adoption and money is in that. I believe it does more than the movie industry, if I'm correct. I have an interesting view there. I'm not a gamer. I don't have a system. I don't have a console. But I so appreciate. And when I get to play it, it's like I could see how it could draw me in and it make it mildly addicting or heavily addicting, but it's just amazing what they've created and imagine where it's going to be, you know, in the future. It's just. It's just wild.
- [33:49]
Zoe McKay
Yeah. I don't know if I could ever, you know, be one of those incredibly, incredibly dedicated gamers, but it is fun, you know, to kind of revisit something that I feel like I skipped in my childhood, you know.
- [34:03]
Ty De Grange
That's awesome. I love that. Yeah, you got to give yourself that time to kind of just go into play mode sometimes, you know, it's like, I like that. Is there any fun product? I know you kind of. Xbox kind of covers it, but is there any others that you personally like, want to share or that. I think you kind of covered both.
- [34:21]
Zoe McKay
But yeah, I think those are the two that popped into my head.
- [34:24]
Ty De Grange
Cool. Cool. Well, I like it. Any game that you maybe suggest to the. The audience or anything that you maybe a game that you're eyeing for the future.
- [34:34]
Zoe McKay
Honestly, I've. To be completely honest, I have only played one game, so Little Kitty, Big City is the name.
- [34:43]
Ty De Grange
Okay.
- [34:44]
Zoe McKay
And you are a cat that falls off of the balcony and you have to make your way up.
- [34:48]
Ty De Grange
That's amazing.
- [34:49]
Zoe McKay
It's really fun.
- [34:51]
Ty De Grange
That's amazing. Now, is this. Is this because you're in New York ish. That you, you know, you kind of find this to be funny, like picturing, like, I. I mean, a cityscape here.
- [35:01]
Zoe McKay
You know, I. I really don't know anything. And my partner is a big fan of gaming and grew up with it. And so I was introduced, you know, through them, and it was, you know, it's just. I love it. It's so fun. I'm really, really bad, but I really enjoy it.
- [35:18]
Ty De Grange
That's awesome. I love it. It's great to get to know those things and hear more. Is there any. Any fun Fact or random thing that maybe folks, most folks don't know about you that you want to share with the audience?
- [35:31]
Zoe McKay
2. The first is that I have pet a wild baby whale.
- [35:39]
Ty De Grange
Wow. Not just a baby whale. A wild baby whale.
- [35:42]
Zoe McKay
Yeah. Yeah. So like not in captivity is what I mean. So got it like wild living, living his best life out in the ocean. And he came up.
- [35:51]
Ty De Grange
That's really amazing.
- [35:52]
Zoe McKay
Came up next to our boat and I was able to touch him right on the nose. And it was the cutest thing I've ever experienced in my entire life. So that is probably one of my favorite memories. It was in Mexico.
- [36:03]
Ty De Grange
Was it in Mexico? Wow.
- [36:05]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, we were in Baja California.
- [36:07]
Ty De Grange
Oh my God. What kind of whale?
- [36:09]
Zoe McKay
I don't know. This was. I should know. I should know. I actually just read an article about it. But there's a sanctuary in Baja California and it's where like a lot of whales will come in and you know, protect their young ones until they're ready to go out into more open ocean. And for some reason they enjoy coming up to boats. Right. Like you're not allowed to go over to them. They come up to you. It's was such a wild experience in my life.
- [36:38]
Ty De Grange
Wow, that's really cool. That's really one of my favorites was. Was like August and towards the end of our tenure in Seattle, we got to go out to the San Juan Islands area and just see the orcas. And it was mind blowing. We didn't. I didn't get to have that level of an experience and actually touch one. But like we were so close.
- [36:57]
Zoe McKay
I don't think I'd want to touch an orca.
- [37:00]
Ty De Grange
Yeah, I don't, I don't even know how that works. I'll spare the audience with my speculation there, but it was a blast. It was gorgeous weather. It was so, such a insanely beautiful area. We saw like bald eagles and like gorgeous forest. Forest is. Forests, trees and it just is. Is insane. And to see like these big, these beautiful animals, it was, it was mind blowing. That's really cool. What was your, what was your other one?
- [37:27]
Zoe McKay
My other one is that I have lived in before I went to high school and even to today I've lived in more countries than I have states in the United States because I moved around a lot as a child.
- [37:41]
Ty De Grange
That's amazing. That's very. That's not common. Can you give us the countries and the. And the states?
- [37:48]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, I mean I lived in. So I was born in California, Silicon Valley kid, but I lived in California. We moved to Canada. We moved to Mexico. We moved to the United Kingdom.
- [38:00]
Ty De Grange
Wow.
- [38:00]
Zoe McKay
We. So I lived in Oxford and then we also moved to Hawaii, but not a different country. And then, you know, California, so. And then I moved to New York.
- [38:11]
Ty De Grange
That's so cool. Some really amazing places.
- [38:13]
Zoe McKay
It was a wonderful childhood and I always feel so genuinely lucky that I had my twin brother because moving around a lot, you know, it's like friendships and so I always had a built in best friend.
- [38:26]
Ty De Grange
That's awesome. What an. What an amazing. That's so cool. I love that. I love that. Zoe, this has been awesome. You've dropped so much knowledge, shared your. Your experiences and your career and all the cool stuff that you guys are doing at TechnologyAdvice. You guys are amazing partners for us and our clients and definitely encourage folks to reach out to you and to learn more. And if you're not already integrating at some level with technology advice, you probably should be if you're anywhere remotely in the affiliate marketing world or the brand advertising world for a tech company, especially SaaS and software. So thank you so much for coming on. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. Always learn a lot.
- [39:07]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for having me.
- [39:09]
Ty De Grange
Absolutely. And for folks that want to connect with you, what's the easiest way for them to do that?
- [39:14]
Zoe McKay
Yeah, I mean, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn. I am an active LinkedIn participant, so they can go ahead and do that. Otherwise, you know, technology advice has. There's ways to contact us there as well.
- [39:28]
Ty De Grange
Well, awesome, Zoe, thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Have an awesome Friday and a great weekend.
- [39:34]
Zoe McKay
Yeah. Thank you.