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Always Be Testing
#83 Redefining Brand-Publisher Relationships | Vanessa Lawrence, Chief Content Officer at Linkby
00:36:45
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- [00:10]
A
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Always Be Testing podcast. I'm your host, Ty degrange and I'm really excited to talk to Vanessa Lawrence today. Vanessa, how you doing?
- [00:20]
B
Hey, Ty. Good to see you. I'm well, thanks. How are you going?
- [00:23]
A
I'm doing great. I can't complain. Weather's reasonable here in Austin right now. Still kind of greenish, not too, too hot yet. So we're, we're doing well.
- [00:33]
B
Nice. Likewise in New York, it's like we're slowly turning a corner. So happy days here.
- [00:37]
A
Amazing. I've been excited about this conversation for a while and I think Vanessa has as well. Vanessa is the Chief Content Officer at linkbee. Just a an awesome effective quality player in the affiliate ecosystem and a lot of learnings to share. So it's going to be a good one, I think.
- [00:54]
B
Yeah, I hope so. Thanks for inviting me. I'm a big fan of the podcast.
- [00:58]
A
Thank you. Appreciate it. Well, maybe Vanessa, just to kick it off, tell us a little bit about linkbee.
- [01:04]
B
So I always like to say that we mean kind of different things to different partners because what Link be means to a brand is very different to what we mean to a publisher, but in I guess the most basic of terms. We're an ad tech platform that connects brand brands with premium publishers on a predominantly cost per click or CPC basis. So what that basically does is allow brands and agencies to secure that really valuable editorial coverage upfront with no kind of costs unless the click is actually driven. So, yeah, we've seen a lot of great expansion. We were founded, I think around five years ago now, and in that time we've grown to operate out of North America, the uk, Ireland, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, and am I forgetting, oh, and now France. We just had our first publisher in Europe go live, which is exciting.
- [01:55]
A
So that's amazing. No, it's been awesome to see your growth and I think there's a really interesting opportunity to think about, kind of. There was seen this confluence, right, of influencer and content and PR and affiliate. And I think that in particular around content and PR and affiliate, there's a lot of, a lot of exciting developments and similarities and overlap and I think Linkbee sits in a really powerful position there where that's very measurable. It's very cost per click based, which is appreciated from the agency perspective and certainly from the brand perspective as well.
- [02:28]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I feel like there's a definite shift in the way that brands and agencies really want to measure the success of the campaigns that they run. And I Think why linkbee has been such a successful disruptor in the space is that we're working really hard to deliver what I guess more traditional PR often can't. So like for example, brand cut through. I mean when you're working with a publisher on a cost per click, or really any affiliate model, but certainly cost per click, they're obviously really incentivized to optimize that content. Right. And they're very incentivized to distribute that content really well across all their different levers. And that often makes that content much more effective than say like a standard earned placement. Then you've got like results at scale. So instead of blasting out a press release and hoping that someone takes an interest in it, with a platform like Linkbee, you can pitch to like 25, 30. There's really no limit of North America's most premium publishers in one hit and then likewise like fast turnaround. So often we see publishers go live with content in as little as like say 12 hours, especially for some of our newsletter creators. And then like I said at the beginning, that secret sauce I think is the fact that there are no upfront costs. Right. So brands and agencies, they love the fact that they only have to pay for genuine clicks, genuine engagement. Like you said, it's like super measurable. If the clicks are there, then you pay for them. If they're not, you don't.
- [03:58]
A
Yeah, it's kind of like hits the nail on the head as far as like the ethos of the affiliate ecosystem, which is so performance based and so action and quality based, which is, which is awesome. For brands that are maybe not as familiar, just generally audience members who are maybe not as familiar with what linkbee is able to do. Are there particular publication types or content types that are interesting or notable to kind of share, to kind of bring to life kind of the beauty of the ecosystem and the types of placements people are securing through linkbee.
- [04:29]
B
Yeah, for sure. I think what's been really interesting is that as our business has evolved, so too have the commerce partners or the publisher partners that we work with. So of course customers come to the platform. You can pitch to everyone from like NBCUniversal to dot dash Meredith to Conde Nast, USA Today and everyone in between essentially. But then you can also pitch to a lot of newsletter only creators, for example, like a morning brew. We work with the skim a lot. Of course they have on site content, but newsletters is the kind of bread and butter of what they do. And then on the social side you've Got Betches media so you can pitch directly to a social first publisher who has an enormous reach across a very specific social channel. And then we've more recently started to dip our toe into the water of substack creators just because we have seen such monumental growth across the kind of newsletter focused side of our business. And the thinking was okay, well if there is appeal from brands and agencies to work with these more niche but like very highly engaged or tap into rather these more niche but very highly engaged audiences on the publisher side, why not on the individual creator side as well? So that's been a really exciting development. So I mean all that to say I think as the business continues to evolve, a brand or agency will be able to come to linkbeer as a bit of a one stop shop. And no matter what kind of they're trying to hit with their media plan, they'll be able to pitch to a publisher that makes sense to their kind of overall marketing strategy.
- [06:03]
A
I love it. That's fantastic. And in our world we have various payment models, right? You've got flat fee, you've got cpa, you know, a commission percentage of sorts, you've got increasing based on performance or cpa. I, you've got cost per click which you're referencing, which is a big part of your model for those kind of trying to optimize and really maximize linkbee. Do you, do you see that it's kind of a, a replacement for the, from the publisher perspective at times to say we're going to go ahead and go for a CPC model or is it sort of complementing how do you, how do you think it like fits from the publisher perspective as they look at the monetization and partner opportunities?
- [06:46]
B
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think something that we always say is that linkbee is not designed to cannibalize existing revenue streams. Whether that's like CPA or you mentioned flat fee, it really is designed to complement those existing revenue streams. So we recommend to all of our publishers that they diversify their affiliate revenue new streams and that's more important now than ever as you know a lot of changes in the industry and I think publishers have been burned in the past by putting all of their eggs in one monetization basket, so to speak. So yes, we see a lot of our publishers rely very heavily on the revenue that linkbe drives for them. But we're never kind of saying hey, hey, turn away that flat fee and just do CPC or just cpa. I think the right charging model works for different circumstances. And that's really kind of what we try to educate our publishers on and on the brand side as well. Right. We're not sort of saying, hey, replace your entire media strategy with, with cpc. It's. It's really important for brands to experiment with different models, whether that's flat fee or CPA or cpc. And we're happy to obviously play a big part of that.
- [07:58]
A
That's awesome. No, definitely. I think it just preaching to acquire to some extent when in a good way. Obviously the name of the POD being always be testing. You're talking about that experimentation and kind of enabling brands and publishers to think of it that way and to be very thoughtful about diversifying as well. So diversification and experimentation are kind of really central to how we think about things. And I think you kind of have to be in this day and age in performance marketing in general. Right?
- [08:24]
B
Completely. And that's why I love the podcast because I always, whenever I listen, I come away with it, the kernel of like a new idea. And I think that what's been instrumental, I think, to Linkby's growth, particularly on say, the publisher side, is publishers being open and willing to test the concept of cpc. I think a lot of editors, writers are very used to kind of saying of it, and this is very much trivializing it because I've been on the editorial side myself, but this is not how it works. But say they woke up and they were like, today I really want to cover this pair of Skecher shoes. And it's quite easy to monetize that link across any number of platforms. Right. But linkbee is a little bit more structured in the way that you would decide to kind of COVID that same product. And that can be a little bit of a learning curve for some publishers. But once they get it, once they see and really understand that, I guess CPC is all about rewarding them for the authority and trust they deliver, not just when they make a sale and that they do have 100% freedom to craft that authentic content they know is going to resonate. And that diversification piece I mentioned, once they kind of clue into that, they're very receptive to it. It becomes like a very natural part of their editorial commerce workflow and the relationship progresses from there. But it is a little bit of a learning and it's always so important for us to have, I guess, those link the evangelists, people that really get it in all our major publisher partners, because they're the ones that really help drive the partnership.
- [10:00]
A
I think linkbee sits in such a great part of the ecosystem because so much of what we've observed on our experience and through data from so many client examples and running multi channel marketing, but obviously with a heavy focus on affiliate influencer. It's like we just see this, the movement has just gotten so insane where brands that are not utilizing like these trusted third parties that Linkbee can tap into and that we are obviously looking for for on behalf of our clients. It's just they're missing out seriously if they're not tapping into them in a way that's authentic and it's hard to do. Right. You know, you've. Yeah.
- [10:37]
B
And tell me if you agree, but I feel like it can be a real struggle to open up the eyes of say brands and agencies to the fact that they're paying for so much more than a placement. It's not just about the placement, of course, yes, that is an important aspect of it. But you are really paying to tap into the years and years of authority, trust, reputation that that publisher has poured into their own growth and the growth of their audience as a brand and agency. You're paying to kind of bask in the halo effect of that.
- [11:11]
A
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's. We've been seeing this happening so much where individuals, even if they don't know them, consumers are wanting to hear from more so than brands. And some publications have more resonance with certain audiences than others and some, and some of them have a boatload of credibility and obviously those, those things are dynamic and they're changing and there's different levels of that authenticity with them. But they're extremely, there's extreme value like you said. So gives them a chance to like brands, to tap into that. I think it's really smart.
- [11:41]
B
Totally. And I mean all. It's not like for most brands, marketing budgets are not infinite. Right. Like people are very careful with where they, they put their, their dollars. But we really try to encourage the brands and agencies that we work with to experiment and test new publishers because you might think that, that as a brand or agency you really want to tap into this specific publisher, this big name publisher that everyone knows household name, all of that. But that is not to say that there's a much smaller publisher out there that maybe might not have the same brand recognition but can drive like the Same, if not 10 times better ROAS for your product or whatever it is. Just because they don't have the same name recognition doesn't mean that they are not as effective in driving results. And we say that time and time again, honestly I love that there's just.
- [12:39]
A
A huge aspect of what we do and I think to extent what linkbee does is around that matchmaking exercise and there's so many that are like there's just blue chip names that have the recognition and size and reach and probably a little bit more costly. And it's like yes, you've got to think about those as you match make effectively but you're, you're thinking about their North Star metric, their goals, their timelines, et cetera. It's amazing how often these mid tier or lesser known, maybe even unknown publications or creators or voices are kind of like wow, that got significantly more ROI than either we expected or what their current levels of ROI are.
- [13:17]
B
So I love that thinking 100% and it's honestly the same on the publisher side. Our publisher management team does a lot of work to kind of make sure that our publishing partners are aware of great brands that maybe they obviously don't have the same instant recognition as say like a Lululemon or a Samsung or a Spotify or Brooklyn, but they're an awesome brand with a great product we know is going to resonate really well with their audience. And so flipping the script, we do a lot of work in the background to matchmake publishers with brands that we know are going to work really well for them outside of obviously the names of the brands that need no introduction.
- [13:59]
A
That's awesome. I love that. I think there's magic in that, in that detail that not many are able to see the, the pieces that go into that and certainly that's something you're, you're working on. I think it's fun. Kind of an interesting thought too is like I feel like a lot of the controversies over the last six months and a lot of the attribution questions of, of various partner types, I'll just leave it at that, have obviously come back and they're loud and it's been going on for 20 years essentially. But thinking about giving appropriate credit at each stage, I think you're solving it somewhat elegantly here just to say hey, simple cost per click model. We're not necessarily trying to work our way into your attribution flow where sometimes clients are doing multi touch first touch and far too often in some ways last touch which can often kind of expose the content partners or maybe limit their upside or limit their compensation model. So I think it's an elegant solution to a problem that shouldn't be as difficult I think for brands but, but here we are And I think that's partially why we get to do what we do, because we're here to solve and help people figure those things out.
- [15:09]
B
Yeah, completely. And to your point. Exactly. Without naming names, obviously, I think over the last kind of four odd months, like the, the tides really turned and I think that across the affiliate space people are kind of, I guess, more open and waking up to the value of working with different types of partners. And we've obviously really been able to kind of ride that wave, which is awesome.
- [15:34]
A
That's awesome. And kind of leading the charge in so many ways. Vanessa, like, how are you curious to learn a little bit more about like, your levers that you utilize in the organization to get things done and your superpower and what, what's kind of been your go to @linkbee? I'm curious to learn more about your role and how you've kind of tapped into it.
- [15:54]
B
Yeah. So basically my role as Chief Content Office straddles a few different aspects of the business. First and foremost is the publisher management team. So that team is globally responsible for managing the day to day of our publisher partnership relationships. So everything from facilitating samples for products to advising on strategy and how to drive up clicks with various amplification levers, my team does an amazing job at, like I said, matchmaking publishers with brands alongside our sales team. So we've got our publisher partnerships team who does that day to day, and we've got the kind of equivalent of that team in Australia and the UK and North America. Then we've got our BD team. So Reid Webb, who you might have heard of, he was actually a partner of Link Bees over at the Daily Beast and he's a perfect example. This is a little bit of a segue for a story, but he's a perfect example of a CPC naysayer who we managed to convert. When we first met Reid, he was like, nah, this isn't going to work like you say it is. And then we ran a campaign with them that absolutely blew the roof off. I think it did like 40k in click revenue for the daily base and he was just absolutely gobsmacked. And then from that time on, he was a true linkbe believer. So much so that when we were hiring for the BD role, he put his hand up and really wanted to join the business. So I think that's a really nice story because it speaks to, I think, growth of the business and the relationships we have with our publisher partners. But anyway, so he leads up bd, so that's obviously helping Existing publishers who could be doing more grow and then onboarding new publishers of which there are so many all the time. Especially now we're dipping our toes into substack. Then we've got our performance marketing division who essentially for publisher partners that are opted in, drives incremental clicks through meta using paid spend. And then last but not least, we have an in house content team. So they support the output for one of our products, Pub Feed, which is kind of our answer to like an end of page monetization module. So they populate that and they also help create content for publishers that might want to make a business case for doing more CPC internally but don't have resource. So a little bit of a kind of plug and play department there for a lot of our publishers. So basically when you combine all of those things and then obviously overseeing like North American operations, what you really get is I think a little bit of everything. I love how diverse my role is. I love having oversight into kind of both aspects of the business that being kind of publishers and advertisers and yeah, I've been with linkbe going on what, three years now and I moved here to New York from Sydney for the role. So it's definitely been a roller coaster for sure.
- [19:03]
A
Yeah. Wow, that's, that's really, really cool. There's a lot that you're taking on and a lot to be proud of you've achieved in terms of your career and also, also role currently and it's cool to hear the ins and outs. I mean that that story around Reid is really spot on. It just shows that for someone to be able to have their opinion change takes a meaningful amount of things to happen. To do that and then for them to invest at that level is really cool. And so for the organization and the team to achieve those things, to get an evangelist like that and to have others similarly going in that direction, it's, that's really exciting.
- [19:39]
B
So I love that for sure and I think yes, it speaks to linkby's effectiveness, but I also love the fact that it speaks to our team and the people that we have in our business that outside partners would want to join and be part of that. And I know that the same is true for your business as well. It's so much about the people who help drive the business forward every day. So that's really important for us to maintain.
- [20:01]
A
That's amazing in your career. And then obviously there's been so many good learnings with Link be. Are there any experiments or learnings that have jumped out at you in the testing philosophy that have been maybe interesting or notable that you want to share with the audience?
- [20:16]
B
Yeah, that's a good question. I feel like. So for those who don't know, essentially the way that linkbe works is that brands will come to us with a specific objective in mind. So maybe they are launching a new product or they are after a first person review or maybe they're just looking for a general brand awareness campaign. They'll come to us, they'll put together what's essentially a press release, what we call a campaign brief. They'll nominate their cpc, the timing of their campaign, and from there they'll be able to select from our publisher network in terms of who they would love to work with on that campaign. So then once they submit, that campaign goes into the selected publishers dashboards, they review the opportunity, they say whether it's something they can authentically write about that their audience is going to care about, and then from there they accept the campaign, create the content, monetize with the link, the link and off we go. But about maybe eight months or so ago, six to eight months or so ago, we were thinking, okay, well at the moment a lot of control lies in the hands of brands because they're the ones who are making the publisher selections. Oftentimes we see brands pitch to the same kind of publishers. And we mentioned this, we spoke about this before, but kind of re educating and saying, hey, you might love the sound of this publisher's audience, but what about this, this and this publisher's audience? But you can only do so much, right? At the end of the day, it's at the brand and the agency's discretion which publishers they add to the campaign. But we were thinking, okay, well what if we could drive interest the other way and instead of having the submission sit purely with the brands and agencies, why not have publishers be able to pitch to brands that they're interested in that they know that their audience is really going to resonate with, even if they haven't received a pitch from that brand. So we introduced what we now call publisher pitches, where as I just said, it flips the script on that whole process and instead of the publisher waiting for a brand to submit to them, the publisher can access a list of all the brands on linkbee that have opted into reverse pitching and then pitch directly to them with a specific idea in mind. So it might be a first person review, it might be a newsletter placement, it might be inclusion in a quarterly deals wrap that they have coming up, like for example World of good brands. Well and good. They did a great quarterly sales wrap. They put a really compelling reverse pitch together that hit about 30 brands and we had so many brands opt into that, which is great for the brand. Right. Because we call it sit back PR where they're just having these opportunities come to them from really quality publishers and then for the publisher they're able to really forward plan using linkbee and express better than anyone else why that brand should accept that opportunity to work with them. So that's been a really interesting learning. It literally flipped the platform on its head and we're still testing, continuing to optimize that product and that feature. But it's been really interesting experiment to date and again it's all about that like re education and making sure that brands like they're not used to receiving pitches in reverse. Right.
- [23:34]
A
Yeah. It almost reminds me of like the. It's been an exciting kind of movement around like micro or medium influencers that are already buyers of the product. And I think there's like a similar analogy that you're utilizing there that's inverting that flow.
- [23:48]
B
It's really powerful, 100%. I mean no one but the publisher has as much of an encyclopedic knowledge of coverage of a brand that has already gone live or is in the pipeline or how one time three years ago, a piece of content that they produced around insert brand absolutely flew. So they're in the best position to kind of pitch themselves to brands. Now of course the core of the platform which is brands and agencies pitching to publishers, that's still there. But this is a really nice accompaniment and we've seen publishers take to it like ducks to water. And slowly over time, brands have learned to kind of bake in the facts, especially the ones that are getting pitched enormous volumes bake in those opportunities into their media plan. So that's been really interesting and something that I've loved kind of being part of building for sure.
- [24:42]
A
That's amazing. And obviously in terms of the flow of the information and performance, curious kind of how data plays a role in your day to day and the performance in linkbeat but also just in your work. And your teams would love to hear more about just kind of like how data impacts and how you're kind of using it to inform your decisions.
- [25:02]
B
Yeah. So I think the beauty of CPC is that it's really quite simple. Right. It's all about clicks driven but of course layering on top of that is the quality of those clicks driven. So we obviously have tools in place to make sure that every time, as often as possible, every click that is being driven to a brand's site is legitimate and authentic and coming from a quality source. And on top of that we use third party providers as just an impartial third party source to validate that data and that click quality. So that's something that's definitely really important to us. But at the end of the day the two questions we look to are was the click driven and then was that a quality click? So that's really what it comes down to for us as a business. Of course, as the business evolves, we're looking at building out the product to layer on top with other metrics like conversion for example. That's something that we're discussing at the moment, which would be a really interesting addition to the business for sure. And a couple other things that I can't really speak to. But yes, data is, is important to us. I think we've got a ways to go in terms of like building out our offering beyond what it currently is, but it's definitely in train.
- [26:24]
A
Beautiful. We'll have to talk more about that offline. Top secret, top secret, secret global. You'll be in Australia. No, I, I think also the. We could nerd out more on the concept of the quality quality click and get into that too later. But that's fascinating. I love to hear you've got some exciting things in the hopper. Not surprised. Amazing. So gosh, there's been, you've dropped a lot of really good knowledge. There's a lot, there's a lot kind of more to dive into as well. You're obviously doing a lot of education to kind of improve how we operate in the community and obviously that's a goal of the POD and educate and inform but maybe share a little bit about like how maybe what motivates you or what you see as the opportunity just from your perspective because you're doing, doing that here and it's, it's obviously linked be moving the industry forward to, to a number of, in a number of ways and just wondering how you think about that or what are some of the opportunities you see that we.
- [27:24]
B
Need to tackle as an industry on a personal level. My background is in publishing. I've worked for global publishing brands for all of my career, 16, 17 plus years. And throughout that time I've seen a real evolution in the space and also I guess how publishers are rewarded for the traffic, the halo effect. I spoke to earlier that they drive for the brands that they choose to cover And I'll give you an example in my previous role, which is in a business called Pedestrian Group, Australia's largest youth focused publisher and actually Fun Fact co founded by Linkby's co founder Chris. We're a sinner. So we've worked together for a long, long time. But something that I often saw when for example we ran or had the global license for Kotaku, which is a very influential gaming site and anytime they would cover or put their stamp of approval on product, you would see enormous interest in conversion from the audience. Right. So I remember when the PS5, I believe it was, was launched and I mean we must have sold via Amazon Like 250 of these units, right? Like thousands and thousands of dollars in sales through Amazon for ps. But because there was a worldwide shipping shortage of the product, it was honestly like 9, 10 plus months before we saw any revenue from that enormous volume of interest that we were driving to the brand. And it doesn't take into account returns like all of that stuff that you know well. But essentially it was a frustrating experience and I know one that many publishers are familiar with. But what I feel really passionate about is delivering a different option for publishers in cpc. That kind of speaks to the fact that they're doing so much more work on a brand's behalf than merely like selling a PlayStation or whatever it is we've talked about first versus last click attribution. It's kind of like what about all the steps leading up to that, leading up to that sale that have been influenced by the content that the publisher has put out by their many different distribution channels. Again, all crafted and honed and grown over years and years and years. So what I feel really good about is being part of a business that is helping publishers diversify their affiliate revenue. And like I said before, not canceling out CPA or flat fee because they absolutely have their place, but being rewarded for that intent is so important as we move forward as an industry and not simply a sale is something that I get a lot of satisfaction out of because I've experienced that frustration many times throughout my career in publishing.
- [30:32]
A
Yeah, I love that. That's just you nailed kind of the reason for being and serving that community. You're kind of two sided marketplace but you come from that background so you certainly can empathize and build great things for them. So I love it.
- [30:45]
B
I mentioned Chris, our CEO and co founder. He had a lot of those same frustrations. That was the, the kind of birthplace of Linkby. In his previous role he founded and ran this business for 18 years. So he saw a lot across both the publisher and the advertiser side. And that's really how Link be kind of came to be. We would see record traffic days that didn't necessarily translate into dollars and all of those things that any publisher would be very aware of. And to see linkbe come out of that has been pretty awesome.
- [31:21]
A
That's amazing. Vanessa. There's been some awesome stuff just coming down the home stretch, talking about some of the what makes you tick. Drop some book recommendations on us. Anything that comes to mind that you think the audience should check out.
- [31:34]
B
I'm a sucker for and like my background before I was in digital I was in print working for Elle and a lot of women's lifestyle magazines. And so I'm a real sucker for a biography of someone who's been like instrumental in the magazine publishing world like Tina Brown or Anna Wintour or. I just bought Graydon Carter's new memoir. He was one of the original editors of Vanity Fair, I believe.
- [32:05]
A
So that's great.
- [32:06]
B
Very into that. I also love a good fantasy read. I'm really. I'm not. I have no type when it comes to the books that I pick up. I love a good recommendation. We have a very active Slack channel at work. Nice people are sending through like recommendations all the time. My tbr, my to be read pile is just enormous and stresses me over. It's about to come down. There's so many on it.
- [32:32]
A
I love it. I'm the same way. And I'm a big bio fan myself. Biography. And I think like I'm glad that you brought like fiction into it too because it's like it makes it, you know, it's not all about work.
- [32:44]
B
Like I like a non fiction then mix it up with a fiction back to non fiction. So I kind of. I dabble in all genres. I would say that's awesome. Let me know.
- [32:54]
A
Yeah, I will, I will. I'm sure. I just finished Don Adams and I enjoyed the presidential stuff. I'm in a history nerd so. But yeah, no, I. We may not have the overlapping Venn diagram ideally, but maybe I'll find something that's realistic, reasonable to share.
- [33:12]
B
For sure. For sure.
- [33:13]
A
Any favorite trips of all time or any travel suggestions? It seems like you're pretty. Pretty well traveled.
- [33:21]
B
Yeah. I 10 out of 10 recommend Switzerland. I feel like I went there last year for the first time and it was on. It's one of the few places where I feel like that the social media hype, like does it even do it justice. I was looking around everywhere I went being like, how is this place real? Which is awesome because I feel like so often those places you see so much of online and then you get there, you're like, oh, it's a little bit underwhelming. But not the case for Switzerland.
- [33:48]
A
I absolutely agreed.
- [33:50]
B
I had a life changing trip to India which was absolutely incredible. Traveled around there for like three weeks, which is amazing. So highly recommend that. And then I really want to go to Guatemala. I feel like every second person I speak to is saying good things about Guatemala. We've had a few people from our team go and absolutely love it. So I think that's. That's where I'm going to hit next.
- [34:11]
A
Love it. Well done. Those are great options. I love having the three. Yeah. And then just finishing up. So is there anything that maybe folks don't know about you in the audience that you want to share? Doesn't have to be anything wild or.
- [34:22]
B
Crazy, but I know I'm like, is this a therapy session? Why does my mind go to like, it can be. Yeah, I know. I mean, look, something that's great. Safe to share. I've shared this before on another podcast, but it is like, I think like an interesting fact about me is that I collect really niche Christmas ornaments. Everyone who's close to me knows this. I have like a really insane spreadsheet that's that a friend built out to me as a Christmas gift one year to like track my inventory. Like, that's how many I have. It's, it's, honestly, it's really deranged. But I buy them. So there had to be a system in place to track all of these different Christmas ornaments because it's like, well, I don't want to get to December and realize I've bought like three pickles. So. Yeah, pickles are important.
- [35:21]
A
Is an important part.
- [35:22]
B
Yeah. But there's only so many branches on the Christmas tree. I've got to just like their affiliate revenue streams. I've got to diversify my Christmas ornament collection.
- [35:31]
A
So I mean that, that's just, that just brings it all together perfectly. It's like the ending just mic drop right there. Yeah. We've got some fun traditions with tree ornaments are very important to our household as well. So I respect your dedication and data Dr. Driven mentality to the craft of collecting.
- [35:50]
B
There's logic behind the madness for sure.
- [35:53]
A
Wow. Amazing. Impressive. And for people that want to learn more about Vanessa and Link be. Where can they find you?
- [36:01]
B
Yeah, so you can find me on LinkedIn very easily. And then if you want to learn more about how linkbe can help you, whether you're a publisher or a brand and agency, head to our website, linkbee.com or again, just reach out to me on LinkedIn and I will make sure to connect you with the right person.
- [36:18]
A
Amazing. Appreciate you.
- [36:20]
B
Thank you for having me on, Ty. Appreciate it.
- [36:23]
A
Enjoy. Thank you so much. Enjoy your travels. Good luck with everything and we're thrilled about the conversation. It was a blast.
- [36:31]
B
Thanks so much. Have a good one.
- [36:32]
A
You too.