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#89 Beyond Coupon Sites: Diversifying Your Affiliate Marketing Strategy | Ryan Fitzgerald - Head of SME Sales, Awin Global
00:41:29
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- [00:00]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Foreign.
- [00:10]
Ty Degrange
Welcome to another episode of the Always Be Testing podcast. I'm your host, Ty degrange, and I'm really excited to talk to Ryan Fitzgerald. Ryan, how you doing, man?
- [00:18]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Doing great, Ty. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
- [00:21]
Ty Degrange
I'm glad to have you. Good to chat with you. We always have good conversations and it's just another one of those. So they've taken the liberty to redo the podcast room here in Austin. We've got a little lighting upgrade, a little background, less going on in the background. I gotta say, I kind of like it. Hopefully it works.
- [00:37]
Ryan Fitzgerald
No, it feels great.
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Ty Degrange
Awesome, man. Ryan is an affiliate industry expert. He's a veteran. He's well connected in this industry. He comes from a great background, definitely can understand what the brands in the space are going through. Has a very good knowledge about the agency world coming from one, and certainly understands the network side, leading sales for all us for awin, one of the leading affiliate softwares and tracking networks out there. So I think he's got some awesome knowledge and ready to drop some good things on us today.
- [01:11]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Setting the bar pretty high here, buddy. So see what we can do.
- [01:17]
Ty Degrange
We'll do it. We'll take it one step at a time. We've had some great conversations over the years. You've seen a lot in this space. We obviously kind of talk about learnings on this, on this podcast as much as we can. What's something you believe in affiliate marketing that others may disagree with you on?
- [01:33]
Ryan Fitzgerald
I think kind of a two prong. First, I work with a lot of SME clients, quite a few. A lot of them don't know anything really about the space. So we spend a lot of time consulting with them and educating them on the space. And my biggest thing that I share with them is work with all types of publishers to get yourself started. Because there's something that's really important in this space and it's called brand equity. And that especially when it comes to the publishers and the type of partnerships that we have in a network like awin. So building up that brand equity is going to come with time, but also come with success metrics. Right. So creating relationships with all types, including the cash back and coupon sites especially initially, is a great way to grow that brand equity and of course, revenue. So that's one thing. And I know not everybody sees eye to eye. Sees eye to eye with me on that, and that's cool. But it is something that I tell almost every Tizer when they ask what the best strategy is.
- [02:32]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, I think that's a really fascinating one. My sentiment is like, I think there's some agreement with you on there. I mean, I think there's some nuance to that in different situations. But I think you're onto something because it feels like of late, like it's gotten to be fashionable or marketing ploy or it's easy to kind of lean into a strategy that might kind of exclude. But I think to your point, I think it kind of, I think it kind of over takes a step too far to not really look at the information, look at the data. You can certainly make changes. But I think you're onto something where being open minded about that is really an interesting idea that I don't think even, even savvy affiliate marketers kind of get, get caught up in.
- [03:14]
Ryan Fitzgerald
But it's not. Again, it's not just coupon sites and deal sites. I'm talking about like if you look at the landscape of all the different types of publishers that we have, it's tremendous. I truly believe, and this is based on conversations I've had experience, whatever you want to call it, like we're barely tapping into the types of opportunities there are. I mean, we've got podcasters that people can work with. We've got so many variances of all these different marketers that are out there just to help you sell your brand. And people can tend to take sort of a shallow approach and have one dimension, which I think is really important to have multiple dimensions, especially with a new program. And then of course you can scale back over time and sort of narrow that list down to certain types of publishers. But especially in the beginning, I think it's a good idea to diversify and try out some stuff that maybe you're even initially uncomfortable with.
- [04:08]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, absolutely, it's. And I think, I think the brand equity thing is interesting. Right. I'm curious to hear more about your. What maybe some of the things you've observed there as it relates to being open to the various partner types like you alluded to. I mean, I want to say there's like 15 or so. It's insane how many there are. Like that's just a rough estimate on some of the stuff Martech records put out and stuff that you and I eat and eat and breathe every day. But I don't think people even, I don't think that fact alone is even known by a lot of brands and people curious about affiliate or trying to optimize affiliate or thinking about getting more out of affiliate.
- [04:45]
Ryan Fitzgerald
I mean, again, for Me, brand equity comes from creating the right partnerships, growing your brand online. But other publishers are going to take notice if you're working with other particular publishers that are similar, for instance, or they'll be able to see metrics when they consider you as an advertising partner with an AWIN or any other network that says here's how they're doing like that, that here's how they're doing stuff is important. It's part of that. Again, that equity that you're going to want to build with these, with these publishers, especially when you look at top of funnel publishers looking to work with content or influencers, they're going to want to know is this a legit brand? And there's a couple ways of doing that, one being pro your sales.
- [05:28]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, it takes, it takes all types and it's almost similar to me when we counsel brands that might be emerging or considering affiliate like having some validation on paid social, paid search. There's a lot of other factors that go into like okay, are you ready for affiliate? In some ways, I think to your. I think it's almost analogous to your point of like being open to some of those other affiliate business models that maybe you wouldn't be initially or you have some concerns or questions about those are fine to have those questions, but I think to be able to build up some of that revenue brand equity data just to just get a sense of what's coming through because I think that until you have that, it's hard to really make those judgment calls to your point. Very interesting. Obviously you're talking to a lot of different types of brands. You're, you're seeing a ton of interesting insights. I know AWIN is, has done a great job of educating the community about the different partner types. You guys have a lot of exciting things going on. Give folks that maybe aren't as, aren't as aware of AWIN a little bit of a primer on what awin's about.
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Ryan Fitzgerald
Well, for those who don't know, we've actually been in the affiliate space now for this is our 25th year, which is crazy to believe, but in that time we've built ourselves up to frankly be one of the largest globally. We're servicing over 21,000 advertisers throughout the world and we've got a stronghold in areas like Europe and growing in North America, growing in APAC region, growing in Latin American region. Like we've spent the last 25 years compounding everything to try to get to the point where we are now and then also put ourself in a position to grow moving forward. So one thing I have to definitely say about Awin and people ask me all the time like what's that? What's the difference between AWIN networks? We give a blank. We never happy with, we're never happy with what we have because frankly we know that this is an evolving marketing channel and we want to do everything we can to evolve with it. And in many cases it's possible maybe be the reason for that evolution. Right. So to sort of sum it up, 25 years of really making our stake within this space, it's really gotten us in a great position to offer a lot of great things to advertisers and agencies.
- [07:56]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, for sure. And I think from my perspective, and it kind of obviously hearing from others around it, I mean it's a lot of longevity in the game. The leadership in Europe is something that I've always taken note of and it's been impressive. And I think with the acquisition of shareasale, with the way AWIN has been able to execute and deliver, my sentiment and others have reported this even as of today, talking to people in a panel prep, it wasn't just me saying it, but there's I think a very, there seems to be a culture of being pro partner. The publisher and the affiliate part of the ecosystem is, is what we all, I always say, is kind of the lifeblood of the ecosystem. Like yes, the advertisers are coming in and paying those bills to a. To a significant extent, but those publishers, those affiliates, those creators to an extent are doing the lifting to deliver the marketing value. And I. My sentiment is that a win. And, and obviously with acquiring shareasale has been very pro partner, very pro affiliate for quite a while.
- [08:59]
Ryan Fitzgerald
And it's not even put publisher first. We just make sure that publishers get what's due. And for advertisers, you don't want to bite the hand that feeds you. Right. So we've put a lot of emphasis when it comes down to the usability of our platform, for instance, for publishers to try and make it as easy as possible for them to work with advertisers. So again, absolutely there is an emphasis on the publisher side of things. There frankly always has been. And funny enough, when I first started working at Share, we were very, very publisher centric. Right. Even the way the technology was built out, like you couldn't get access to the recruitment tool because what. Which is crazy because the initial thought when Brian built the tech was that he didn't want these publishers to feel overwhelmed. Right. But nowadays it's more about how do we create more meaningful relationships for everybody, including the publishers. So, and that's why we created a advertiser recommendation tool, for instance, for the publishers for them to have in their UI to help them narrow down those searches and find ideal partnerships is what it's all about. Right.
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Ty Degrange
It's always been a matchmaking game and I think people sometimes don't always think of it in this terminology. It's not consumer marketplace, but in many ways it is a marketplace and it's hard to balance both sides of that. You want to create a great experience for the brands coming in. You want to create a great experience for the affiliates to come in. And I think it's better than anyone. It's hard to do all of those perfectly. But you do have to kind of feed both parts of that ecosystem. Right.
- [10:36]
Ryan Fitzgerald
I mean this is, we all know this is a relationship based business and relationships go both ways.
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Ty Degrange
No, absolutely. Well said. So leading sales, that's a, that's a big deal in terms of how much you have to kind of look over. What does that entail for you? What are some of the things that you're trying to achieve there?
- [10:54]
Ryan Fitzgerald
My team's all about growth primarily through new customer acquisition. And my team works a lot more with like small to mid sized businesses based frankly all over the world that want to penetrate any market really, because we sell into us, we sell into Latin America, et cetera. So a lot of our time, a lot of my team's time is spent educating. I mentioned before that we take a very consultative approach. We have to do a lot of educating. That is 1, probably 80% of my team's job is to do exactly that on calls and talk people into affiliate marketing. But really going, even starting from the type of people that we hire, I want people that are going to come in and I want hungry salespeople. Don't get me wrong, it's exactly what we need. But it's also like you have to be willing to sit down and talk with this small business owner who's worried about paying a little bit of money for a launch fee and worried about long term sustainability when it comes to the program and has spent money other places, other channels that are really expensive, like perhaps paid search, where they've lost a lot of money and they're looking to grow their brand. So we spent a lot of our time consulting and talking to advertisers about the benefits of this and how it'd be benefiting to them. So a lot of time has been spent there. I spent a lot of time with my team helping them sort of create that dialogue where I'm really big on mentoring. I'm at the point in my career where part of the reason I have this job is because I get a chance to work with people in a way where I get to educate them myself. So sort of they're passing down the knowled, they're learning, hopefully learning from me to the advertisers that they're working with, to the people that they're working side by side with. So a lot of my particular time is done making sure the team is in a great position to have those conversations on a daily basis, understand what's going on in the market. Again, busy. Great. It's very people driven and it's probably the thing I love most about it.
- [12:48]
Ty Degrange
That's awesome. Just maybe drilling down on that topic a little bit more because I think it's important. Like what are there some learnings that maybe have come up for you either recently or in your career around kind of that mentorship or kind of what it means to kind of educate a brand that's trying to make sense of this channel, that kind of are top of mind to you that you want to share with the audience. What are some of those thoughts that you that are kind of coming up?
- [13:15]
Ryan Fitzgerald
So it starts with the team making sure they're in the position to be successful. And the definition of success sort of varies. But what I want to make sure there. There are three pillars that I pushed on my team all the time and I've been doing this for years, even before coming here to awin. And we have three jobs. So first is to get the deals done. Make sure that you're moving the chains, to use a term. Right. But along with that, educate yourself. Make sure that you are showing up for webinars that the company is putting together, that you're reading industry information, that you' part of groups like Martech Records and educate yourself really important. And then third is clean up after yourself. Make sure you're tidy. That means make sure that you're on top of your salesforce, make sure you're on top of your desktop, all that sort of stuff. And what I found to be the most successful is when we have teams that can concentrate on all three successfully or as much as possible successfully. And really it's from those three pillars that we build that guidance and everything that we tend to lean towards from a team perspective. And it's worked really well. And I'VE I've probably shared that still on my soapbox 50 times in the last six years sharing those same ideas and I'm sure my team's tired of hearing about it, but it works, really does and plus it gives me something to measure them against as well.
- [14:42]
Ty Degrange
I love it. We something we take a lot of pride in as well. So it's cool to hear what, what are some of the aha moments and learnings you've had over the years and things that come up and I love, I love hearing that the story of that and, and just you being candid about you kind of being the. A good coach and in insight for them. It's, it's great.
- [15:02]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Yeah. I mean I like, I say all the time that's a six. My success is directly related to the success of my team. So for instance, if they go from my team to another because they've had an opportunity to grow within the organization, I, you know, that feels good. That's what I get up for is for those types of opportunities.
- [15:19]
Ty Degrange
That's awesome. And Awyn, there's certainly a lot of variety and opportunity to explore and progress through a variety of fields. So that's great.
- [15:27]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Awen does a really good job supporting that idea too, which is great, especially the education side of things and creating, to your point, growth opportunities within the organization. I think upward mobility is important to everybody. So I definitely want to give AWIN their credit because I couldn't do what I'm doing without, without the support that I get.
- [15:43]
Ty Degrange
No, it's huge. It's a good call out and you guys got a lot of things in the hopper, a lot of excitement, a lot of interesting things happening. We just, just started rolling out, I believe the spare sale upgrade. Can you give us a little bit of background on that?
- [15:59]
Ryan Fitzgerald
It's awesome. I mean it's been in the works for a long time, I think, depending on who you ask. But it's been going on for at least the time that I've been with A1 and share herself. So we actually just rolled out our first batch of advertisers that we're going to be putting through the upgrading process. Again, huge shout out to the teams that have helped facilitate all of this and gotten us to where we are now. And there's a lot of people involved, a lot of departments, a lot of time, a lot of resources. To awin's credit, they waited for the right time to do it, to make sure all of our ducks in a row and now that they are, we're Starting to take some. Some inroads, which is great. Best part about it is and why it's I think so going to work out so wonderfully. It's an upgrade, as you said. It's not a migration where you advertisers or agencies are going to have to do a ton of work to make it happen. We're essentially giving shareasale clients direct access to the Alin technology where they're going to be getting better reporting, more robust commissioning options. We have a publisher recruitment tool built into the platform. No extra cost, just it's right there. Right. Like it's there and available, extensive reporting and it's Sharest. Fantastic. It's done a great job. It's. Sharecel has been a leader in the space for a long time. AWIN is the future and we're giving these advertisers access to that with very little or no work on their part. So links are being changed over for publishers so the publishers don't have to worry about it. Advertisers don't have to communicate anything to the publishers. We're doing that on their behalf like it is. It's a lift and shift. It's a graduation in a sense to again what we consider to be the future of affiliate marketing. And it's really, really exciting.
- [17:43]
Ty Degrange
That's awesome. Yeah, I know it's been a. Been a process and it's cool to see it happening. As you said, live that first batch and more to come. And I think the more brands that are integrated on the platform and benefiting from the better the best of the best of your technology suite, the better for everyone involved. So congrats on that effort because I know it's been a lot.
- [18:05]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Yeah, it's a lot. We've over 10,000 advertisers to move and again, with all of that said, it's. We're not charging more money, they're getting more for the same amount they were paying with shareasale. So it's great. I mean it's win, win, win for everybody.
- [18:20]
Ty Degrange
Absolutely, absolutely.
- [18:21]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Yeah.
- [18:22]
Ty Degrange
Yep.
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Ryan Fitzgerald
I want to share a. Yeah, I will say that like I've, you know, that's where I got my start on the network side and you know, had a hell of a run. But, you know, Awin is, is definitely in the right position to take over the, you know, market consideration from Chairasil and you know, Times, whatever.
- [18:46]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, no, for sure. And I think, you know, as we talked about earlier, Shareasil, so I think almost beloved in some ways and respected and you know, what, what Brian built, the way he thought about it, almost cult like following it had from my perspective it was, wasn't always my favorite to you know, dig under the hood on but like the, the, the technology was there, the capabilities was there, the, the, all the bells and whistles were, were strong and I think, you know, obviously AWIN came in with more of that modernized usability which is what, what folks are looking for. So it seems like a great combo and network side.
- [19:26]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Yeah, I mean there are agencies who, they launched their first programs ever on shares 20 something years ago and that's, you know, that says a lot.
- [19:35]
Ty Degrange
Absolutely right.
- [19:36]
Ryan Fitzgerald
So, but again I, I'm excited about the future with AWIN and what we're going to be able to do.
- [19:42]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, absolutely. Pretty cool stuff and I think like curious to hear your perspective on maybe some of the things that are, you know, you guys are looking at but also just what your observations have been around what's out there in technology, what's out there in tracking. Because I know that that's obviously really exciting part of this and exciting part of the upgrade and I think there's curious to hear maybe some of the observations you have about kind of what you're seeing in the space and maybe any observations or learnings you've had on the tracking and tech side generally because I know you've seen a lot even prior to AWIN with agencies and there's always something in that arena to kind of think about. So I was curious if there's anything that you think comes to mind that maybe audience should be aware of or be thinking about from a technology or from a tracking perspective that maybe is worth sharing.
- [20:44]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Well, from a tracking perspective I think we can both agree that there's a lot of talk about understanding the path of the consumer as it relates to affiliate marketing. A lot of people use the term attribution and I think there's, you know, a couple ways of looking at it and one of the things that we've started to do is create more transparency around those transactions from a beginning to end perspective like showing where in the clickstream an affiliate comes into consideration when there's a track sale and the other channels that are associated as well. Because again we both know that it's not just affiliate, it's, it's paid search, it's organic, it's influencers, all of that. Right. So I think to me the whole idea of, of attribution is sort of grown more into intelligence and creating more of an identity for each one of those transactions to Give you an idea of where these other channels can come into play. Not just, you know, what's happening with that last click, but how did they get there? And again, oftentimes, because we know with cookie windows it's not affiliated as that last click, but they're included in that 30 day window, whatever the case may be. But where do the, where do the consumers start and where did it end? Right. I mean there's a lot of intelligence there and you know, one area that not only AWIN but other networks have started to get more into and I think it's really important because again it's not only creates more transparency about the affiliate channel, which is great, but also the involvement of the affiliate channel with these other channels that people are spending a lot of money on. Search, paid social, stuff like that. Right. So to me I think the intelligence of knowing how Alin interacts in a way with these other channels is super, super important. And something that we're, we've talked, everyone's talking about it, I think it's going to, we're going to see some even further production around that as things move forward.
- [22:41]
Ty Degrange
I get excited that because I think it removes I think a lot of the false skepticism of affiliate marketing and I think that we can kind of move beyond a lot of that. That has kind of been baggage if you will, to this industry. Some of it understandably, some of it sort of not really fair. But I think that excited to see the collective affiliate marketing continue to be like we have the visibility, we can see how it interacts. Let's let the best marketing touchpoint win to some extent.
- [23:18]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Yeah, I mean again it's, I think it's affiliate is about a lot of things including eyeballs. And you know what, I again talking to SME clients all the time, it's. Imagine working with a site that gets 40 million views a month and your site gets 5,000. Like imagine what the possibility is for a consumer to see your brand on that website. Like it's just stuff like that. Right. So again it's, you know, I want the entire industry to embrace it in a way where, because transparency is super important. Right. Especially for the largest part of the market which is the smaller businesses that are looking to take advantage of this, this type of space, they need to know how things work. And I think that's important. And if we can do it in a way that creates transparency and ease of use because data is great. But what do you do with it? I think that's, those are the type of game changing Things that we're looking to do more of. And again, if we can make it all easier for everybody. Right. Like just there's so much within this channel from an opportunity perspective. How do we make it as easy as possible for them to understand what's going on and then action on that?
- [24:31]
Ty Degrange
Well, I think you named it. I think there's a beauty in that simplicity. Like I think your and my objectives are very similar where we're trying to make sense of some things that are sometimes can be confusing and communicate them in a way, you know, to our team from a coaching perspective, but to. To brands and businesses and clients to say it's not that it's not as mysterious and weird and complex and scary as it. As it. As it sounds sometimes. And here's how you can navigate that. I think that's the beauty of what we had compensated for to kind of create a little bit of simplicity out of the chaos.
- [25:06]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Well, I think can affiliate. There's still a lot of misunderstanding about the channel and some preconceived notions about the channel especially more often so on like seed level. Not so much on the marketing side of things. You know, because we have a marketing person reaching out to us. They understand the value of the channel, but a lot of their. A lot of their hesitancy comes from their need to convey that to the people who pay the bills.
- [25:30]
Ty Degrange
Yeah.
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Ryan Fitzgerald
So if we can, you know, continue to figure out a way to drive those results and create information that's going to be transparent and easy for that marketing person to go to that C level person and say this is what's happening. And I think that's what's going to help create a little bit more of that awareness of the channel and, you know, a little less of that preconceived notion.
- [25:54]
Ty Degrange
You've talked to so many brands. Is there something you've kind of maybe learned that sort of is. Is the most. The thing that unlocks it the most for the C level or for other stakeholders that are maybe not informed or hesitant about affiliate. It's a little inside baseball. But I'm curious to know what maybe you've found to be helpful to kind of enlighten them or maybe move them down that path towards enlightenment of understanding affiliate more clearly.
- [26:23]
Ryan Fitzgerald
I find what work the best is sharing information for like advertisers and success against it. So. And that actually works quite a bit where you know, you've got a hesitant advertiser for one reason or the other, especially if it's at C level or business Owner or wherever the case may be. What I often find is that, you know, it's not even based on a case study, but we'll use a case study sector analysis, something like that. But I'll go to them with hey, here's a brand just like you. This is what it looks like from a mapped perspective and say this is roughly what they've done. Of course not revealing anything, but this is what they've done and this is the result. And oftentimes if you can show that in an easy way, both in how you translate it to them, but also like a B equals C, more often than not, that's where I get the best results and where you can have that, you know, again that larger understanding with that person who isn't marketing driven but is going to get the invoices every month. Right?
- [27:23]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, well said.
- [27:24]
Ryan Fitzgerald
It seems to, to be the most effective and frankly for me I'll, I'll get on a call with that person because I'd love to answer whatever questions they have because it's likely it's, their questions are going to be very different than the marketing person. So that's, if I can do that. That's, that's, to me, that's the ideal.
- [27:40]
Ty Degrange
That's awesome. You kind of touched on this earlier, but is there a few things that you think brands, you know, kind of need coaching on the most? It's kind of that part of that similar theme of questions, but something that maybe they get wrong that you would want to educate them on or, or maybe share?
- [27:55]
Ryan Fitzgerald
I think I say to every single person that I've talked to, every advertiser, this is time and effort are your best friends. This is not a set it and forget it channel. I think again going back to that preconceived notion because so much cost comes from success metrics, I believe advertisers have a tendency to kind of sit back a little bit more because they're not spending money on clicks, for instance. So you don't necessarily have to worry about a substantial budget against the account. So a lot of times I get asked, but more often than not I tell them time is your friend. And if you're not putting the ideal amount of time and resources, again people, agencies against it and you're not looking at at least a 6 to 12 to 18 month path. Don't waste your time to waste your money because if you're in it for three months and to kick the can down the road and see what, what's, what's going to happen There you're more likely to be disappointed after, after 90 days if that's, if that's your bar. So again, time and resources being the ultimate trend for, for these, for these advertisers and they don't necessarily understand that. Going into a lot of the conversations that I'm having that this is a channel, you have to commit resources against it. So it's that big one for me.
- [29:11]
Ty Degrange
I love that. I couldn't. Yeah, that, that hits hard. And I think that time element is just maybe the most powerful we've seen time and time again where a brand's coming to us saying like this is up there, if not our best performing. And from an efficiency perspective, you know, it's going head to head with branded search almost. And in terms of it's being. That's powerful and wild to think, but it does really require the time and I think setting those expectations up front is always an important piece and an ongoing challenge. It needs to be emphasized so many times. I think what you just said actually is almost want to shout it from a rooftop. It's, it's that good. So.
- [29:50]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Well, but it's also LinkedIn. I'm talking to a lot of smaller business owners who, they're trying to take it on themselves because they don't have a marketing team or maybe their niche works for them, a couple hours a week kind of thing. And they're going to put a resource like that. And I see fantastic brands who in all considerations should come in and do well considering the type of products they have. The websites, very engaging, they're doing some nice sales in other channels but at the end of the day they don't put the resource against it and it doesn't do well. But again, it goes back to that whole idea of from the get go being transparent with advertisers. Again, that's why I think having an agency come in and run a program, I've seen it myself having come from the agency side of things. I've seen dozens and dozens of accounts that came into the agency where we took it over and then like almost in 90, 120 days we're tripling the revenue not to set that expectation, but it's just like what I tell advertisers is if. Do you. Are you your own accountant? No. You probably hire a cpa. Why do you hire a cpa? CPA knows what they're doing. Why should affiliate be any different? Why should marketing be any different? Why would you put. You're not going to put a CPA and have them run an affiliate program on you. Believe it or not, that makes people one laugh too.
- [31:10]
Ty Degrange
A lot of picked a good day for that too.
- [31:13]
Ryan Fitzgerald
There's that reality. Oh it is the 15th, so yeah. And you know, laying out that scenario especially for again for business owners, when you're talking to them, they seem to understand that the best.
- [31:24]
Ty Degrange
And when you think about SMB, our user, you defining that if from what you can share. I'm just curious because I think it's, it does present a very different case than, than the enterprise conversation.
- [31:35]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Well, you know, there's certain metrics we look at as a business sort of identify where the perfect place should be for us to, to place them. And we look at online revenue numbers, anything we can pull from a third party. We look at monthly uniques. Sometimes you can just look at a website and understand. Yeah, we do look online, excuse me, on LinkedIn, to see how many employees they have. You know, there's, there's only so much we can get access to initially as we start the conversation and then if and when necessary we'll, we'll get some additional information from the advertisers from you know, GA or something along those lines. So. And sometimes you get into a conversation and realize it's bigger or smaller than you thought and then you take it on anyway.
- [32:19]
Ty Degrange
Yeah, sometimes we're pleasantly surprised, which is exciting. Some good stuff, Ryan, and a lot more to get into. Some really good learnings just from your career from the agency side, from the network side. All that good stuff popping at AWIN and more to come. I know coming down the home stretch, would love to go through some Ryan questions. You got any book recommendations for us?
- [32:45]
Ryan Fitzgerald
You know what I thought I saw that question, I thought about it and I realized how boring I am. I read. So I studied English literature in college and so I love the classics. I still read them. I'm actually reading 1984 right now by George Orwell. So a lot of the books that I'm reading are like I read To Kill a Mockingbird six months ago. Like, you know, and I don't have a lot of time, so I listen to a lot of books. But work wise, I'm a, I'm a big Simon Sinek fan. So a lot of what I read, you know, business wise, let's call it, are going to be like find your why Leaders Elast is one of my favorite books when it comes to, to doing what I do. Frankly, a lot of what I've, what I've applied to who I am as A. As a manager or director, whatever, is stuff that I read from Simon's books and his TED Talks and all that stuff too. Right. So. So classics, you know, great old man in the.
- [33:41]
Ty Degrange
Cool.
- [33:42]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Love that book.
- [33:44]
Ty Degrange
Beautiful book.
- [33:45]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Yeah. It made me realize I probably need to get up to the times a little bit and maybe read something that was. That was written, you know, after 2010.
- [33:55]
Ty Degrange
I don't know, man. I think you got. You make it. You make a phenomenal case for that. I've got. I revisited 1984 not too recently, but. And I have a lot of classics on the shelf that I. I have not read yet. And so I think it's a cool reminder and inspiration to. To not forget about those and to keep them. Keep them not too far away. That's. That's a really good one. I like that.
- [34:19]
Ryan Fitzgerald
A lot of the reason I started reading them again is because my kids are reading them in school. I've got two in high school and. Oh, yeah, like, for instance, to Kill a Mockingbird, my freshman read in his English class, so I read it along with him so he and I could talk about it. And it's actually one of my favorite books and one of my favorite movies. So, like, I've probably read the book nine times. I love that book. But that is part of what drove it is that I wanted to have stuff to work with my kids on.
- [34:49]
Ty Degrange
That is so smart. I love that. It's a really good idea. Any trips, vacations, anything that you've got that you're. I highly recommend or want to share that you think are in your top. Yeah.
- [35:00]
Ryan Fitzgerald
You know, I just went to Hilton Head island for the first time, Spring break with my kids. Man, that is going to be on our. I think on our yearly calendar as far as visits are concerned. I loved it. Where we stayed was beautiful. We were right on the beach, walking distance to everything. But we rented bikes and go all over the island. And it was just. Wasn't crazy busy yet there. So it was quiet, but also exciting enough. There was a lot going on. The weather was great. We do. I do Siesta Key down in Florida. I've been going there since I was five, pretty much every single year. Those. Between those two places, I'm pretty happy. You know, outside of the occasional camping trip my wife drags me to because she's a camper. I'm more of a. I'm more of a hotel kind of guy. But. But, yeah, no, it's. Those two places in particular are so far my favorite.
- [36:02]
Ty Degrange
Amazing.
- [36:03]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Yeah. Yeah.
- [36:04]
Ty Degrange
I'VE heard. Yeah, that's. Hilton Head is such a great spot. I've heard great things. I can't wait to try it out. That's cool.
- [36:11]
Ryan Fitzgerald
It's a little bit of everything for everybody.
- [36:13]
Ty Degrange
Which is which I like any good guilty pleasure or non guilty pleasure TV that you recommend or anything you've, you've checked out you like lately.
- [36:22]
Ryan Fitzgerald
You know, most of the TV I watch are shows that my wife and I can watch together. It's kind of our thing where by the time we're winding down near the end of the night, we've fed the boys and they've got their homework done, you know, et cetera. We'll watch a little TV and it's like Will Trent and Elsbeth and you know, some sort of CSI variants. Right? Yeah, I tend to, if I'm on my own. I like, I love sports, so. Big Cubs fan. So, you know, watching baseball right now, Notre Dame football. I love, love NFL football. I'm also watching movie. If I got a couple hours to myself, I'm watching. Yeah, yeah. I'm a big movie guy.
- [37:00]
Ty Degrange
Same. Any movies that have some kind of Cubs Association? Is that a. Yeah, there's.
- [37:05]
Ryan Fitzgerald
There's one in particular about a kid who like breaks his arm and all of a sudden can pitch 120 miles an hour and pitches for the Cubs. Yeah, I couldn't tell you. It's called a rookie or something. I couldn't tell you the name of it.
- [37:17]
Ty Degrange
Rookie of the Year.
- [37:18]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Rookie of the Year. Yeah. Yeah. So the. Yeah, so you know, you know, as far as baseball movies, it's not my favorite, but it's definitely one that I watched a lot with my kids when they were younger because they got a kick out of it. So I'm more of a feel to fill the dreams kind of guy. If you're gonna go baseball.
- [37:34]
Ty Degrange
Me too. Oh yeah, me too. Bull Durham is my fave, but Phil to dreams is up there.
- [37:41]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Yeah, Bull Durham. Oh my gosh. That movie at one point made me want to try and play like double A ball just to all that stuff. And I started talking to guys who actually played. They're like, it's, it's miserable. You got to work a job while you're playing ball and living on a bus kind of thing. So. But yeah, no, that's another fantastic movie.
- [38:02]
Ty Degrange
I went to a screening where they had the director there afterwards and I think I asked him a question and there was some. Just amazing. My wife got. Got the experience for me because she knew how much I Loved the movie. And we kind of both enjoyed and appreciated baseball together. And there was some really cool things dropped on that. But it was wild to think he played Double A or whatever, one of those. And I think. I believe it was Texas. And during the heat was so insane during the summer. Like, during the day, they would. He would go watch movies and kind of get the mind going on, you know, creation of all these amazing movies that he. That he directed. I think he did Tin Cup. I didn't think he did White Man Can Jump, if I'm not mistaken. I might be misspoken on that. But anyway, he's. He's amazing. But, yeah, and I loved. One of the coolest learnings about that movie was like the. Either get the girl or you get the. The big. The big league. You get to go to the show. You don't get to do both. And it was like a just poetic, epic kind of. Life is not always idyllic. Cool.
- [39:04]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Take a lot of good lines. Not necessarily ones you can stay on this podcast, but a lot of good lines in that movie. So the one where they're all sitting at the pitcher's mound talking about what they're gonna get for a wedding. Wedding present. I love that. I. That's. That's just great movie.
- [39:20]
Ty Degrange
Yeah. I was like Seinfeld before Seinfeld. I mean, that was just like situational. Absurd. Absurd comedy. In a great way. In a great way. You're the man, Ryan. You know, being a dad of three boys, how do you do it? What do you got for giving dads out there a little. Little knowledge to help them out?
- [39:40]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Two things. One, I learned the hard way, always make time for your partner. Kids are going to keep you busy as heck, and they're going to take every minute of every day from you. And that's okay, because it's the most wonderful thing in the world. But don't forget that you're also. You have a partner with you and take time. Do date nights. Get out of the house. You know, once you're ready to have that babysitter come in, mom, dad, whomever, do it, because you can get a little lost if you don't. That's. That's one. The other is live in the moment. Because the stuff that you love, holding hands with your kid as you cross the street, cuddling with your son as you're watching a movie on the couch, this stuff goes away. Just does. And while it gets replaced by other really, really cool stuff, live in the moment because it's. It's never going to be like that ever again.
- [40:33]
Ty Degrange
Yeah. Mic drop man, that's, that's real talk. It's real talk here.
- [40:38]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Yeah.
- [40:38]
Ty Degrange
No I feel that as a, as a dad, as a parent those are brilliant reminders and important ones and well said. Fitness said it better. Thank you for coming on. This is awesome for folks that want to connect with you Ryan. Where, where can they find you? What's the best way to get in touch?
- [40:55]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Obviously on LinkedIn email is always great too. Ryan Fitzgeraldwin.com those are probably the two best spots to, to get hold of me and you know if you have questions you want to know about me, you want to know about Awin or are you looking for just even a little advice around affiliate marketing? I'm, I'm happy to assist.
- [41:13]
Ty Degrange
Amazing. Thanks for coming on man.
- [41:14]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Appreciate you, appreciate you having me. Thanks a lot Tyler.
- [41:17]
Ty Degrange
Thank you.
- [41:17]
Ryan Fitzgerald
Take care.