Introducing Jason Lilien
Jason has spent 20 years working in international advertising and marketing, with a concentrate on affiliate and partnerships over the previous 10 years. Having labored with almost 100 manufacturers and purchasers all through his profession, Jason has discovered his residence in B2B, main campaigns for high SaaS firms comparable to Google, Zendesk, and Notion. When not serving to to develop main B2B affiliate company Accomplice Commerce, Jason additionally helps out as an advisor for B2B SaaS affiliate platform Reditus.
Rockstar Q&A with Jason
What are your day-to-day duties?
Constructing the crew and main consumer providers at Accomplice Commerce, a full-service affiliate and partnership company completely centered on B2B. We assist to handle and scale companion applications focusing on SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise audiences.
How did you get into the affiliate trade?
My first affiliate duty was serving to to launch this system for TravelSmith in 2008. Again then we had been increasing our digital footprint throughout many channels and launched an associates program on Google Affiliate Community.
What’s the most effective factor you realized on the final convention you attended? What convention was it?
The final convention I attended was really an occasion that we put collectively in London for our consumer TikTok for Enterprise. It was an occasion for TikTok’s high companions in Europe, and what was evident from assembly all of them in particular person was that a lot of the associates had been energy customers of TikTok’s advert platform. It highlighted to me how necessary it’s in B2B to focus your companion recruitment efforts across the companies, companies, and consultants which can be really utilizing the software program, platform, or service day-after-day.
What are your most necessary KPIs?
In B2B affiliate, most KPIs come all the way down to the general return on funding of the complete program, which is supported by a number of effectivity and high quality metrics comparable to value per lead/new subscription, and even conversion charges that replicate the standard of leads by means of the funnel. Each consumer’s partnership program aligns again to the enterprise targets that they’re held to, and we work intently with them to make sure that every program has two to 3 foremost KPIs that drive most selections, and several other supporting KPIs which may be particular to assist totally different recruitment, activation, and optimization methods, for instance.
How do you work together with different entrepreneurs outdoors of the affiliate/partnerships crew at your purchasers’ firms?
We really work very intently with many various groups at every of our consumer’s firms. Relying on the scope of our work, and the way our affiliate technique is ready to fill gaps of their group, we might in any in the future have conversations with the inventive crew, influencer crew, demand gen crew, and even the PR crew. Affiliate touches so many various channels, and advertising and marketing groups that we work with are at all times engaged in conversations throughout groups to make sure that we’re complementing and supporting one another’s work, versus competing with it.
What’s the largest problem you’ve come throughout in affiliate internet marketing?
The largest problem I see presently in B2B affiliate internet marketing is that there’s nonetheless lots of training that should occur with potential publishers to get comfy engaged on a efficiency foundation. B2B media and content material websites, for instance, don’t come from a efficiency mannequin essentially, and I believe advertisers have to strategy them with alternatives of mutual profit, the place the work that publishers put into one thing shall be rewarded. When it’s the fitting two-sided partnership, a efficiency mannequin is good, and we have to facilitate these win-win relationships, versus some which can be extra based mostly on whoever has the largest budgets to throw at publishers.
How does seasonality play into your technique or your advertisers’ methods (if in any respect)?
In B2B, seasonality tends to be totally different for various verticals. Nevertheless, it usually aligns with enterprise price range approvals and instances when companies need to make investments. Early within the 12 months at all times tends to be a powerful interval in B2B as budgets are launched and people companies engaged on a calendar 12 months are impressed to hit the bottom operating, including to their tech stack as wanted.
What’s your greatest problem immediately?
The largest problem immediately is making an attempt to make the recruitment, activation, and optimization campaigns as streamlined and environment friendly as potential. Constructing and managing partnerships is time-consuming, so the objective is at all times to determine how we are able to do extra, do higher, but in addition be faster with what we’re doing. While you’re an company, there’s not at all times lots of persistence for a gradual ramp, so we’re at all times trying to discover ways in which we are able to develop our purchasers shortly however in a means that ensures that they’re sustainable.
How necessary is following the journey of a consumer after you (or your advertisers) first purchase them or after the primary buy?
In B2B, which is commonly a subscription mannequin, that is is crucial, as publishers are usually paid out on recurring commissions for a time frame. If customers cancel quickly after their preliminary buy, the manufacturers lose prospects and the publishers lose their rewards. Recurring fee is likely one of the key differentiators and largest value-adds with SaaS applications, and due to this fact it’s necessary that buyer retention is seen as a part of the affiliate technique.