Season 04 / Episode 003

Staying Current (or Ahead) in Affiliate Marketing with Tricia Meyer

With Tricia Meyer - Executive Director, Performance Marketing Association

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Summary

In this episode of Profitable Performance Marketing, host Jake Fuller sits down with Tricia Meyer, the Executive Director of the Performance Marketing Association (PMA). Tricia brings her 20+ years of industry experience and multi-role expertise as a content creator, cashback site operator, and legal expert to discuss the ever-evolving landscape of affiliate marketing. As the duo navigates the plethora of resources now available—from newsletters and webinars to network certifications—it’s clear that while finding information is easier, the breadth of knowledge required has expanded dramatically. They also touch on the critical topic of educating C-level executives about the true value of affiliate marketing, highlighting the role of industry collaboration and strategic content. Join Jake and Tricia as they unpack the trials and triumphs of staying ahead in this dynamic field, reminding us all that in affiliate marketing, there’s always something new just around the corner.

About Our Guest:Tricia Meyer

Tricia Meyer is the owner of Sunshine Rewards, Helping Moms Connect and other niche sites. She is also the Executive Director of the Performance Marketing Association. She speaks and writes about topics such as monetization, managing affiliate relationships, and current events in the industry. A graduate of Indiana University Maurer School of Law, she combines her legal background and marketing experience to educate and open conversations about legal and ethical issues. She spends a lot of time at Disney with her husband and two adult daughters.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Jake Fuller: Okay. Welcome back to the podcast. I’m excited about our guest today. One of my friends and colleagues in the industry, TM. Our topic today is going to be revolving around the resources available in our channel and how different folks can use that to educate themselves, to learn, to succeed.

[00:00:33] And obviously communicate what this channel, how it, how this channel benefits or values different brands all the way up to the executive level. Without further ado, would you like to introduce yourself, Tricia?

[00:00:44] Tricia Meyer: Thank you so much. I’m Trisha Meyer. I’m the Executive Director of the Performance Marketing Association. That is my part time job. I also am a publisher. I’ve been in the industry a little over 20 years now. I’m on the kind of content side first and then a cashback site called Sunshine Rewards. So I do wine reviews with my business partner, Todd Farmer.

[00:01:05] And then also just some general mom blogging and things like that. Oh, and I’m a lawyer too. So any kind of legal stuff that touches our industry, I tend to write and speak about those things a lot as well.

[00:01:16] JF: That was a lot in a very short period of time. You have…

[00:01:19] TM: Can you tell I’m used to saying that?

[00:01:22] JF: You’ve got that one ironed out.

[00:01:25] TM: Yeah, the industry is broad, so I try to cover all the little bits and pieces.

[00:01:31] JF: And there are so many little bits and pieces to cover, and more so now than I think there were, years ago.

[00:01:38] TM: Yeah, it’s a blessing and a curse for our industry.

[00:01:43] JF: It can be. let’s jump in. The topic this week is really around the resources that are available and, how the industry has changed and, in my opinion, and we’ll get into this more as a question, I think it’s easier now to learn about our space and understand the value that it drives than maybe 10 years ago.

[00:02:02] So I want you to from your perspective, you’ve been doing this longer than I have, and you touch different parts of affiliate, as an affiliate yourself from a content standpoint, I think being a lawyer. And having the understanding of FTC guidelines and different changes that come out and how that affects our channel, you can read between the lines a little bit better than some of us.

[00:02:24] So talk a little bit about, the evolution over the past 10 years, as it involves someone getting into this space, whether it’s as an affiliate manager, a brand jumping in, how have things evolved and how much easier in your opinion, is it now to jump in and learn quickly and be successful?

[00:02:41] Or was it easier 10 years ago?

[00:02:43] TM: I think it’s easier to find the information, but there’s more to learn. So it’s a little bit of both. Initially, it might have been a little harder to find the information. People weren’t giving it quite as freely, but it wasn’t nearly as difficult. There wasn’t as much to it as there is now. So now there’s no end to the number of resources that you can find.

[00:03:01] And honestly, most of them are free. When a lot of people come to me and say, “hey, should I pay for this or pay for that to learn affiliate marketing”, I say, no, if you’re just starting out, there are so many free resources because you’ve got the, as on the publisher side, you’ve got the agencies who are putting out great newsletters and content like this podcast and webinars and things like that.

[00:03:19] You’ve got the networks that are putting together different certifications, their own webinars, not just how to use their systems, but how to do affiliate marketing. You’re getting resources, some of them that are slanted toward this particular network or that particular agency or brand or whatever, but really across the board, everybody’s just generating so much content now that it’s up to you to figure out what are the pieces that you want to learn and then who do you trust to learn those from.

[00:03:44] JF: Yeah, that makes sense. And, do you think so to back up, there was a term that someone told me, or said to me recently that we’re in a very big little industry. And I have found in my experience that if you’re going to be responsible, maybe from a brand perspective, and you’re an email marketer or you’re part of the paid team, and you get handed this affiliate channel, you take this over, you handle this, or maybe we should launch one of these, then that individual might dive in and find these resources and start to understand how to utilize the channel.

[00:04:16] But I’ve always found there to be quite a gap between those individuals and the executives or the board members at these larger brands that are making some of the decisions, making decisions on budgets, and looking at the channel as something they should actually pay attention to. Do you feel like we’re bridging that gap finally or do you feel like there’s still a huge way to go?

[00:04:35] TM: I think we’re doing that because affiliate marketing is so much more mainstream brands that 20 years ago would not touch affiliate marketing, brands that 10 years ago said, “Oh, no, that’s all about coupons and we’re not discounters.” Those brands have come around to understand that we’re so much more than that little part of affiliate marketing.

[00:04:52] So, they have no choice in a way but to embrace affiliate marketing more. The struggle that we are having is getting to that CMO level and helping them understand what is affiliate and what all encompasses, because it’s not just simple to say we’re cashbacking coupons because we’re also card linked offers, and we’re influencer, and we’re retargeting, and we’re search, and we’re email where all of those different things and that’s not easy to understand at first.

[00:05:18] So we definitely have work to do when it comes to kind of packaging up affiliate into kind of a nice little present to put on the desk of those CMOs and say, this is what we are, and these are all of the opportunities that you can have with us.

[00:05:33] JF: And I think you’re right. I was having a conversation with a prospective brand recently, and they had asked me “tell me if I wanted to go full bore on this thing, tell me all of the different ways and the different types of partnerships, the different categories of partners that you guys have.”

[00:05:49] And so I thought about that for a moment. I had to start writing it down because it was too much for me to just spit off the top of my head. And we went through your traditional coupon deal sites, loyalty sites, sub networks, how they play a role. You’ve got technology partners. I was telling him now I’ve got partnerships with folks, if you want to run CTV ads and you’ve got card linked offers, we can do different media buys. We could do local news specific opportunities to promote. And you can cross really email marketing partners, search partners… the list goes on and on. That’s where even we struggle sometimes.

[00:06:23] How do we present this in a nice little package to somebody? Because really it’s unique to each brand and some brands will have channels and dedicated teams for some of those specific areas, and you don’t have to worry about that, but some brands don’t. And so I think it’s like you said before, it might be easier to break into it, but there’s so much more to learn because every year that goes by, I seem to be picking up a new type of partner.

[00:06:45] I didn’t think we could leverage with it in this channel. It’s really cool, but it’s also how do you start applying that further and how do brands distinguish where that time and budget goes, right?

[00:06:56] TM: And whose responsibility is it? Is that us as an industry that we need to be working together to find ways to get out in front of all of these companies? Or is it your responsibility as an agency? Is it your responsibility as an agency to sell your agency, or is it your responsibility as an agency to sell the entire affiliate marketing concept to them?

[00:07:16] And right now I feel like that’s what a lot of agencies are having to do. You’re having to go in there, not to say why you should represent them, but you’re having to explain to them why they should even be doing affiliate marketing. So I think there’s been just a lot of talk in this last year or two about what do we need to be doing better as an industry so that if we’re all working together to get that word out, it’s a whole lot easier for the agencies, the networks, then to go in and sell their particular company to these, to the C-levels of these brands.

[00:07:44] JF: I agree with that wholeheartedly. I still talk to a lot of our prospects and I would say 90 percent of the time we’re not selling JEBCommerce. We’re selling the affiliate channel and strategically looking at how it could benefit a brand. And if you do that well enough, then you earn their trust they go with you more naturally anyway.

[00:08:05] I would say 10 percent of the time they really know their stuff when it comes to affiliate and they’re looking for a very specific partner and then you’re selling yourself as an agency or as a network. I think networks fall into this as well. And being agnostic, we have obviously partners across all networks.

[00:08:20] I have a lot of great friends at the networks, and a lot of it’s a dual purpose. We might have a client wanting to launch with them or vice versa, and we’re almost teaming up to say, great, how do we really strategically show them what the channel can do together so that they can move forward.

[00:08:36] That’s, something that I think we’ll continue to face for a while. I’m not sure how we bridge that gap, but I do think we’re on the way there. Resources that I either didn’t know about or weren’t utilizing properly or new resources that have come out over the past, even five years, I think are really helpful.

[00:08:52] So you and I met earlier this year, officially face to face, I believe at either Affiliate Summit West or PI Live and then we saw each other consistently through other events

[00:09:02] TM: Yeah, it happened very quickly. It was like we didn’t know each other at all, and all of a sudden we were at all the same events for three months in a row.

[00:09:09] JF: Yeah, and to that point, I follow Martech Record. I followed the PMA prior, but wasn’t very involved in the PMA at the time and just checked out the newsletters that would come through. There’s Hello Partner, they put out some content. I obviously follow network content that comes out or different podcasts like this one but talk to me a little bit about specifically the PMA.

[00:09:32] As an agency, we’ve been part of the PMA for a long time now, but I got a lot more involved and my eyes were open with how much additional content there was and how many people I could pull from and really learn from out of the gate. So talk to me about how the, I guess the inception of the PMA, when that started and why it started and where you’re at now.

[00:09:52] TM: Yeah, so we are now a little over 16 years old, but when we started, we were singularly focused. There was always talk of need for an industry association, but there was the Internet tax issue that was happening back then, and so the group was really able to coalesce around that legal issue. And then we had a little bit of an identity crisis after that, I think, because we knew that we all still wanted to continue to work together and as an industry, we needed to continue to work together.

[00:10:18] But the entrepreneurial spirit of most affiliate marketing, whether it’s networks, agencies, publishers, led to a lot of disagreements about everything from tracking to toolbars to cookie stuffing. There were just so many disagreements that trying to come together and figure out, okay, where are the things that we all agree and where the things that it’s okay that we’re different because of competitive advantage or business practices or whatever.

[00:10:41] And so that’s where we’ve evolved now, where we do still keep an eye toward all those legal things that impact all of us. So the privacy laws, the FTC disclosure guidelines, things like that.

[00:10:52] We keep tabs on those because those are things that most people in the industry don’t have someone on staff to do that for them. So we take care of that for you. But then also just everything that’s going on in our industry and whether it’s Google changes to the algorithm and what happening to publishers, or it changes in tracking from when Apple did ITP, and we were trying to figure out what that was going to mean at the network level and for the publishers.

[00:11:14] And then the best practices and standards of things, like if you’re going to work with coupon sites, what kind of rules should you have in place? If you’re going to allow trademark bidding, what are some things that you want to take into account? So we’re not necessarily telling everybody in the industry, “These are the rules. These are things that you all have to do.”

[00:11:31] But we’re saying here’s the range of what affiliate marketing can look like. And then also trying to keep our finger on the pulse of what’s new in the industry. So you mentioned CTV and card link offers, those things that a lot of agencies don’t know a lot about yet because they are new publisher types that are up and coming.

[00:11:49] So we try to stay on the cutting edge of those as well so that you can just spend an hour coming to our webinar about retail media networks and finding out exactly what they are, how you would get involved with them, and then you make the decision whether this is a direction that you want to take your business or not.

[00:12:05] JF: Yeah, and that’s something I’ve definitely garnered stuff from. So for me personally, I don’t, I’m not a huge reader, even if I want to be. I’ll have a book I’ve been dying to read and it’ll take me the year to get through it. I’m just, I’ve never been someone who sits down with a book. Maybe it’s three kids at home.

[00:12:20] I never think there’s time to really sit and read. I like interaction, interactive learning through webinars, through conversation, through video tutorials, things like that. That’s how I grasp information and hold onto that. At least for me that’s been something beneficial.

[00:12:36] Do you feel like there’s enough of that out in the industry? The PMA, and I can speak to that because I’m on one of the councils, but there’s a lot of webinars that I personally watch that I join. Sometimes I’m a panel member, and then I look at kind of industry wide, there’s a few others that do some different live events, some podcasts, some webinars and things of that nature.

[00:12:55] I feel like for me, knowing where to look, it’s all over the place, but in terms of how it reaches brands and gets the message out, is there still a lack of that kind of gap in education and content?

[00:13:08] TM: It’s almost trying to drink from the water hose, like it’s just, there’s so much information constantly I feel, and sometimes it’s a matter of following the right people who pull those things together. I use a, feed like thing that like brings in all the different blog posts and all the news from, I get the JEBCommerce news every time you publish, when the FTC puts something out.

[00:13:29] So that I have a place that is all of that stuff is coming in, I can quickly filter through it. But then also like the FMTC newsletter where they do seven things this week that you need to know. I rely on going through all of those because there is so much and I’m not… I am more of a reader and less of a podcast or webinar person in terms of making the time for it.

[00:13:48] There was a Martech Record, something on Reddit this week that I really wanted to go to, but then I just thought to myself, “Oh, I can’t sit for an hour and watch that. I have so much work that I’m doing, I can’t sit.” And so I missed it and I shouldn’t have, because it was probably really great information, and for me, I would rather, though, be able to find like a transcript of that or a breakdown of what they said and quickly skim through it. So for the PMA, we’re starting to try now to find everybody where they are, understanding that. We did a webinar that we then had that live that people could come if they wanted to ask questions, but then we also put it up so that you could watch it later and you could watch it on a faster speed if you didn’t want to take it as long. But then we also turned it into a white paper for the people that do want to just read through everything and be able to quickly skim and hit the bullet points.

[00:14:32] So that’s what we’re trying to do now is to publish that content in different ways, understanding that there is so much out there and that people are trying to figure out what it’s worth spending their time on.

[00:14:43] JF: One thing I appreciate too, and whether it’s Martech, it’s you, Dustin Howes, I listened to some of his interviews that he does on LinkedIn, and again, there’s a lot of different forums in which I find information. As an agency, we, try to produce quite a bit of content. So we’re producing content around certain subject matters, certain topics. We’re trying to post out case studies where you run this podcast. There’s a lot of ways in which we produce content to get out there for everybody to hear.

[00:15:10] But we can’t do it all. And at least for me, I find it quite beneficial if a network has a really great article about, how cookie depreciation is going to affect a program or how these new FTC guidelines and a PMA webinar or something comes out a white paper that go over the legalities of these guidelines and how it affects the affiliate space. I don’t have to sit there and learn it to the depth that somebody else did. I just need to understand it, and I can use that content, and for those clients who have questions, say, “Hey, you know what, this is a great piece written by, Rakuten Advertising, or Awin, or Impact, or one of those other networks that really did a deep dive on this, or here’s a great piece from the PMA or Martech,” and I can just send them that link.

[00:15:51] So I do think it’s beneficial to have the additional content out there because A it’s good to be able to find that information when you’re not a subject matter expert, but B, it takes the pressure off of someone having to do all of it and all of us pitching in and really talking to what we’re experts on.

[00:16:09] And I don’t even like the word expert. We’ll go, experienced. That’s a much better word. I’ve never considered myself an expert, so I don’t know if that’s the word to use.

[00:16:18] TM: I agree. And even I find myself, when we do these PMA webinars, after every one of them, I walk away and I think, “Oh my gosh, how did I not know that? How did I not already hear about that? How did I not understand that before?” Because even sitting in on all of these councils that I sit in on all the time and reading everything that’s being put out, every time people have just an actual conversation where they’re a little more unguarded, they’re sharing, they’re giving tips, they’re telling war stories and things like that, you always learn more from them.

[00:16:50] And so my goal always with our panels is to try to have it be like, you’re sitting around a table with a bunch of people at Affiliate Summit, and you’re sitting there and you’re just sharing information and everybody’s paying attention. pitching in and you know what you want to talk about, but at the same time, everybody has an opportunity to say what they want to say, because I feel like that’s when you really learn from people is when people tell their stories of this is what we tried in this worked or didn’t work or “Oh, hey, did you hear so and so talking about they’re trying this?”

[00:17:15] I feel that you just learn so much from listening in on those conversations.

[00:17:19] JF: I do enjoy those formats. I have done webinars in the past and I’ve watched a webinar where there’s just the sole individual and they’re, doing kind of a presentation on a specific topic and you’ll learn something from that. And I’ve even been the presenter on a case like that, and I’ll tell you now, I’ll never do it again.

[00:17:36] I felt like A: I bombed, but then it’s all on your shoulders to present this as if you know how this runs, but even if I come into a webinar, if I am on the panel, which I have been in the past, even if I feel like I’m quite knowledgeable on that specific topic, there’s always a scenario that someone brings up a story or they bring up another viewpoint where you go, “Oh, I have not thought of it like that. Or, I didn’t think to bring that up today, but now I can add some more value to this conversation because they’ve sparked that idea.”

[00:18:07] So I do think that’s a really interesting format. I think I’ve learned to enjoy the fact that when I get off of those. I feel like I’m not as smart as I thought I once was.

[00:18:18] TM: That’s how I feel after every single PMA council call, like three times a week I come away and I think, “huh, how did I miss that?”

[00:18:25] JF: Yeah, there, there’s times I come off of something and I go, “okay, I barely kept up to look like I’m, I was supposed to be in that room. I’ve got to shape up a little more for the next one”, but I think that’s good. You need to be challenged and it forces you to learn and grow. So…

[00:18:38] TM: It does speak to the innovation in our industry, because this is not the kind of industry where you just sit down and you learn everything and you’re like, “okay, now I know how to be a publisher. Now I know how to run an agency”, and you go off and you do those things, because literally every single month there’s something new that happens.

[00:18:55] And all of those things that are happening are all new opportunities. When everything happened with the Google algorithm changes and, it’s really problematic for a lot of publishers and I feel bad for all the publishers that are struggling because of that, but at the same time, that was a time for all of the brands and the agencies to say, “okay, We have X amount of money. Maybe we should try this or we should try that. And we never have had the time to work with this type of publisher before. Maybe we should try to work with them a little bit more now.”

[00:19:22] Even when things go wrong in our industry, they end up going right for somebody else.

[00:19:28] JF: That is very true. And I think that’s what excites me about the industry. I’m never bored. And anytime I think I’ve got a lock on something, something new pops up, there’s a new category, or I’m just way behind the eight ball, which I try to make that a rare case, but I, remember being at, I want to say it was at Optimism’s event this year, and I was talking to Jim Nichols, very intelligent man, love that guy.

[00:19:51] And he started talking through, I think, a specific category, strategy, something about… I can’t even remember what it was at this point, to be honest, but he was speaking to it and he goes, “Jake, are you doing this for any of your clients?” And I just looked at him like, “Jim, I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

[00:20:07] So I think we need to have a side conversation about how this applies to affiliate and what the heck am I missing? And those are the moments where you think, man, do I know what I’m doing? But at the same time, it’s exciting because it gave me something to go home and “wow, I got to study up on something new I didn’t even know was an opportunity for us to look at for our clients.”

[00:20:25] And I think that’s exciting. I think it keeps things fresh and it keeps you, invested in what you’re doing and how you’re doing that for your brand. So I enjoy it quite a…

[00:20:34] TM: It’s people that are like that, the people that are the resources, and that you start to fill that trust circle for yourself. Jim being somebody that if I want something that’s a higher level things that are happening outside of affiliate, but that touch affiliate, things that CMOs might be talking about, Jim’s always my go to person for that.

[00:20:52] But then for something that’s, more technical with tracking or things like that, I’m going to go to Steve Brown and Chris Tradgett …

[00:20:59] JF: Oh, Moonpull is great for that.

[00:21:01] TM: Yeah, you start to build that network of people that not everyone knows everything, but you start to figure out who you can trust about all of the different topics within, and then when things come up, you know which people you can go to for those things.

[00:21:14] JF: Well and to circle back, that’s why there’s different resources like the PMA that are so great because it takes all of those more subject matter experts and it brings them together and you can you know run off of each other and throw ideas against the wall and see what sticks and get different feedback.

[00:21:32] So, I want to give our listeners who either don’t know about the PMA or have not joined yet: How does someone get started with a PMA?

[00:21:40] TM: The first thing to do is to sign up for our newsletter for free. Just go to thepma.org and sign up for the newsletter because once you get the newsletter you’ll start to have a better understanding of what we do week in and week out. You’ll see the white papers that we’re doing, you’ll get invitations to the webinars that we’re putting on LinkedIn, you’ll get an introduction to a lot of our members because we profile different members in different ways in each of our newsletters.

[00:22:01] So once you sign up for that you’ll start getting onto the list where you’ll get more information. Then you can sign up to join as a member. It’s a minimum, $250 a year is what gets you in and starts getting you benefits like being on our Slack channel, and discount codes and free tickets to conferences like Affiliate Summit and PI Live and Elevate Summit, deals with FMTC, all kinds of things like that.

[00:22:24] The Slack group and the councils are what I really consider the heart of the PMA, and you know why we convinced you that to really be an active member of the PMA, you have to join a council. Because once you join one of those councils, they each have a Slack channel, they each meet just once a month for an hour on Zoom, but that’s where you really start to get to know other members personally.

[00:22:44] And you’re having conversations that just start with, “okay, what’s new in affiliate marketing this month? Who went to the conference last week? And what can you report back about what your experience was at that particular conference? What kind of things do we as an industry need to be looking forward to over the next couple of months? And what can and should we be doing about that?” Those things.

[00:23:03] So once you’re able to start getting into those groups and having those conversations, then obviously you become part of the group that’s generating the great content and resources for everyone else. You’re helping with a white paper, you’re participating in a webinar, you might be on our panel at affiliate summit and different things like that.

[00:23:19] So you start out by just coming in and taking from us, take the resources, take the discounts, take everything until you feel like you’re ready to start sharing as well. And then whenever you’re ready, we’ll find the best place for you and get you into the councils and all the resources too.

[00:23:33] JF: And we will post a link when this episode goes out for people to join that newsletter to the PMA. I personally quite enjoy it. I think, one last note I’ll say, and I think anyone creating this kind of atmosphere when you’re on these council calls, when you’re on these webinars… when you’re separated from people in your industry to learn from, to grow with, and to all provide value to the industry together, you realize that while… obviously I run an agency and there’s plenty of agencies out there.

[00:24:04] There’s other agencies that are part of my council, part of the PMA that I interact with and instead of going in with that kind of we’re competitors outlook, you realize that we’re all here to try to provide value to this industry and there’s enough for all of us to win. We don’t have to compete in a cutthroat manner.

[00:24:21] We can do so in a manner where we all provide some kind of value to one another. And, there’s times I learned a great deal from folks that are at other agencies that are part of these councils and meetings, and hopefully they learned something from me. So I think it’s quite valuable.

[00:24:37] TM: It’s definitely about the sharing of the resources. Obviously everyone is competing in some way with each other, but when we get into the webinars and get into the councils and the different conversations that we have in person at our happy hours and things like that, it really is about how do we lift the entire industry?

[00:24:53] How do you help each other do something that maybe another agency doesn’t know how to do or what kind of resources, because there’s an understanding that there are a lot of problems that we can’t solve individually, we have to solve together. None of us are going to be able to dictate what happens with third party cookies in Google.

[00:25:09] None of us is going to be able to determine whether the federal government passes privacy legislation or not. None of us individually can do that. The only way that we can really make an impact is when we all start to work together toward common goals.

[00:25:21] JF: It’s one of my favorite phrases is all boats rise with the tide, and that’s basically the concept of how that works.

[00:25:28] So, fantastic. I have, I’ve loved having you on. I have one more question before we go, and this is an either or question on our industry and the channel. So what keeps you up at night about the industry?

[00:25:39] And this could be something exciting, positive, good, or something that’s not so positive. Then maybe is a little bit terrifying and something coming down the pike. Is there anything that keeps you up at night and makes you think, “Oh, this is something to definitely pay attention to?”

[00:25:53] TM: Everything in this industry keeps me up at night. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about Slack channels and Google spreadsheets with data on them. I would say what keeps me up is that I am always thinking about what we are doing next. There’s always something interesting happening and I always feel like I’m running to catch up.

[00:26:10] So I’m thinking, “oh, do we need to do a webinar about that? Do we need to do something about that? Oh, maybe we need to start working on a white paper for this. Maybe we need a whole new council to tackle this specific issue because lots of people are starting to talk about it.”

[00:26:21] For me, it’s more of the excitement of the industry that keeps me up because I feel like there’s always something new and I always want to be a part of whatever that new thing is.

[00:26:29] JF: Yeah, I, can understand that. There’s times I’ll write a piece of content, I’ll post it and think. I was a month too late on this. I don’t know if this is relevant. I need to catch up and figure out what’s something is more relevant than that was 30 days ago. And it’s so quick. but…

[00:26:44] TM: but you feel that way, but there are probably so many people that have still not heard of it, even after you have posted it. That’s the thing that you always feel like you’re behind, but when you start talking to other people, you realize you really are in the know. You really do have your finger on the pulse of what’s happening.

[00:27:00] There’s just so much happening so fast that even if you’re running with the, the top 10 to 20 percent, there’s still 80 percent of people that are behind you trying to catch up to where you are.

[00:27:10] JF: That is very true. And I don’t think that’s going to change about our industry. So for those listening who are might be new to affiliate, buckle up. Hold on. This is how it’s gonna work from now on. It’s not gonna change.

[00:27:21] TM: With a little hope, yes.

[00:27:23] JF: Yes. Yes. Always with a little hope. I really appreciate you coming on, Tricia. It’s great to see you. I will see you again soon, I’m sure. And that kind of wraps it up for this topic of the week. Thanks for joining the podcast.

[00:27:34] TM: Thanks so much.

[00:27:35] JF: All right. Have a good day.

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