Using automation and AI as part of affiliate marketing strategies: What we learned from the AffiliateINSIDER Amplify Summit
Tom Ollerton recently took part in an Expert Panel during the AffiliateINSIDER Amplify Summit, discussing how AI and automation can be harnessed to elevate marketing campaigns, including in affiliate marketing.
5 things we learned on the panel
The main focus of our discussion was how automation and AI can be used to help marketing strategies. Here are some of the main takeaways from it.
AI and automation are going to help marketers be more efficient. There is no way to compete with the data crunching speed of AI - so this is a powerful tool in the hands of brand and campaign managers. And there are huge benefits of automation, such as creating large numbers of ads at scale, or replicating essential information like training videos and re-using them as needed.
There is no option to remove the human element. Without human cognition, AI-generated content doesn’t quite work. Humans are multipliers when it comes to using AI in marketing and they cannot be completely made redundant. Training also needs the “human touch” to become immediately relevant and get the buy-in it deserves from trainees - although there are huge benefits to automating some training aspects, like short Loom videos detailing certain small tasks, which can be reused as often as needed.
Automation allows marketers to use “cheap media” such as social ads to inform them why their ads work. By creating multiple ads at scale and testing the creative that drives results, brands can then invest money into more expensive media, knowing that it will be effective thanks to the testing they’ve already benefited from.
Marketers need to become more technically aware. Marketers need to understand the benefits of automation for their jobs and how they impact their KPIs. As we gather more data and insight, we need to be more strategic and know what to do with it all, as well as where it best fits.
Automation cannot equal “lazy” behaviour. When automating outreach messages, responses from customer service chats, or any other type of consumer interaction, there is a real danger that the correct filtering hasn’t been applied or that it’s simply not personal enough. This can jeopardise brand image significantly, and is another argument for human inclusion in the long term.
Who are AffiliateINSIDER?
AffiliateINSIDER are on a mission to simplify affiliate marketing through their agency service, education, training, content and community. They seek to connect data, insight and expertise to help brands get consistent sales.
What was the AffiliateINSIDER Amplify Summit about?
During two days of presentations and interactive sessions, the AffiliateINSIDER Amplify Summit brought together experts from agencies across the marketing and digital spectrum. It was an opportunity to exchange ideas and knowledge on all things affiliate marketing, as well as on the top digital trends that marketers need to be aware of in 2022.
Automated Creative’s Tom Ollerton took part in the Expert Panel on Amplifying Marketing Strategies with Automation & AI, speaking alongside Katie King (UK Author and Founder of Zoodikers), Dustin Howes (Director of Partnerships at Grovia.io), and Alex Springer (RVP, Sales and Solutions, at Impact.com).
Find out more of what we discussed at the link here, or contact us to know more about how Automated Creative leverages these powerful tools to enhance marketing campaigns.
Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and will not be 100% accurate, but it gives you a good idea of what was discussed.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 0:06
Hi, everybody. Welcome back. We are live. And we are joined today by four experts on marketing automation and AI intelligence. So starting at the top, I'd like you all to introduce yourself starting with the lovely lady at the top of my screen.
Katie King 0:22
Thank you, Leanne. Great to be here, everyone. My name is Katie King, I'm a Londoner, but I've been living for a few years in very rural East Sussex, I have written a few books, I've spent my last five or seven, in fact six or seven years actually really immersed in the world of artificial intelligence and the impact it has on marketing. So the first book came out in 2019. And this latest book came out last week, and it's all about AI strategy. I've interviewed some of the big brands, loads of tech companies, politicians, all kinds of important people to really get to the nub, not sort of rah rah rah, but real detailed, best practice sharing methodologies, and insights about vendors and so on. So I've got lots of experience to share from that. I'm also on the all party parliamentary group looking at enterprise adoption of AI. And I've spent my whole 30 year career in marketing and in tech, and I run AI in business, which is a consultancy, and Zoodikers, a digital marketing agency. So that's a little bit about me.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 1:29
Thanks, Katie. Hi, Alex.
Alex Springer 1:33
So Alex Springer, I manage our sales and Solutions Architect teams for impact.com based out of our London office here, looking after our many efforts, spent the last number of years working primarily as on the solution side really helping implement a lot of our clients to use our partnership automation and affiliate automation tools, and also work very closely with our product teams and our clients to start incorporating AI where it makes sense automation, where it makes sense. And also to the areas where it doesn't, right and happy to talk about that some today.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 2:02
Awesome. Dustin.
Dustin Howes 2:05
Howdy, thanks for having me Lee-Ann. Dustin Howes here, Grovia.io. I manage content and partnerships. And here at Grovia we focus on recruiting the partners to your performance channels that will make a difference. Excited to be here. 12 years of experience in affiliate, very passionate about this field and pushing it forward spreading that good word about affiliate.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 2:32
Thank you so much for being here. And last but not least.
Tom Ollerton 2:37
Hey guys, how's it going? Thanks for inviting us to this panel. I'm Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative, we're on a mission to reinvent advertising using automation. And even though we haven't managed to fully reinvent it, yet, we've ended up a really interesting place where we act as a performance ad tech platform that also at the same time, acts as a research tool. So fundamentally, what we do is turn brands' impressions into intelligence.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 3:03
Love it. Okay. So before we get started, because there's a lot of ground to cover here today, I want to thank you all for being here. But I want to kick start the panel with a question that I'm most commonly asked, which is, why is marketing automation so important to digital and affiliate marketers? And what are some of the key ways that implementation of AI can change the way that we engage and convert with customers and affiliates online? I'm going to start with ladies first. Katie.
Katie King 3:29
Thanks, Leanne. Yeah, you're right, there's a really good question. I think it's, as a sector as a business discipline, sorry, rather than a sector, marketing, and sales are ahead of the pack, you know, in terms of taking advantage of some of these technologies. And the reason for that is, you know, we've had this digital journey for X years, and many sectors, financial services, retail are a bit ahead of the pack with that. But COVID Obviously transformed all of that and made all of us have to really get our digital footprint really up and running. So I think paving the way first of all, was that we have to be digital. And then I think the main point really is it's keeping up with trends, and really personalizing customer experience at scale. And I think there's a greater expectation, because of all of this digitization that we will do that. And the AI machine learning, you know, without getting really technical is able to crunch that data. And, you know, in one of my early my early book, I had a whole chapter on personalization at scale and the paradox, because we think technology is going to mean you know, we aren't going to be able to we lose that human touch, but actually human being with you know, affiliate marketer, you know, whatever, whoever that person is, armed with the right tools can really drill down and get much, much more granular and I think that can then have a massive impact on sales or marketing on CX. And that's what I focused a lot more on in this recent book. So it's freeing up that time for the human worker, you know, enabling them to focus in on content on strategy, and you know, able to optimize that journey. Really.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 5:17
Yeah. And, Alex, I'm gonna come to you next, because your tool is phenomenal with marketing automation, especially in building affiliate programs, and we use your tool as well in our agencies. So I want you to talk a little bit about how you guys are seeing automation in the affiliate space.
Alex Springer 5:35
Sure, and I'm glad you've found value. And that's, it's always good to hear, I think the trick for us is automating any marketing channel. And personalizing inside of it can be tricky, because you have so many, to Katie's point, right, got so many people are trying to reach out to and in personalization at scale, it's really difficult. And affiliate in particular, you're not just personalizing to the customer. But you also now have partners that this really broad definition like affiliate applies to a lot, right partners a lot, you need to have a different personalization strategy for each of them. You're working with individual bloggers that have their own personal site, and you're working with giant companies that have been doing this for decades. And so being able to apply the right levels of automation to each of those becomes really important for working and about your site, your maybe just automating the latest performance reporting, as well as the vouchers and the creative and that kind of mix needed automation to a long tail of bloggers or to a set of influencers, that sort of thing means something completely different, right and keeping those engagements in place. So again, as Kay mentioned, right, we're working on how we get automation to the point where you can have individuals able to work in the way that they should, which is creatively and uniquely for each scenario, while removing the administrative work. But then also surfacing opportunity earlier than humans naturally, it can, I think, is a big part of it. The last aspect of that, too, is thinking about using automation to meet customers where they are. Again, I'm biased, but I think affiliate partnerships are really good at that particular, do you think we still do things like put billboards up on highways that say next exit stop here for food, right, and you're meeting that customer exactly when they might be both hungry and have the capability to pull off and buy stuff. But now that we're all digital world online, those billboards are now everywhere, right. And that checkout point, is no longer that one exit was for restaurants, it's everything on the internet. And so personalizing to the journey that got someone to seeing that message is even more important. And it's nearly impossible to do that at scale with without automation.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 7:38
Now, I want to just quickly go to Dustin, because I know you've got a really cool tool called Grovia data. It helps brands find partners that they need to be engaging with and working there. But you've also got really good insights on how to manage those partners. So tell us a little bit about how you guys are using automation in your business. Oh, you need to unmute yourself.
Dustin Howes 8:05
Yeah, you know, automation in the affiliate channels is kind of in infancy level in some kind of aspects. So the tools are getting better every single day and, and we're definitely pushing the envelope here. grovia. But I think more importantly is it brands having their automation in place before getting the affiliate channel involved is super important. So I've managed a lot of programs in the past and early on my consulting days, I remember the companies coming to me way too early before opening an affiliate program and they need to be automating things like retargeting campaigns and drip email campaigns before they get into the investment of of the affiliate journey because when affiliates driving that good traffic that is neesham coming to that website they need to know that that traffic is being taken care of and that it's going to convert and the EPC is going to be high and those numbers pop out to affiliates and that's how you get up and listicles and and higher rankings so I mean there's there's just so many things you need to be doing and automation before investing in the affiliate channel. And then once you get to that affiliate channel, it makes the brand so much easier to promote to the affiliates to get them from their eyes to get them to accept to join the program. So with tools like Grovia, we're definitely you know, helping people get there faster and grow those programs faster and but we we tend to take not take on clients nearly as much because of the brands need to be doing all the right things before before we can be extremely successful growth program.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 10:03
Absolutely. Now I want to flip it on its head because, Tom, I want to bring you into this conversation because you're doing some really interesting stuff that paid media and using automation and AI to improve those things. So can you tell us how you're seeing more marketing automation and AI implemented on the paid channel?
Tom Ollerton 10:21
That's a big question. But thanks for asking it. I mean, ultimately, what automation can do in a paid environment is improve the speed and scale of what it is that you're trying to do. Like, those are the kind of the deliverables if you like, but using the right way, what you can do is remove the guesswork and hunches behind your advertising. Typically, when you had one or two ads or assets, and one media line, people are just having to make their best guess. So you do some research, and they do some research. And some will report an insight, which is also known as a guest. And then that is that guests would go into a creative brief, someone would make a creative idea. And then they would go out to the media agency and media agency with like Petalite mad to make sure the right people were seeing that, that sequence of guesses. Whereas with automation, like you can make as many ads in as many different dimensions, format sizes, whatever lengths, the one in seconds, you don't need to make that big bet anymore. So what you can do is now approach that audience strategically, and start to ask them a much broader range of questions, you can create hypotheses about the audience and start to test lots of different things, then you get the data back, and you're essentially able to get to a point where you know why your ads work. And that's our whole thing. That's what makes us really excited, nerdy, weird way that we tell brands, why their ads work. Whereas currently kind of up to this point, they didn't they knew which ads worked. They didn't really know why. Once you know why your ads work, then you can do the clever thing, which is you use the cheap media, display, social, etc. To inform the expensive media. So someone was talking about digital out of home, instead of having that like massive billboard with, you know, fingers crossed? Well, that's the right line, you know, it's the right line, because you've been testing. Not only a huge feat and scale, but with a strategic and methodological approach to making ads. So it's fundamentally changed the space.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 12:13
Yeah. I mean, ultimately, this is all leaning towards because I mean, I got into the internet, like two decades ago, we had the old regular iPhones, okay, there I was, with my dial up modem hanging out on the internet, figuring out what is the space, and I use my phone at exactly the same time. But, you know, we used to do a nice to do massive media campaigns, you know, like 12 million a year and things like that. But I never had the granular detail that we have now due to marketing automation. And ultimately, it's all about getting, you know, the most eyeballs for your spec. And having technology for those, you know, backing your marketing to do that is incredibly important. Now, I want to ask you guys, because because all of you touched on this a little bit and actually came up in our previous panel. We're saying that marketing automation is a key part or key components of improving your business, engagement, conversion, whatever it is, however, you're using AI, but do you guys think that it's actually going to replace humans at some point in the future? Because we are moving incredibly fast. But my feeling is no. And I wanted to kind of put that to you guys, as the experts.
Katie King 13:24
It depends on timing. I think if we extrapolate if we jump forward, you know, 50, even 100 years, maybe, you know, nobody really knows. But all of the you know, I'm talking MIT, some of the leading analysts houses, major brands, tech disruptors, scientists, nobody I interviewed thinks that the human is going to be replaced. So no, I don't believe so. I think it's changing. It's changing the nature of the work we do. So I think it depends on the job. You know, if you're in a really manual job, then yes, huge percentages of what you do will be replaced. But I think marketing professionals will just have, you know, in the affiliate space, especially will need to be much more technically aware. That doesn't mean they need to know how things work. But they need to have a strategy. They need to know the benefits, they need to know the impact on the KPIs, the timings, the bits that they can do the bits that can be automated. And I think essentially, you know, as Tom was just stating there, we are becoming much more scientific. We're taking away that guesswork, and therefore we are becoming more value add more strategic, we've got more insights, but we need to know what to do with them. And to do that we need to have a strategy we need to know what problem are we solving? How do we differentiate? What's the competition like, uh, not waste money on tools that are untried or just aren't going to benefit? You know, our affiliate base, our you know, set of different stakeholders.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 14:59
That's a very important point. And Alex, I'm going to come to you and Dustin on that, because you both have tools, what is the expectation of clients for you guys to develop these tools so that they are kind of idiot proof because we can have all the tools and I'm I am one of these people on my team will be sticking their hands up going, please don't let us buy another SAS product. Because I have them all. And I use them all. And I love them all. But you know, how are developers actually looking at marketing AI and AI intelligence to make their tools easier for marketers to use?
Alex Springer 15:36
I think, I'll do a little bit on a previous question and answer that one. But yeah. Like AI currently, right is is not very good at thinking sideways. And it's only good at answering the questions that you're kind of initially asking. It's not good at coming up with the right question, if you haven't asked it that right. A lot of ways. And I'm sure there are examples where we've got some experimental stuff that's different than that. But I think the problem that I tend to see is that you get folks that are still saying, How do I get more conversions? That's the question I want to ask me is the highest converting, but they're not asking the question. That is how do I get more high value conversions, and then defining a high value conversion and having enough data to back it to feed the machine learning model in the first place? To even get it to answer that question, right? So there's a lot of like, we're just automating towards basic stuff. And that AI and machine learning all the rest is really good at getting you there. But then you're still not getting results. You're saying what am I? What am I doing wrong? Right? So for me, the people come in to say, well, we need to adjust the inputs, or we need to adjust the question that we're asking, in order to get the value closer to what's real value, right? Is it more of lifetime value? Is it repeat customers new business like those things? Yeah. So we're we're focusing on building tools is to say, where do we expose more data? And how do we get it in an automated fashion to the people who can start asking the right questions from it right? Even better? How do we make it start showing up red or green here and given this as the flag to start thinking further about that. But until we find a way to take a natural language business goal, and then automatically translate it into hard numbers that we can then put data into, there's always gonna be the human component of interpreting, like, what is my business need at a certain stage of growth in a certain market? And then how do I build on top right, that's where our tools were kind of focused on supporting.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 17:30
And Dustin, what about you, because I know you guys have a lot of like learning and training development tools as well in your business. Talk to us a little bit about how you using that.
Dustin Howes 17:40
Well, perfect cliche for this as you can lead a horse to water, you can't make him drink, everybody that tries our technology and is going to be baffled by it a little bit and taken back. And people are lazy, like he any tool that you go out and buy, and you've got to really teach them how to use this. But you have to make sure you set up exact 30 Minute Calls to actually walk or hold their hand during that. And I don't know if there's ever going to be an automation situation for that where you can't have a human that's actually empathizing with them and their their difficulties to learn and accept what this tool can actually do for them. In other aspects, I think it's crazy not to think that automation is going to take over and, you know, 10 years, I think back five years, to some of the things some of the practices that I was using, and how on automate that they are and then go to the tools today. And I just keep taking the best tool on the market. And wear it down for a couple of years. And then something else comes along. And I'm switching over to that. So like I'm just going around with whoever's got the best and the brightest tool right now. I don't know what the future is in 10 years, like, for example, content spinning. Like there are some terrible products five years ago like this, this doesn't sound like a human writing. But nowadays, like word AI is, is doing incredible work almost as good as me writing a copy. And in five years, it's gonna be better than me. I know it is. And that's going to help my job immensely. But we're not there yet.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 19:37
Yeah. And, Tom, from your perspective, I mean, you're seeing, obviously, on the paid side, right, we spend is very, very important. Like what are some of the improvements that you're seeing with the right marketing and AI tools in place in terms of like budgets? Like, are you seeing massive differences with the AI technology that you're using?
Tom Ollerton 19:55
Yeah, well, we wouldn't be a business if it weren't really to be honest. So I think the important thing and you touched on it at the start of this section is, will AI steal our jobs? Which is an old question. But what the way we see it is that the humans are the the multiplier. So, yes, there is lots of powerful copy generating AI out there. And yeah, you can, you can definitely get an AI to write a blog post for you. But the fact that the machine doesn't actually understand what it's talking about, I think is really worrying. And if you take the human cognition and or any cognition really out of a process, you are removing the, arguably the most important thing. And I think a really good example of this is, you see, we've all got Gmail on your phones, or some of you will have and if you start, like typing in a sentence like Google will fill it in for you to a degree, if you say, Oh, see, you know, right next week, think about all of the text based data that Google have, right? I don't know, probably unmatched anywhere, I would have thought. And yet, yet, the best thing it can suggest is See you next week. It's not like I write "Dear Susan" and then it writes a beautifully written sales message, for argument's sake. So, so, so going "Ah great, well just automate everything" removes the key thing, which is the cognition. So artificial intelligence is not actual cognition, it's just doing like a cool thing. It's taking what appeared before, and re mixing it in a new way that may or may not serve your outcome. So yes, of course, you can automate all of your blog posts, but how you want to represent your business, having a company that is not even thinking about the reader and automating everything. So for us, we get humans to do the things that they're really good at. The gentleman mentioned it before the thinking sideways thinking tangentially in combination with automation, that's really good at doing lots of very small things very quickly.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 21:55
Yeah, agree with that. We've actually had a question come in. So if there are any questions about marketing automation, now it's time to ask people, one of the questions that we've had is customers tend to see AI as a data collector require GDPR compliance? Is it possible to run AI with the customer believing that they're actually talking to a human has have either any of you seen that starting to take us I know, I've, and we actually spoke about this in a previous panel as well, I've seen really good AI tools that can generate content that is super believable in like a third of the time that you would take to write it is there anybody doing anything like that right now that you guys know, are?
Tom Ollerton 22:35
Actually on, I do a podcast called the Shiny New Object, which is, I interview marketing leaders about the future of industry. And I see I was interviewing a guy called Rustom Dastoor who's the VP of integrated marketing, and comms for North America and MasterCard. And what he was talking about is, brands should be loyal to consumers. And the phrase he used, I've got written down here is brands need to be generous. And I think if you're, if you're providing a service via chatbot, or whatever, where you've got like an automated system, and you haven't declared that that's kind of the opposite of generous, you're kind of hoodwinking, and his points that is greatly a long term relationship. You starting a long term relationship, every time you speak to a consumer or sustaining, you're not there to exploit them. Whereas if you've got a chunk out goes, Hi, I'm Jerry, and you're like, BS, chatbot machine, and then the, then the user finds out about it. Like that's, that's not generosity, that's not building. So I think it's about yes, if you're gonna use these AI tools, just be transparent about it. You're speaking about you speak to a human.
Katie King 23:38
And you're meant to be, aren't you? I mean, there are clauses. There are some clauses in GDPR. About that transparency. So you know, we do and the law is catching up and the regulations are all catching up. I mean, it's look, it's still not there it digital media, let alone AI and some of the automation we're talking about. But you know, GDPR does have that there. And I completely agree from from a trust point of view. Yeah, big point there.
Alex Springer 24:08
Sorry. It's a quick one. I think it's like there's if you have a human, then you say that, but I'm gonna interact differently based on what a human can do. If you say it's a bot that I'm going to start expecting quicker turnaround times on answers, I know that there's going to be like questions I don't ask, right. I think there's a level of automated interaction that is actually beneficial to not be with a human. If we change the question to which of those like I want the automated phone system that lets me get where I want to go rather than getting transferred three times for human operators.
Katie King 24:36
The AI being used in CX at the moment for some of the banks and so without quoting names of vendors, or necessarily the brands is really poor. I'm shocked at how frustrating it really is, you know, narrow AI really is what where we're at at the moment with a lot of this and it's got a long way to go for us to really be able to, you know, utilize that you know, so supposedly, Gartner says 85% of Call Center activity will be handled by these agents. I think there's a long, long way to go on that for that to be really, really effective and not, you know, put our brands in jeopardy.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 25:13
And I think that's a really good question that's just come in here as marketers on the ground, what is the best way to create a sense of urgency to use AI at C level? Like, is there an awakening that's happening at C level in big brands that are understanding the need for this technology? But also, are they doing or the considerate approach because, like you said, you know, there's absolutely no value in having a first touch point or the customer where they don't get the result that they need or want, because they're dealing with a bot that's ill equipped to deal with their transaction or inquiry. And the same goes for, you know, using marketing automation tools to reach out to affiliate partners. My my pet peeve at the moment is, have you even looked at my website where you asked me to be your, I don't sell plates? Like, yes, I'm in affiliate marketing, but I don't sell clothes while he contacted me. And that's just lazy behavior. And I think that's what we need to be watching out for, is we don't want to automate to the point where we're not actually being authentic with our brands. So what are some of the pieces of advice that you can give to marketers that are listening that want to get automation into their businesses for the right reasons? I don't really know how to have that conversation with the C level suite to get the budget on investment.
Katie King 26:19
I think particularly post pandemic, the C suite need the education, of course, that has to be handled sensitively, because we can't be dumbing it down to making them think, you know, feel sort of that they are, you know, being preached to like that. And then it's very junior. So I think it's education, I think it's upskilling, I think it's them seeing the big picture of of the strategic impact, rather than just a demand by a group of people that are yet another tool that's going to be obsolete in six months, a year. So I think you need to start with the bigger picture. And I think there have been readied for it because of the past year or so. I think you have to show that you have, you know, knowledge of the people that you use, the vendors that you use, obviously get marketing automation, but they have some level of knowledge of your sector to that they become subject matter experts and that you're working with the right people who can again, take that C suite exec on that journey. So for me, it's about strategy. It's about return on investment. It's about educating them.
Alex Springer 27:28
I coach a lot of salespeople on not the automation or AI specific, which is exactly that question, right? Like almost every salesperson wants to get buy in from the customer C level. And I think at the end of it, it's right, I'd like to think we have the most advanced marketing, partnership, automation technology that's available. And that really matters to someone who's using it, it doesn't really matter to the C suite, it could be a horse and buggy for all that matters, right? What matters is some combination of does it decrease risk? Does it increase revenue? And does it somehow decrease cost more, or any of the three, I think if you can translate it up into that level, it helps it's a really cool technology. And you can get the right people excited about like the tool. But at that level, it just needs to translate back to one of those kind of main drivers for the business, the outcome that they're looking for.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 28:18
Unless you get lucky, and you're talking to me, in which case, I love every SAS product that gets
Alex Springer 28:21
Exactly, if someone's a bit of a geek and loves to play with it. So I guess... Great.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 28:27
Dustin, what about you, because first of all, I know it's very early in the morning. So thank you very much for being there. For everybody that's watching. It's about 4am for Dustin. So he is well on his way today. But I know that you're doing like a lot of stuff with, you know, marketing automation with Bas, and you've had a lot of success with that in terms of training, you know, graduates to actually do functions that become more cost efficient for your clients. So do you want to tell us a little bit about those projects?
Dustin Howes 28:57
Yeah, I I'd say, you know, automating isn't the end all and in the training, at least in this point, you can you can set up training courses and and automatically put people through them then you're taking up the human aspect of motivating people to finish it. I've heard like a terrible stat with training courses that people take where only 10% of people finish them to the end like complete the and without holding their hand and courses like you and I that that we do to train affiliate managers without having them come to a meeting and actually talk to them. I can't see that really getting to the finish line and automated kind of fashion and the you know, that's job security for us for training the future, which is great. In terms of what you know, like grovia is doing I mean, I, I try to automate the smallest portions of each individual tasks by doing loom videos like I record loom videos on a very consistent basis. Any little tasks that I have done people at the company, you're going to come to me and say, Hey, how do you do this, I make a three minute video, I send it out. Now I have that staff for the future. And that's as close to automation as I can get is copying and pasting the link at this point to train our staff to get better at their job. And goes the same with virtual assistants. If you get a smart virtual assistant to do the little tasks that you can't stand to do or don't have the time to do some quick videos to explain that on the first time. And then smart people are just going to pick it up and hire smart and you're going to be doing okay, but I haven't found, you know, you find these incredible scraping tools that just keep on getting better, so much better than they were 510 years ago when we were having to grind this kind of workout to recruit affiliates in the programs.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 31:13
But I think that's also a very key point because the next generation of digital marketers coming in actually have a lot easier than what some of us oldies did. I think they're missing out on a little bit of like knowledge base and education as to why we do things the way that we do. And, Tom, I want to come to you because I'm very keen on understanding how paid media is going to change in the future. Like, do you still need to have basic media buying skills like is that to the point where anybody can come in and work now, because automation is available,
Tom Ollerton 31:48
I think you're going to need way more than that. I think you're going to be need hiring people that are sort of proficient in both creative and media. And so we're we're finding that we're providing a technology that the people we're both mindsets are using, I think in the old school, so automation, things like oh, just give us some images and give us some copy lines. And we'll just moronically crank through them. I think those days are going because the people who made that technology don't really care about what goes in. Whereas we're in a situation now where we're bringing a performance style technology to brand campaigns, and bringing brand to performance. So it's a it's a kind of crossing over of those two skill sets. So really, like if I was a CMO, I, I'd be hiring someone that, you know, could talk about, like, you know, the granular workings of Facebook business manager, but also, what was their favorite campaign? And why and what, you know, what were the psychological triggers that were being used in, in that ad. So I think that having those sort of, like disparate skill sets will won't be as valuable as having people who actually love both, and can talk both those languages.
Katie King 32:57
I agree. And an extra point to that, as well, Yan is that this might be a bit contentious, but I think it really flattens hierarchies, and is a real opportunity for younger people. So we're, you know, we're showing our age talking about, you know, analog, and, you know, dial up modems, and so on. But you, if you can grasp the tools, if you understand the strategy, if you know how to deal with clients, I don't think you need to go through and have had 10 years experience or X years experience, I think that actually there'll be real opportunities for the younger generation to differentiate and to be very skilled up on a range of different tools. And therefore to add real value much more quickly than we might have allowed a more junior person to do a few years back.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 33:47
Totally agree with that.
Alex Springer 33:49
Also, data we have access to now is a better teacher than almost anything else that didn't get so like the main skill, I think it's important for almost every role marketer sales, like customer success, like being able to take data and ask initial questions of it is gonna take you a lot further than almost anything else, right, obviously, like being able to have that idea of what are the psychological triggers? Why did they work and all that stuff is really kind of key. But if you can pull that into say, right, I've got a wall of data, let me ask a few questions. And like start interrogating the tools you're using and that sort of thing. And every job to kind of retrain into that job, no matter what skill set you have going into it. To me, I've seen the most successful people who can do that quickly. They might migrants impacts get a lot more data than they had before spend the first month going, Okay, let's ask the right questions. Right. And that's when programming take off. Yeah, that's the kind of thing
Katie King 34:40
And let's reassure people listening in here as well. This is not you having to be a technical person to succeed in marketing. This is not about that. You know, I haven't I've written two books. I haven't studied a degree in data science or computing or it. I'm talking about the application of that If you're talking in your use of these tools about, what's our strategy, which tools are we going to use? How are we going to improve the customer experience? How are we going to personalize, you don't need to know how the tool works. So just wanted to just make sure people aren't getting worried that they're all going to have to go and, you know, learn technology train necessary.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 35:20
I don't think we're at the point where we're going to have an in every single aspect of our business. I mean, right now, I think I read a report by McKinsey Global Institute that they reckon AI marketing is going to grow by almost 50%. And the tools that they're using every day, are going to become much more likely standards, you know, like, it's not just about chatbots. Now for customer service, we're looking at marketing automation for sending out emails that are bespoke, that are personalizing, that are triggered on certain actions even in the backend, I mean, the gaming industry, has that licked absolutely linked right down to the very kind of like, when last you played and what you did so. And I love, I love what Tom saying about the psychology behind why did you like that ad, let's do more of those things that resonate with you. Because I think and you know, we've read a lot about Gen Z and how we need to engage with customers online, and also with our affiliates as well. People want to be connected to brands that understand them. And using marketing automation and artificial intelligence to get that information that they just said. And then having no people ask those questions is incredibly important. So thinking about that, and thinking about the fact that we we are at this point now where it cannot be ignored, we are going to see more of marketing automation tools and AI infiltrate into the marketing and affiliate space. Do you think that increased rate of adoption in business and growth will continue? Like that fast, rapid rate? Or do you think we're in that phase now where it's going to grow quick? And then sort of future off? And if so, how should digital and affiliate marketers be preparing their business, their people, their brands to align with these new digital tools that we're going to be working on?
Katie King 37:00
I think it has to, because otherwise people are going to get left behind. So that number will grow because people will see what their competition are doing. You know, the end customer or client is going to see what somebody else hasn't going to want more of it. So I think inevitably, yes, it will grow, how fast is a different matter? And how do we respond to that? It's all the things that we've said already. It's, it's education, and that and I don't mean, necessarily going on courses, it's your own self, you know, putting thinking about your career and thinking about, you know, how am I going to keep up as a marketeer, but as an organization, thinking about the tools that we use and the benefits of them making sure that we continue to add value and to innovate? So I think, you know, for me, they would be
Lee-Ann Johnstone 37:52
Yeah, what are some of the places that people can go to to learn more about this, Katie, because I know you've done a lot of research?
Katie King 37:57
Yeah, yeah, good question. So well, these kinds of summits, of course, books like mine, you know, listening to like, you've already quoted McKinsey being up to speed with what you know that the marketing press is saying what the analysts are saying, looking at the tools that are out there, you know, I get lots of feedback from people that it is a bit of a wild west, and people worry that where do you know who do I know how to, you know who to turn to. So I think it's doing a bit of due diligence, it's talking to some of the companies that have those tools and understanding success rates, understanding their track record, looking at, you know, again, could be a bit contentious because we know that there are Gartner Hype cycles and magic cycle circles and what have you. But we also know that you can sort of buy your way into certain things. So I think you just have to go and do your research, maybe your trade buddy, your industry, buddy publications in the space, you know, these kinds of summits are good places to go and get introduced, maybe do a free trial, you know, not just go and invest in a very tactical way. But you're a really get to grips with it.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 39:13
I mean, Alex, I want to call on you a little bit because I know that Impact has media rails plugged in, which is also a really useful tool. What are the differences that you're seeing between clients that are using them and clients that aren't? I mean, is there any real disparity at this point? Is that Is it just dependent on the brand or the people that they have working with?
Alex Springer 39:30
A good question. So just for a general it is a layout for a sales pitch, but I mean, it really doesn't to get to main areas that probably each have a slider. So one is around communication with partners and one is finding the partners in the first place. So where the AI aspects of machine learning aspects become really useful as finding partners to work with and so you're saying things like, these are the parameters looking forward as the kind of depart or the type of language the audience they sorry, publisher size or type, that sort of thing. And then getting long list, depending on parameters from that, they are then able to sort through. That's where that kind of recommendation engine stuff can be really useful. But I think where we see a really big difference is in then what you do with that, and the communication. So obviously, the brands that aren't using materials to hunt for new partners are missing out on what could be a really big kind of mid or long tail. But if you're not going to use the automated messaging, if you're not going to use automation to manage those partners, then you're better off missing out on that, longtail because they're just gonna die on the vine, right? There's no, there's no one looking after. So the brands that are really making a difference in their programs are taking the communication tools and saying how do I use automation in communication? Well, right mail merge is, I think, probably still a bad word, right. But it's a good idea that was really badly executed, was used to just stick in at first name, right, as opposed to like, get an automated message, I get a lot of them from every company I've ever subscribed to. I don't want it to pretend to be my friend. I want it to give me important information, it's going to help me in that moment. So if we can automate messaging departments that includes things like recent performance data, or you did x with this product last year, and we're launching something new, and your contracts gonna change. And here's the new creative. Like if you can automate that sequence, and then use the AI or machine learning to apply it to the partners that it applies to. As a partner. I open that up, but it's cool, right? It's like great. I know, next week, I do this on my site, how much I earned last year what I missed if I don't, it's much better than newsletter that as a first name. Yeah, yeah. Again, personalization being use, right, like at the other day, favorite color doesn't mean...
Lee-Ann Johnstone 41:48
We haven't even touched on kind of like automation on payments, because let's face it, I mean, Dustin? Yeah, you, having managed multiple different affiliate programs, you know, payments was a big deal right and Tipalti are sponsoring this session. So I do want to talk about the fact that they there are massive moves to automate payments, and to make it a lot easier for all programs to manage. But as we wrap up the session, now, I want each of you to give us one big key nugget of advice on how digital and affiliate marketers can really amplify their performance using marketing automation in a clever way. As we as we look forward to this year, on the paid side, if you can give us one big nugget of advice that we can take away from the session today.
Dustin Howes 42:30
You got it. You know, I think in the affiliate realm, it's it's kind of its infancy for automation, they aren't nearly as adaptive as the brand side of things. And I think that's going to be a huge change in the coming years here were just take, for example, like pop ups are kind of hot right now. But pop ups are traditionally just like lead gen, hey, sign up for my newsletter, I'll give you all the cool information. But if you really break that down and use things that are granular to the page that the consumer is reading on, and you have an ad for some kind of, you know, lead gen that that is pertaining to that exact page, we can put them into a completely different funnel of a drip campaign. And only the best and brightest affiliates out there are utilizing that right now. And teaching that general public to adapt to that is going to be common practice coming in. Coming in hot. As far as I can see.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 43:42
Get on I think I learned about funnels and Legion.
Katie King 43:47
What I would say is with that in mind as well, Lee-Ann, is we're talking about strategy, we're talking about creativity, we need to make this a process. So what I would say to bring this into habits, and make this part of not a 1, 3, 5-year plan, but part of our more immediate six month plan for the way we do our marketing is is kind of a watching brief. So you know weekly meetings, you know monthly meetings, someone is you delegate to somebody in the team, the task of going out there, being curious, keeping tabs, having a watching brief on the competition on the tools on the market, bringing some of those into the spotlight having demos, but that the kind of I guess the key words I'm saying there is is the journey of continuous learning and that watching brief that is it becomes part of your ongoing modus operandi. That's what I would say to make it less of a I've got to read this book. I got to do that tool. Oh, but there's 1000s of tools. Let's make this part of our journey and make it part of our process every week.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 44:57
I love that because I do think like we need to be investing more in self development as digital marketers to keep abreast of all the things that are changing. Tom, what about you? What do you think of one nugget of advices that you would give to digital marketers that are listening to this panel today to amplify the performance of marketing automation?
Tom Ollerton 45:15
Well, I saw a TikTok from Elon Musk at the weekend, an interview about something, he just basically said, most businesses optimize the thing that shouldn't exist. And what that means in a marketing context is you can use automation to work out what works, and don't optimize the thing, the message, the image, the channel that shouldn't exist in the first place. So you don't have to guess you don't have to make your best bet anymore. What you can do is use automation to create hypotheses about your audience learn what they want from you as a brand, and then optimize that as opposed to use it using automation to polish a turd at scale.
Katie King 45:58
Yeah.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 45:58
I love that. I love that. And Alex, what about you? What's your key points of advice that you want to give to digital marketers listening to that?
Alex Springer 46:07
I think the well not biting your tongue is a really good one, right? Like making sure that what before you hit the automation button, making sure that it's pointed at something that you want. And that is actually what you're looking for. But also, there's a applying this kind of programming development idea of don't repeat yourself, right, you'll see this list is going dry programming ever. Like if you're doing in the same thing, like resizing an ad 17 times, once a day, maybe call a company that might help you with that thinks one of the school could help you with that, right? Like if you're running the same report and pivot tables over and over again, just to put outputs out there. Like those are the activities that you can start to not just go buy a tool for, but think about what can I streamline? What can I mean, we've got such a plethora of tools that are free and paid, that there's usually a way to at least start proof of concept, automate something. And then once that works, come talk to in fact, right talk to someone who's got like a really heavyweight automation tool. But you don't have to wait for that procurement process to finish to start using some automation.
Lee-Ann Johnstone 47:08
Yeah. Okay, guys, it has been my pleasure to host you on this panel today. Thank you so much for sharing all of your nuggets of wisdom from the various parts of the digital industry that you're all working in. It sounds like we're all gonna have our jobs cut out for us this year. But the main thing is that we want digital marketers to be thinking about how do they implement marketing automation in a consistent and authentic way, and to invest that time for their own development and learning but also to educate up at the C level. So using some of the tools and tips that you guys have given yesterday. It's been my pleasure to host you all here. And thank you so much for your time, and thank you to all people helping to bring this panel together. It's been a pleasure to have you. Thank you very much. Pleasure. Bye, everyone.
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