The Affiliate Marketing Podcast

What happens when the biggest threat to your publishing business is also buried inside the data you're not looking at? 
Jorge Barbosa of wecantrack, joins Lee-Ann to talk about what is actually happening to publishers right now, why most of them are flying blind without realising it, and what the ones who are thriving are doing differently. The conversation covers HCU updates, AI overviews cannibalising traffic, the overlooked relationship between affiliate managers and publishers, and why EPC broken down by traffic source might be the most important number in your business that you're not tracking.

Talking Points Include:
The visibility gap most publishers don't know they have and why logging into your affiliate network reports is not the same as understanding your business
How one publisher shifted from 80 percent organic to 80 percent paid traffic over four years and grew overall revenue in the process
Why AI overviews are changing the user journey in ways that affect affiliate managers just as much as publishers and what you should be doing about it depending on who your audience actually is
The case for affiliate managers paying for their top publishers' tracking tools and the commercial intelligence that comes back in return

Listen to Find Out More About:
Why EPC by traffic source and landing page is the one metric Jorge always leads with in demos, and what it reveals that network reports never will
How big publishers use automated link testing and monetisation scripts to protect revenue at scale without adding headcount
The LLM tracking feature wecantrack is building that measures how often an AI model is crawling your content, not just mentioning it
Why affiliate marketing as a side hustle is the myth that drives Jorge mad, and what the industry actually looks like when you pull back the lens
What the successful publisher looks like in 2027, in one sentence
Why publishers building a brand rather than just a website is the single most important strategic shift happening in the industry right now

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:
[02:00] The pain points publishers are dealing with right now: HCU losses, AI overview traffic cannibalisation, and why most are still guessing about where their revenue comes from
[06:50] A live demo reality check: the publisher who thought YouTube was irrelevant until the data showed it was their best-converting channel
[22:08] Pivot or die: real examples of publishers who lost eighty percent of organic revenue and rebuilt stronger by acting on what the data told them
[28:00] The rapid fire round: the one metric everyone should track, the best and worst things to happen to publishers in two years, and what 2027 looks like for the publishers who make it

Call to Action
A big thank you to Jorge for being so generous with what he's seen on the ground. If this episode has made you think differently about the data sitting inside your publishing business or program, that is worth acting on sooner rather than later. Have a look at their Affiliate Dashboard or book a demo if this episode has sparked your interest.
KonverJ works with brands and affiliate managers to build publisher relationships and program strategies that are grounded in what the data actually shows. If you want to stop guessing and start making decisions that compound, get in touch with the team here.

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What happens when your affiliate publisher is a sleep-deprived new mum with 45,000 verified users, a Dragon's Den deal, and strong opinions about how brands treat people? You listen.
Olivia Davson is the co-founder of Cubbi, the UK's first discount platform built specifically for verified new and expecting parents. She launched it eight weeks after having her first child, built the first version of the app with her sister who had zero coding experience, onboarded over 30 brands before launch, and pitched her business live on BBC's Dragon's Den at nine months pregnant. She walked out with a 50,000 pound investment.
In this episode, Lee-Ann talks with Olivia about what it actually feels like to enter the affiliate industry as a new publisher, why most affiliate managers missed the opportunity she represented early on, and what brands who did show up early gained because of it. The conversation covers the mechanics of Cubbi's verification model, why the parent demographic is unlike any other in consumer marketing, and what the affiliate channel still gets wrong about the publisher relationship.

Talking Points Include:
What Cubbi actually is and why the parent lifecycle is a marketer's playbook in a way that student discount platforms are not
The outreach reality nobody talks about: Olivia contacted a thousand brands before launch. Around thirty said yes. What those thirty did differently that made them irreplaceable partners
How Dragon's Den changed everything overnight, from word-of-mouth pockets across the UK to a nationwide spike in downloads and credibility that no paid campaign could have bought
Why Olivia screens every inbound brand enquiry personally and the red lines that will get a brand turned away regardless of budget

Listen to Find Out More About:
The exact moment Olivia decided Cubbi needed to exist, standing at a coffee shop counter on maternity pay and doing the mental arithmetic
What brands Olivia singles out as genuinely getting the parent audience right, and what they are doing that others are not
How Matthew from Cashblack supported Olivia at the moment she was closest to walking away, and why that kind of peer support matters more than people admit
The expansion plan for Cubbi, what comes after nailing the UK, and which markets are already asking when they are next
Why not everyone needs to understand what you are building, and how that mindset shift changes how you show up as a founder
What the Dragon's Den investment from Susie Ma has meant practically for the business beyond the headline number

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:
[07:25] The scrappy startup reality: a thousand outreach messages, thirty brand partners, and what the ones who said yes understood that the others missed
[13:00] How Cubbi verifies users, why the verification model matters to brands, and the difference between targeted reach and spray-and-pray traffic
[15:37] Dragon's Den: why Olivia went on the show at nine months pregnant, what happened when the episode aired, and what a nationwide audience spike looks like on a growth map
[19:00] What the industry gets wrong about new publishers and why the affiliate channel is more transactional than it needs to be

Call to Action
A big thank you to Olivia for sharing her story so openly. If this episode has made you think differently about how your program handles early-stage publishers, that instinct is worth acting on.
KonverJ works with brands and affiliate managers to audit partner recruitment and relationship strategies from the ground up. If you want to build a program that attracts the next Cubbi before th
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The rules of discovery are being rewritten in real time. Here is what affiliate managers need to understand before the market moves on without them.
If you have been half-listening to conversations about AI search and hoping it will settle down before you have to do anything about it, this episode is your wake-up call. Reza Moaiandin, co-founder of SALT.agency, has spent 25 years watching the internet evolve from static HTML to generative AI. He joins Lee-Ann to cut through the noise on SEO, AEO and GEO, explain what the data from his clients is actually showing about shifting user behaviour, and give affiliate managers a clear-headed diagnostic for where to focus right now.
Talking Points Include:
Why SEO, AEO and GEO are not three separate disciplines -- and the crucial distinction between winning the click, being in the answer, and being part of the answer that every affiliate manager needs to understand right no
The 20% tipping point that changes everything -- Reza's research tracks the mass adoption rate of generative AI globally, and his data suggests the hockey stick moment is closer than most people think
The collapsing customer funnel -- how discovery, comparison, evaluation and shortlisting are now happening inside a single AI interaction, and what that means for the partner segmentation models affiliate programs still rely on

Listen to Find Out More About:
Why Reza refuses to use keyword difficulty as a meaningful metric, and the specific example of a tiny B2B company that outranked international businesses for a keyword rated 99 out of 100
The hidden technical trick using Cloudflare and server logs that lets you see which of your pages AI platforms are actually pulling, and what that tells you about how your affiliates' content is being used
Why ChatGPT and Claude give different answers when Reza is asked to pick a favourite, and which one he recommends for affiliate managers specifically
How the user journey is being compressed so that discovery, comparison and purchase intent are collapsing into a single AI interaction before a user even reaches your website
The generational behaviour shift Reza is tracking using his father and his teenage nephew as a real-world test of when mass adoption has genuinely arrived
Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:
[05:06] Reza breaks down the difference between SEO, AEO and GEO in plain language, and explains why confusing them leads affiliate managers to make the wrong budget decisions
[11:00] How the traditional customer funnel is collapsing inside a single AI interaction, illustrated with the running shoe example that makes the shift impossible to ignore
[20:40] The diagnostic Reza would run on any affiliate program today: where to start, what to fix first, and why fixing AEO and GEO before your SEO foundations are solid is a waste of time and budget
[24:44] The server log technique that tells you exactly which pages AI platforms are pulling from your site and your affiliates' content, and why most affiliate managers are not looking at this data
Call to Action
A big thank you to Reza for sharing his research and his thinking so generously. If this episode has made you question whether your current partner segmentation still reflects how your customers actually find you, that instinct is worth following up on.
KonverJ works with brands and affiliate managers to audit and rebuild partner strategies that are built for where the market is heading, not where it has been. If that conversation is timely for your program, get in touch with the team here.

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The diagnostic framework that 20 years of affiliate program management built - and why most programs are not broken, just badly diagnosed.
If your affiliate program is underperforming and you are not sure where to start, this episode will change how you think about the problem. No guest, no interview, just Lee-Ann, her two decades of affiliate marketing experience across e-commerce, SaaS, B2B, retail and iGaming, and the step-by-step framework she uses with clients to diagnose exactly what is wrong and what to fix first. This is one of those episodes you will want to listen to with a document open and a pen in hand.

Talking Points Include:
Why fixing everything at once is the fastest way to fix nothing -- the triage mindset borrowed from medicine that stops affiliate managers from burning through resources on the wrong problems at the wrong time
The five vital signs of an affiliate program and how to read them -- from active partner rate to communication cadence, the diagnostic checks that give you a clear picture of program health before you touch a single commission rate
The four root causes behind almost every underperforming affiliate program -- and why each one requires a completely different prescription

Listen to Find Out More About:
The efficiency logic behind why one focused priority per month beats a 20-point action plan every time
How to use conversion rate by partner type to spot traffic that looks good on paper but is costing you money
The void and reversal rate threshold that signals something is seriously wrong with either traffic quality or your returns process
Why tracking problems are the silent killer of affiliate programs, and the one test you should run this week if you cannot remember when you last did it
The three honest truths Lee-Ann shares at the end of the episode that rarely get said out loud in affiliate marketing

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:
[01:00] Why most underperforming affiliate programs are not broken, just badly diagnosed, and the triage mindset that changes how you approach a fix
[04:14] The five vital signs of affiliate program health and how to read each one using data you already have access to
[13:25] The four root causes behind underperformance and the specific prescription for each one
[18:08] How to build a triage action plan using the one priority, one metric, four weeks rule
[21:49] The three hard truths about affiliate programs that do not get said often enough, and what acting on them actually looks like

Call to Action
If this episode gave you a clearer picture of what is holding your program back, the next step is making sure you have the right support around you. The KonverJ Agency works with affiliate program managers and brands who are ready to stop guessing and start building programs that perform. Find out how we can help at Konverj.io and start the conversation.
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The coaching framework that helps affiliate managers navigate commercial conflict, set boundaries, and lead with confidence even when the conversation gets uncomfortable.
If you have ever walked into a partner meeting already dreading it, or sent a reactive email on a Friday evening and regretted it by Sunday, this episode is for you. Tara Alvarez Garcia, performance and leadership coach with over 15 years in marketing and commercial roles, joins Lee-Ann to break down why difficult conversations go wrong, and what you can do differently before you even open your mouth. From handling underperforming affiliates to managing burnout in a permanently switched-on industry, this is the practical coaching session affiliate managers rarely get.

Talking Points Include:
The one mindset shift that changes every difficult conversation -- why reframing from "you versus the problem" to "we versus the problem" transforms the tone before anyone has said a word, and how proper preparation makes difficult meetings far less daunting
Why being always on is not a strength, it is a liability -- how the pressure to respond instantly to Slack, WhatsApp, and emails is quietly eroding performance, and the practical techniques Tara uses with senior leaders to reclaim thinking space
The difference between managing and leading in affiliate marketing -- using the engine and the driver analogy, Tara and Lee-Ann unpack why technical competency gets you to manager level but an entirely different skill set is required to lead a team or a partner program effectively

Listen to Find Out More About:
Why Tara recommends using AI tools like ChatGPT to role-play difficult conversations before they happen, and exactly how to prompt it to push back on you
The three practical leadership principles Tara leaves listeners with, and why they apply at every level of the industry
What Tara does when a coaching client comes to her already at rock bottom, and why she gets better results from the ones who arrive before the crisis hits
The special offer Tara has put together exclusively for listeners of this episode, and the link where you can claim it
Why the affiliate manager skills most at risk from AI are not the ones people think, and which human capabilities are genuinely irreplaceable

Key Segments of This Podcast and Where You Can Tune In to Go Direct:
[02:45] The managing versus leading distinction explained: the engine gets the car moving, but who decides where it goes?
[06:25] How to enter a difficult commercial conversation prepared, collaborative, and clear on the outcome you actually want
[08:40] What to do when the conversation heats up: the case for controlled silence and slowing down before reacting
[13:00] Why thinking time is not a luxury in a leadership role, it is the job, and how to carve it out in a reactive industry
[18:30] Tara's blueprint for handling any difficult conversation, walked through step by step

Call to Action
Thanks to Tara Alvarez Garcia for such a grounded and genuinely practical episode. Tara has put together an exclusive offer for listeners, including a free downloadable blueprint for handling difficult conversations and a limited number of discounted one-off coaching sessions. You can access both at tyscoaching.com/affiliate-marketing-podcast.
If your affiliate program needs more than a listening session, the KonverJ Agency team works directly with brands to build, audit, and scale affiliate programs. Find out how we can support you at Konverj.io
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