Affiliate Nerd Out

Alfie: https://dustinhowes.com/alfie and use code DUSTIN30 for 30% off your first month

For more tips on how to scale your affiliate program, check out https://performancemarketingmanager.com

Adults with ADHD are 60% more likely to be fired from a job. I’m no stranger to that.

In this episode, I sat down with Kyrus Keenan Westcott. He was diagnosed at 35 after spending decades thinking he was just lazy. He blocks time in his calendar for scheduled incompetence. It's one reason he can hold down a demanding job as head of paid media with an ADHD brain. 

#ADHD #ADHDatWork #Neurodiversity #AffiliateMarketing #AffiliateNerdOut #Nerdatorium

Alfie: htt...

I signed up for an affiliate tracking tool live on camera. Never touched it before.

15 minutes later, it was tracking every click on my site.

If you’re an affiliate, you know the routine: log into Impact, then CJ, then Awin, then the next one. Check stats. Copy numbers. Repeat. It eats your week.

So I brought Jorge Barbosa back to Affiliate Nerd Out (third time, he’s officially a regular) to set up wecantrack from scratch while I drove.

In the video, you’ll see:

Have you ever recommended someone to a client, then watched them drop the ball right in front of that client? 😬

That’s what happened to Christen Evans (she/her)

It was an enterprise brand with millions on the table, and it should have been an easy yes. Instead, she got three weeks of pushback, with the client watching the whole time.

The client’s take: “It’s almost like they don’t even want our business.”

So how do you fix it without throwing anyone under the bus? Christen and I get into...

I have been burned by the word "unlimited" more times than I can count. Most pricing pages promise the moon, right until a surprise bill hits your inbox.

So I put Martin Demiger, the founder of Trackdesk, on the hot seat in the Nerditorium. I asked him straight out: what does "unlimited" actually mean at your shop?

I am not going to spoil his answer here. But he shared a wild story about a brand begging their best partner to stop sending traffic just to avoid insane platform fees. Imagine telling...

3 million shoppers across Asia want to buy from US brands. Most can't, because those brands don't ship to them.

What if you could reach them without changing a single thing about your shipping?
I sat down with Jeff Unze, North American GM at Buy&Ship, to talk about how brands are doing exactly that. He also shares which product categories this audience goes after, and why it's not what you'd expect.

👉 Follow Affiliate Nerd Out for more publisher highlights and conversations on growing your affiliate program.

#AffiliateMarketing...

I sit down with Brian Blancho from TicketSmarter to break down everything that went down at CJU. We are talking about an honest, no-holds-barred review of the event, covering the good, the bad, and our official star rankings.

If you are trying to figure out where to invest your budget and how to recruit affiliates in the performance marketing space, you can't sleep on live events. But is CJU actually worth the heavy price tag? Tune in to hear our raw take on the experience, the ROI, and what you need to know before booking your ticket...

It's go time for Q4. 🚨

If your Q4 plans aren't locked in yet, consider this your sign to finalize them this week.

On this Real Talk Friday edition of Affiliate Nerd Out, Christen Evans (she/her) and I cover:

1/ Why I'm heading back to CJU after 10 years

2/ The question that made a 10-year industry vet walk away from me

3/ Affiliate leaderboards: motivating or discouraging?

4/ How a 30-minute webinar turned into 60 minutes and 1,000+ views

5/ The one person to follow if you want to know how...

Not leads. Not "maybe" contacts. Full profiles: contact info, why Alfie thinks they're a fit, fit score, traffic type, reach, and even soft signals like age and gender skew. Stuff that used to take me hours of manual prospecting just... populated itself.

In this episode of Affiliate Nerd Out I gave a live look at Alfie's new Advanced Campaigns feature, built directly from user feedback.

You can now:
1/ Target by influencer type, traffic source, and category
2/ Adjust age/gender demographics
3/ Filter by country

I've been in...

This week's episode got a little spicy.

We're talking about the newest MegaLag video calling out people in our own industry, the ShopMy drama nobody's fully unpacked yet, and why I ditched TikTok for an app that teaches me Claude instead.

Plus, I recorded something with one of the smartest AI guys I know, the same guy who helped build out my Claude agents, and it turned into a two-part series. Part one breaks down what AI tools actually matter right now. Part two, we're doing a live build so you can...

Ever set a commission rate for your affiliate program, only to watch a partner send you customers who buy the cheapest plan, cancel after one payment, and pocket the payout? You're not alone. I've been there myself, and it's one of the fastest ways to torch your margins without ever knowing it happened. 

My FirstPromoter review started when I recently sat down with Tautvydas Vasiliauska, Head of Marketing at FirstPromoter, on Affiliate Nerd Out to dig into why subscription businesses need a completely different approach to affiliate tracking than the ecommerce world does. FirstPromoter has spent around a...

"Letting go of a role that gave me anxiety every day took longer than it should have."
 
But when it finally happens, you feel the pressure drop in real time.
 
In today's episode, Christen Evans (she/her) and I talked about:

- Stepping away from sales and into the work that actually fits
- Pinterest acquired TVSci and there's a beta opening for brands doing less than 100K in ad buys
- Why being good at something is not the same as being built for it

We al...

"Here's $4 million a month. Go figure out what you wanna do with it."
 
That's the only brief Colleen Butterfield got. No roadmap. No strategy doc. Just a number and a deadline.

She went from affiliate coordinator to CMO with no MBA and no traditional path. Built a solar company that sold to ADT for half a billion dollars along the way.

In this episode, we got into:

1. What it actually takes to go from affiliate manager to CMO
2. Why being good at your job is not a good e...

Waited until her mid-40s to start her own business. Now she's telling every affiliate manager to stop waiting.

Lee-Ann Johnstone built KonverJ from 22 years in affiliate, starting back when it wasn't even called affiliate marketing.

1. Commercial negotiation is half the battle. Learn it early and everything else gets easier.
2. When you stop learning every day, you start falling behind. She's treating AI like a brand new skill despite two decades in the industry.
3. Planning and strategy should lead the program forward, not be the afterthought after the execution.<...

The networks know who the bad actors are.

They make money off of them.

Christen Evans (she/her) is back for Real Talk Friday. She's a rule follower, and she wants to know why the industry keeps gatekeeping in 2026.

Here's what we got into:
 
1. The networks kinda wanna sweep it under the rug and stay quiet.
2. At my first job, publishers had hundreds of fraud tickets against them. Still in the network. Because they were making CJ too much money.
3. Nobody has the balls to do it. O...

ChatGPT is scraping sources to build its answers. The question is whether your brand is one of them.

Sat down with Farzad Rashidi, CEO of Respona, to break down how brands are getting cited by LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews. Systematically.

Here's what we covered:

1. How Respona builds high-authority citations through targeted listicles, comparison guides, and product reviews
2. Why human editors review every piece of content. No AI filler, guaranteed placements.
3. How agencies are using bulk discounts to resell this as a service at...

Want to know what is actually working in the affiliate industry right now? I hosted a live panel with Fred Jean-Barrel from Performance Partners, Mark Goco from All Inclusive Marketing, and Josh Kennedy from Imagine Marketing to break down how to scale programs without relying on tired tactics. We talked about smarter outreach, AI research, and what it takes to win in performance marketing today.

If you are trying to figure out how to recruit affiliates who actually move the needle, this conversation is packed with real examples. Forget generic email pitches and spamming coupon sites. We...

My all-time favorite boss told me something once that changed my entire career.

"Dustin, you're the best network marketer I've ever met."

That's David Vogelpohl. He started by cold-calling computer shops in the late '90s to set up referral agreements. That was his first accidental entry into affiliate marketing.

His take on where most affiliate managers go wrong:

1. You're running a business within a business. Most just don't see it that way.
2. The fastest path to leadership is to volunteer.
3. If you're pigeonholed, it's because you're...

Someone sees your ad on Meta. They Google your brand. They find a Reddit post from Joey323 saying your brand sucks.

That's your entire paid spend strategy gone.

Ewen Finser, CEO of ScaleVisible, calls this the villain archetype. And it's more common than most brands want to admit.

On this episode of Affiliate Nerd Out, Ewen joins me in to break down how brands can win in the age of AI search, Reddit, and ChatGPT.

One of his clients has 2% market share against QuickBooks. They...

Dustin Howes hosts a panel with Nancy Harnett (Instantly.ai, ex-HubSpot), Victor Moen (Affilial.com), and Ed Ceballos (EverFlow) on scaling B2B SaaS affiliate programs. Nancy emphasizes auditing existing partners and analyzing funnel data before expanding recruitment. Victor shares strategies for removing low-quality affiliates, reactivating dormant partners, and scaling targeted outreach. Ed highlights building referral programs around loyal customers, using meaningful rewards, and tracking influence beyond last-click revenue. The panel also explores commission structures, ecosystem partnerships, creator payments, and effective affiliate activation strategies.

Subscribe to this channel for more affiliate program growth tactics.
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In this Real Talk Friday episode of Affiliate Nerd Out, Dustin Howes and Cristen Evans break down the latest affiliate marketing trends, including industry drama over fraud accusations, the impact of cutting affiliate commissions, and why protecting partner relationships matters. They also share updates on Alfie, AI automation, affiliate program migrations, and an upcoming webinar on modern affiliate strategies. The episode wraps up with a reminder that building relationships starts by saying yes to the conversation.

00:00 Loyalty App Warning Shot
00:44 Show Intro And Banter
01:55 Top Hat Giveaway Stories
03:36 Affiliate Drama And Tattling
05:54 Budget...

In this episode of Affiliate Nerd Out (AM to C-Suite Edition), host Dustin Howes welcomes Michael Cole, CMO of Everflow, to discuss how affiliate marketers can grow from affiliate manager to executive leadership.

Michael shares how he got started in affiliate marketing, why many affiliate managers hit a career plateau, and how skills like partner relationship management, fraud prevention, and strategic communication translate into leadership roles. He also explains why affiliate marketing is more than a single channel and how to report results in terms of revenue, pipeline, and business growth.

Whether you're an affiliate...

In this episode of Affiliate Nerd Out, Dustin Howes sits down with Viktorija “Vik” Ratomske, CEO of Partner Gap, to discuss her journey from business intelligence analyst to executive leadership in affiliate marketing. Vik shares how she entered the industry, the mentors who shaped her career, and why affiliate managers develop powerful skills in negotiation, relationship management, adaptability, and cross-channel marketing. She explains the challenge of being labeled “just affiliate,” the importance of speaking the language of the C-suite, and how to prove the value of relationship-driven work through data. Vik also reflects on what she would do differently and offe...

Dustin Howes is joined by Dan Sweeney and creator Lauren Eckert to recap their experience at the Impact.com IPX Conference in Austin. They share what made the event stand out, including valuable networking, a strong creator community, and insightful sessions on AI and affiliate marketing. Lauren explains how IPX helped accelerate her transition into affiliate partnerships by connecting with top brands and creators. They also discuss areas for improvement, including speed networking, meeting logistics, and scheduling issues, while exploring Impact’s AI roadmap, retail media opportunities, and the future of affiliate partnerships.

00:00 Event Fixes Feedback
00:15 Im...

She moved to Barcelona in 2006 as a glorified executive assistant. 10 years later, she was a CEO.

Jenny Gonzalez had no mentor. No roadmap. No one in her corner. She spotted one guy in the office. Nobody knew what he did. But he traveled the world, made 4x her salary, and had crazy respect from everyone.

That was the affiliate manager.

"I don't know what affiliates are, but clearly it is what I want to do."

The rest is a story worth hearing.

Junior affiliate manager to CEO...

Success in affiliate marketing depends on strong relationships and a solid reputation. In this episode, Dustin Howes and Christen Evans share real-world insights on networking, professional boundaries, and long-term career growth in the affiliate industry.

Dustin explains how reconnecting with his network helped turn a slow week into a major win, proving that warm relationships often outperform cold outreach. Christen discusses the importance of setting boundaries to protect your mental health and maintain productive working relationships.

They also cover networking strategies, handling difficult professional situations, early technology adoption, affiliate marketing trends, and balancing work with...

Can AI really save affiliate marketers hours every week? 🚀

In this episode of Affiliate Nerd Out, Dustin Howes and Cristen Evans dive into how Claude AI, ClickUp, and automation tools are transforming affiliate marketing workflows. From speeding up complex commission reporting and automating documentation to building ICP decks and streamlining daily operations, they share practical ways AI is helping marketers work smarter and scale faster.

They also discuss AI usage limits, productivity hacks, sales mindset shifts, stress management, and how tools like Alfie are changing the future of affiliate program management.

00:00 Usage Credits Pan...

Dustin Howes and co-host Cristen Evans recap Dustin’s experience at Optimism, praising it as a selective, high-quality networking event with strong meeting scheduling, useful gifts, and standout activities, but criticizing the lack of concrete information about Rakuten’s new integration and strategic alliance with Impact.

Dustin describes the CEO keynote as offering only vague, high-level remarks, frustrating attendees who came seeking clarity, and notes backlash over a private brands-only meeting that excluded agencies. They compare the situation to the ShareASale/AWIN acquisition timeline and discuss concerns about moving brands quickly without clear communication.

Cristen shar...

Dustin Howes and Christen Evans dive into the realities of remote team collaboration, leadership, and communication in the affiliate marketing industry. From managing virtual teams and startup culture to navigating misunderstandings in Slack messages, they share practical tips for building stronger relationships while working remotely.

The conversation covers virtual happy hours, team-building activities like Jackbox games and trivia, communication strategies, flexible workflows, and adapting to different working styles. They also discuss affiliate marketing, startup growth, balancing work and life, and the importance of creating a positive remote work culture.

If you work in affiliate marketing...

Rakuten Optimism Review + What We Learned (and Didn’t) About the Rakuten Impact Strategic Alliance

Dustin Howes and Amanda Karr recap their experience at Rakuten Optimism, highlighting the event’s strong networking, centralized venue, smooth meeting scheduling, great hospitality, and standout social events like the 1920s party and pickleball tournament. They also discuss frustrations around the Rakuten–Impact Strategic Alliance, including vague keynote messaging, conflicting transition timelines, and agencies being excluded from the brand-only meeting, while sharing insights on what the changes could mean for the affiliate industry.

Alfie: https://dustinhowes.com/alfie and us...

Affiliate Marketing Shakeup: Rakuten & Impact Merger Insights for Agencies & Brands

Dustin Howes and co-host Cristen Evans discuss Rakuten joining forces with Impact and the resulting migration of Rakuten merchants to Impact, calling it a major industry consolidation with an aggressive, wave-based timeline complicated by contracts and unresolved pricing details. 

They explore what this means for agencies and consultants, including fears that Impact’s referrals to agency partners could shrink and concerns about conflicts of interest as Rakuten’s managed-services arm gets “first crack” at accounts and may try to poach agency-of-record relationships. They note potential operation...

Are you still manually hunting for partners like it's 2010? If you aren't using artificial intelligence to handle the heavy lifting, you aren't just working too hard; you're actively falling behind. In this episode of Affiliate Nerd Out, I'm sitting down with a true legend in the performance marketing world, Matt Frary. He's built and exited six companies, and now, he's officially my new boss.

We're pulling back the curtain on Alfie, our new recruitment super tool that's designed to give affiliate managers their lives back. We're talking about saving ten hours of grunt work every single week...

Moving from consulting to a steady job is a big change. In this recent episode of Affiliate Nerd Out #RealTalkFriday, Christen Evans (she/her) and I talked about the realities of that transition—from the relief of a stable paycheck to the risks of poor tracking and why some businesses should wait before launching an affiliate program.

Topics we covered:

1. Consulting vs. in-house stability
2. Tracking mistakes that waste budget
3. Attribution gaps and reporting issues
4. Why some brands should wait to launch

Consulting can feel lik...

In this Affiliate Nerd Out episode, Nedarator Dustin Howes interviews Jorge Barbosa from WeCanTrack about common publisher pain points with Affiliate Conversion Tracking, including lacking aggregation, logging into multiple networks, relying on manual sub IDs, and struggling to attribute transactions to sessions, landing pages, and traffic sources. Jorge explains how WeCanTrack pulls transaction data from networks like CJ, Awin, and Impact into one dashboard with hourly updates, compares performance periods, matches conversions to clicks and traffic sources, and pushes commission and conversion data into tools like GA4, ads platforms, and BigQuery to optimize paid campaigns for real sales, CPA...

Where to Find Honest Product Reviews in 2026 (AI Fakes, Trusted Sources & Affiliate Compliance)

Dustin Howes of Affiliate Nerd Out explains how AI-generated fake reviews are rapidly increasing, making “is this review real?” the wrong question and shifting the focus to whether the source is trustworthy. He highlights review sources that still earn trust in 2026, including Consumer Reports (nonprofit, no ads, large testing budget and possible free library access), Wirecutter (20–40 hours of research per category with a wall between editorial and commerce), Reddit (useful but increasingly gamed), and YouTube reviews that show real product use, while noting AI video...

Stop wasting hours manually updating expired coupons and broken links that frustrate your customers. Pushing traffic to dead deals is a losing game for affiliate managers and publishers alike. Most teams try to manage this chaos with messy spreadsheets and dozens of network logins, but there is a better way to handle your data. You can replace that manual work with a clean affiliate coupon API that does the heavy lifting for you.

In this video, I'll show you how FMTC acts as a central hub for your entire affiliate operation. This tool validates and standardizes offers...

Dustin Howes hosts Affiliate Nerd Out with guest Brook Schaaf of FMTC to explain why an affiliate coupon API matters for publishers and what opportunity cost sites face without it. Brook describes FMTC, founded in 2007, as a coupon and deal feed (plus product feeds and merchant services like Affistash) that powers many large coupon and rewards sites by ingesting offers from 20+ networks and thousands of merchants, then testing, normalizing, and distributing clean, structured data.

They compare FMTC to raw network feeds and scraped coupon sources, noting common issues like broken links, incorrect fields, time zone errors, expired...

Dustin Howes and Christen Evans discuss the hidden costs of siloed marketing teams and the messy reality of affiliate management in this episode of Real Talk Friday. They explain why separating your influencer and affiliate divisions limits growth and causes major communication gaps with creators.

You'll hear about common industry headaches like broken SKU-level reporting and the struggle of backtracking through massive spreadsheets to fix commission errors. Dustin shares a raw story about a Little League meltdown that disrupted his week, while Christen offers practical advice for managing burnout. They also explore how to use AI tools...

Most brands make decisions about influencer marketing based on vibes and gut feelings; however, that approach usually leads to wasted budgets and messy data.

I recently spoke with Tammy Pham, MBA from Inflektion about why tracking performance feels so broken for most e-commerce companies. One brand they work with had a complex funnel where they only paid affiliates after a customer completed a blood test.

Most platforms can't handle that level of detail, so the brand struggled to see where people dropped off.

Tammy explained how event-based tracking solves...

Stop wasting your budget on affiliate programs that sit untouched. Discover how a deep-dive audit can turn a stagnant channel into a massive revenue driver. This week, we're talking about the raw reality of managing big brands and why your best employees should probably have a side hustle.

We break down the exact checklist for a professional affiliate audit, from tracking failures to competitor analysis. You'll see why the "publisher perspective" is the missing piece in most strategies. Plus, we tackle the controversial topic of moonlighting. It's not about losing focus; it's about gaining the skills and...