How to Build An Affiliate PR Engine with the Expert Behind Jones Road, Golde, Loveseen & More!

0:00Hey, welcome to Female Founder World. It's Jasmine. I'm the host of the female Founder World. universe. Before we jump into today's episode, I wanted to quickly shout out, say hi, and thank everybody who came to our pop-up networking party at the Ceremonia store in New York City last week. It was such a good night. We had drinks, we had food, we had a fireside chat with the founder of Ceremonia, Barbara Rivera, who is genuinely just one of the most inspiring and warm and just helpful founders that I have ever met. She is somebody who clearly has like reflected a lot on her experience and her learnings and doesn't hold back on what she has taken away from her experiences building ceremonia.

0:49And so it was just a really great night and the conversation was really incredible. If you want to get on the list for our next pop-up networking party, make sure that you are a paid business bestie member. They get first access to our events and they do hit registration capacity and sale out super, super quickly. And then the next folks who get told about it are in our community on Geneva. So make sure you're in the community on Geneva. I'll pop a link in the show notes. That's how you can hear about it if you're not a paid member. Okay. Onto the show today, I'm speaking with Emma Moon, who is an affiliate marketing expert.

1:19She's the go-to affiliate marketer for brands like Kinfield, Gold, Great Jones, Jones Road. She has an agency called Praise Studio and they are a content-led affiliate marketing studio. they've been featured in Time, Huffington Post and she is the best person to teach you how to level up your affiliate marketing strategy. She's going to be leading a workshop in our Launch Lab workshop series that is kicking off next week on September 12th. So every Tuesday night Eastern Time we have a different operator and expert teaching about really the new rules in digital marketing. The old DTC marketing playbook is dead and gone and we are doing things very, very differently.

1:58And Emma is one of those people that has really figured out a new tactic and niche that is working for consumer brands. So she is going to be teaching about specifically affiliate PR, which is this very new, interesting space. So we're going to talk about it today, give you a little bit of a teaser into what's coming in the workshop, which is free. So make sure that you register for that in the link in the show notes if you think that what she's saying is interesting. Okay, let's get into the show. You are now entering Female Founder World with your host, Jasmine Garnsworthy. Emma, welcome to the Female Founder World podcast.

2:32It's so good to have you. I'm so excited to be here. Okay, so for folks who don't know you, you are an affiliate marketing expert. You have worked with all of the brands that people in this community love. You've worked with a lot of brands in the community actually and who have been on this podcast. you are the founder of praise agency what have i missed yeah affiliate expert really focusing on content-led strategies for our clients so it's a very non-traditional way of doing things i have you on the podcast today because we are doing this launch lab series which is a free digital marketing series that we're doing with a bunch of experts and operators across digital marketing strategies that are just just the things that have like shifted in the last few years and you are one of those experts that multiple people were like, you need to talk to Emma, you need to talk to Emma, you need to talk to Emma.

3:19And I was like, okay, okay, okay. And we're going to get Emma in to teach one of these workshops. So for people who want to join, there is a link in our show notes. If you want to, if you want to come to that, it's going to be incredible. And I am so interested in how the media landscape shifted and you were perfectly positioned to start this agency around that. So before we get into your advice around affiliate marketing, I want to talk about your founder story and how you started the agency because you're only 23. Talk me through like, you know, what magic happened to get you to kind of build an agency with five people before you were 23 years old.

3:56Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I moved to New York city when I was 18. I had about$3 ,000 to my name. And I saved it up over two summers. And essentially, my plan was to take a gap year. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I had no idea what kind of profession I wanted to focus on. But I started to do random internships, just starting to get my feet wet and into what possible careers would I want to go down. And I came across a woman. Her name is Erin Bagwell. She is a documentarian. And I cold emailed her because I saw her documentary. It's all about female founders. It's called Dream Girl, if anyone wants to watch it.

4:34I cold emailed her. I basically asked her to like grab coffee and pick her brain because I was sort of in this stage of like, okay, I'm 18. I moved to New York City. I'm running out of money. Like I don't know what to do. You seem to know a lot of really cool women doing a lot of really cool things. Like I would love to connect. She like emailed me back within like five minutes. I remember it was very quickly and we got coffee, you know, within the next week, she introduced me to a lot of different female founders that were just starting out in the DTC space. So this was in the DTC boom, you know, when WeWork was, you know, launching and Glossier was launching.

5:09And it was sort of like this period where there was a new brand, not, I want to say every single day, like today, but it was very exciting and, you know, invigorating. And so I was connected to a few different female founders, started to intern at their brands and then got a full-time job after interning at one for around, I think a year and a half. And really focused on influencer marketing because when I had all this free time, when I was in New York city, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I would go to coffee shops and just write and blog. And from there I started to follow a lot of different other influencers, you know, before influencer was even a coined name.

5:48And I had this Rolodex of people that I just loved following and reading from. And so when I went to these DTC brands, I had this list of people and I was like, well, we could get product in their hand and like see what happens. And so that's what I started doing was influencer marketing without even knowing that it was influencer marketing, just really to help market new brands that were just launching, right. And getting them in people's hands. From there, how do you end up starting an agency that is specializing in affiliate? What shifted in the media landscape that made you think, hey, I've got like the perfect skill set to capitalize on a very, very new opportunity?

6:22Yeah. So with influencer marketing, one thing that I noticed was that all of the brands I was working for, their one question was, how can we determine the success of this? How do we determine the ROI of this? And at first it was just seeding product and then it was paying for content. But then when we started to pay for content, there was even more of a pressure to know, okay, what is the return on investment here. So we started to test with affiliate. This was when Glossier Reps was just coming out. It was really when influencer affiliate was just budding. And from there, I got a tip from a friend that was in the PR agency world that this same kind of process of working with influencers through affiliate links was going to impact the PR space.

7:06And this was, I want to say in 2019. And so I started to like cold email editors just saying, hey, reaching out on behalf of this brand, we can offer you a commission. And, you know, with any kind of cold outreach, you know, I emailed maybe 20 people, I got one response, but it was one response that I got and one affiliate feature, and I think it was Rolling Stone at the time, that started to drive revenue. And it was an immediate like, wow, I caught on to something just by like, throwing out, you you know, like throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what stuck. And so that was sort of how I like came about this.

7:43And this was in 2019. So it's still fairly, fairly new. Now content-led affiliate and PR affiliate, affiliate PR, all of these different terms are now very common, but that was before any of that was said. So you have a very specific niche within the affiliate marketing kind of landscape where you are very much focused on those big like mastheads and publishers and you're talking about affiliate PR. So you are figuring out how to get these consumer brands that you work with featured in these publications using affiliate links. So you're not the person that's like, you know, getting the founder story or, you know, maybe like more of a softer piece.

8:23You're very much getting the product featured with a direct affiliate link in these publications. Is that right? Yeah, correct. Yeah. And it's not only is this helpful now for brands to be able to see the return on investment when it comes to any piece of coverage that they're mentioned in on a.com linking with affiliate links. You can see how much revenue a specific publication is driving you, but also a specific article as well. So you can get pretty granular. So that's really helpful for brands, but it's also now a must. Publications will not consider you the same level as if you're offering them affiliate commission.

8:57And it's getting to a point where this is how publications are keeping their lights on. So they're really focusing on brands that are offering affiliate commission now. And this is something that shifted so much. I used to be an editor. I used to work in the fashion and beauty space and we didn't do affiliate links. This is very, very new in the last few years. And I do feel like a lot of traditional PR agencies maybe haven't kind of caught up with it. This is where things have shifted. I'd love to know how you actually work with brands. So let's talk about, I am a consumer a brand, I'm coming to you.

9:28Maybe I have a beauty company. What kind of questions are you asking and how are you getting somebody set up for their affiliate marketing program? Yeah. So if a brand is a good fit for praise, it's actually, it's really helpful for the brand to have worked with a PR agency in the past to get those founder stories, to get the podcast interviews, to get that layer of brand awareness already there. Because then when we are going out to our contacts, which are majority affiliate managers, they're more commerce editors, these folks that are really focused on only producing content that their viewers are going to convert through, it makes it easier to really sell them on it, right?

10:09Because ultimately, we're almost like salespeople right now, right? We're like, hey, here's this product, this is what we can offer you, which is not traditional at all for PR, right? This is a very new way of doing things. even if like all along PR has been to drive sales and to share stories that will ultimately drive sales it's now like front and center and so really like when we have a brand that comes to us that has that layer of brand awareness and we're able to begin to introduce the brand to our relationships what we see is that we see a ton of like more organic coverage because now we're offering them commission so they're going to include us in more content and then we start to see that increase in revenue.

10:50Right. And like really thinking a month down the line from signing with this client, we now are driving thousands of dollars for them. And this is all through content on PR, you know, or publication sites like PopSugar, Refinery29, you name it. Wow. Okay. Incredible. I want to know what the pitching process looks like. So you talked to before, before we jumped on this recording, you're like, there's a very specific person that you're pitching to. You're not just pitching to the beauty editor at Alua. You're not just talk, you're not necessarily even just pitching to like a commerce editor at these publications.

11:22There's like a new role. Who is that person? Do all publications have them? Do you have a direct relationship? Like how does that pitching process work and who is the person that you're targeting? Yeah. So every single publication is different because you have to remember just like on our side from the agency side and on the brand side, this is very new. It's also very new for publications too. Like really it was 2020 when everything shut down and everyone was purchasing online that these affiliate teams started to, you know, grow and be built on the publication side. And so for us, like really our sweet spot is with affiliate managers, which are very new people at publications.

12:02These are folks that are basically business development, you know, representatives on behalf of the publication that really focus on what brands are converting the most in their content, what specific products of that brand are converting the most, and how can me get them more involved in content, right? So they're basically doing, you know, what I'm doing for my brands, which is the spot which publications are converting the most revenue for my clients, and figuring out ways to work more deeply with those publications, they're doing it on the publication side. So I focus, I mean, I'm talking with them on a weekly basis via email, talking about what we're seeing, you know, what kind of product launches are coming down the pipeline.

12:41And then almost like think of affiliate managers at the top of the triangle, right beneath them, are the commerce editors and the shopping editors. And those are the folks making sure that any brand that is mentioning content is linking with affiliate links. They're set up on a network. So for PR agencies out there, you might have gotten emails from these editors saying, hey, we want to feature your brand, but we need you to be on an affiliate network. Those are most likely those folks because they're in charge of just editing down and making sure that this piece of content that they've put time and effort into is actually going to pay off financially for them, right?

13:14Right. This is so interesting. Yeah. And then right beneath that is the writers, right? So that's a shopping and commerce writers who are actually producing the content in charge of writing them. But then, you know, very in a traditional sense and editors go through and make sure it looks good. But this is all through a conversion lens, like making sure that we are going to make the most money from this piece as much as we can. Right. This isn't the point of the conversation, but I am so curious and like, I don't want to spend too much time here, but it's so interesting how this is shifting the way that journalism and media works the the shift towards like you know if you if you know a certain product is going to maybe like convert or you get a better um affiliate commission through it it's going to impact what you write about and the way that you kind of frame it in your journalism it is so and then I just like that is going to change the way that people like trust and think about these media outlets it is really really interesting Like there is a huge like shift coming, I think about the way that the entire, yeah, they like, not just the brand community, but also like consumers are thinking about these publications as well.

14:19Yeah, totally. And I think also like when I, cause I think about this all the time, right? I'm a business owner. I'm trying to figure out, okay, how long is this business going to run? How long is this going to work? But one thing that I always bring myself back to is that as humans, I think that we're programmed to get curious and search things on the internet, right? Because Google is so powerful, right? We can learn something, find something in a matter of a second. And I think SEO is something that is further impacting publications more and more. And so there's some publications that convert so well in SEO, meaning if I search best hairbrush, Birdie will pop up number one, no matter what, right?

15:02And then that article is generating a ton of revenue. So I think what's going to shift is that maybe consumers will trust less amount of publications. They'll focus on maybe one to three of their favorites that they trust versus just shopping from a random article. I think consumers are smart, right? So I think that's one thing. But also making sure that when you are a publication writing a piece of content, strategizing SEO to make sure you're coming up first because there is so much content that's being produced all the time, right? Right. Really interesting. Okay. We've talked about affiliate networks and platforms quite a lot.

15:37What are some of the big ones? Does it matter which one you're on? Like, do you have to be on the same one as the publications? Like how does that all work? Yeah. So you just need to be on one. There's actually, I get a lot of questions of like, Oh, do I need to be on all of them? Right. So as an example, a couple are share a sale, impact radius, pepper jam, commission junction. We'll put a link in the show notes to commission junction. That's been around for a long time. Yep. Yep. So just pick one, right? But make sure that you know how to utilize the backend of that network. They are all pretty archaic looking.

16:09I think Impact Radius is one of the more like modern backend user-friendly platforms. But when you do onboard, it's really important for you to have someone on your team that knows how to operate and read the data that these networks are giving you. Because one thing that I hear all the time is like, we just set a network live. We have a program live, but like no one's touched it in a year. And there is this confusion of, well, we have a program live, so why aren't we getting more coverage? We have a program live, so why aren't we getting featured in that article that we pitched? But if no one is actually in the back end of that program operating and reading the data and making sure everything's working correctly, you shouldn't be on the network to begin with, right?

16:50It's really important to have at least one hand in the bucket there. Okay, that's great. And I don't want to dig in too much there because we're going to we're going to talk through a lot more this in more detail in the workshop that you'll be leading in the launch lab series so I'm going to park that and we can go into more detail in the in the workshop but I am curious about like what is a good affiliate like commission like what do people what do publications expect is it the same in the influencer space as it is for these big publications do different publications have different expectations?

17:20Yeah. So most often it depends on the brand's average order value. So a couch brand has an average order value of maybe$1 ,500 plus, right? But then a beauty brand might have an average order value of$50. If you have an average order value of 200 and below, I would say 15 to 20 % commission for top tier media outlets and publications, really important, right? So that range is really important. If you are above that, like a couch brand, like I mentioned, you can get away with 10%, but I would say 10 to 20 % is a good sweet spot to live within. But it's also really important to also go to the publications and ask what is competitive, because it's changing all the time.

18:02So having that kind of direct response is helpful in that feedback. Awesome. The last thing that I want to ask you is just to get people excited about this, because I'm really excited talking to you. The conversation that we had before, where we were kind of like strategizing and planning your workshop. I was just like, this is such valuable information. It's going to make a really big difference for these, for these brands in our community. What kind of ROI can people expect? Like what is a, give me a couple of like success stories. What kind of metrics are influenced? Is it like conversion rate?

18:31Is it average order value? Is it just, you know, overall revenue? Give me some success stories to get people kind of like, okay, yep, this is very exciting. Yeah, totally. So I would say when you look at the ROI of an affiliate program, it's helpful to look at two things. One, that amount that you're paying and what you're getting back, right? What we've seen on average is four to one, five to one ROI of our fee, including all the commissions we're paying out to publications, and then what we're getting back, which is very healthy. Also, another metric to look at when you're thinking of the success is also the percentage of revenue that affiliate is making up of your total e-com revenue?

19:10Like what piece of the pie is affiliate making up? And I would say a really healthy spot is between 15 to 20 % of your total e-commerce revenue. On average for our clients, we see that sweet spot, but we've seen up to 22 % of total e-commerce revenue, which when you're thinking about Facebook ads and all these other marketing channels that are getting harder to scale and more expensive to scale, seeing that four to one ROI and 20 % of total e-com is very good. That's so good. Okay. I think you're going to get a lot of brands who want to reach out and work with you. I know that you, you know, you already have a pretty dream client list, but if people want to reach out, they want to get in touch and work with you, where should they go?

19:50Yeah. So our website is praise.studio and it's praise with a Z. You can reach out to us on Instagram, same username, praise.studio, or you can DM me directly, which is at Emma Grace Moon on Instagram. Emma, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm so excited for your workshop. It's going to be amazing. I'm excited too. Thank you. Quick shout out to all of our Business Bestie subscribers. If you are loving this show and you are building a consumer, CPG or e-commerce business, or you're about to build one, this membership will give you access to the people, experiences and the tools that you really need to build your dream business.

20:27Head to femalefounderworld.com forward slash subscriber for more.