Affiliate Rockstar: Mike Smith

Introducing Mike Smith

With over a decade in the marketing industry, Mike has found himself running all aspects of marketing, from in-person events to content creation to paid social. Always coming back to the affiliate space in one form or another, Mike has leveraged TUNE to grow the NerdWallet SMB lending affiliate program by multiple factors — and he has no plans of slowing down.

Now, please welcome to the stage our next Affiliate Rockstar, Mike Smith!

Rockstar Q&A with Mike

What are your day-to-day duties?
NerdWallet is organized by vertical, and I oversee all performance marketing within the SMB space. I have a great coworker who handles most of the day-to-day SEM responsibilities, but I still end up wearing a lot of hats. On any given day I’ll be running reports, communicating pacing, forecasting, launching new efforts, working cross-functionally on larger optimization opportunities, meeting with partners, etc.

How did you get into the affiliate industry?
Largely by accident. I majored in business administration and marketing in no small part because it’s such a large field with so many different areas to explore. After graduating, I was fortunate enough to spend some time mostly goofing off, working first at a ski area and then a mountaineering shop. But bills and health insurance premiums come for us all, and I landed an affiliate management role as my first step into the more professional world of marketing. Affiliate management has been an on-and-off part of my responsibilities since.

What are your most important KPIs?
Volume and ROAS. Understanding how much marketing efforts are really delivering is so important and, in my experience, often underappreciated. It’s critical that we assess the full picture, inclusive of all marketing costs and benefits like LTV and brand awareness.

What do you think is undervalued in marketing in general?
Data — I’m like a broken record with this stuff. Most businesses collect a ton of data points, from time on page to lifetime value, but seemingly few organizations utilize all of these metrics to improve marketing performance or report on true performance.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve come across in affiliate marketing?
Many of our partners advertise on Google and Bing search networks, which we do as well. Understanding how much our affiliate spend increases costs on our SEM efforts has been a challenge at NerdWallet and in other roles I have held.

What’s the next big thing in affiliate marketing?
Dynamic pricing, and dynamic landing pages for a more cohesive customer experience. I’m hesitant to say “AI” since it’s such a buzz word these days, but we should be able to use machine learning to understand and provide unique experiences to each consumer to improve results.

What’s your top tip when it comes to negotiating affiliate deals with partners?
Show your work. When we win, our partners win, and vice versa. I’m as transparent as I can be with how much revenue and margin our partners drive so that they understand why pricing is what it is and what’s needed from them to improve that pricing.

How important is following the journey of a user after you (or your advertisers) first acquire them, or after their first purchase?
For the SMB lending vertical, it is absolutely critical. Our funnel to initial conversion is long, and we hope to build lasting relationships where we continue to earn our customer’s business. By extending the time in which we measure our return to months, not days, we can more heavily invest in marketing efforts and grow our business.

How has your (or your advertisers’) affiliate strategy changed over time?
Our pricing model has changed as we have been better able to understand what leads are most valuable. Through a more thorough analysis of historical leads, we are able to better pinpoint what traffic drives the most revenue. From here, we’re able to increase our payout for the traffic that performs best for us. This allows our partners to earn more by sending the “right” traffic. It’s a win-win.