In this episode, we sit down with Patricia Marange, Executive Director, Head of Affiliate Marketing & Partnerships across GroupM, to explore how affiliate marketing can supercharge your media strategy and amplify channel performance. With over a decade of experience in the affiliate space, Patricia shares insights on the evolution of affiliate marketing—from a lower-funnel conversion tool to a powerful, full-funnel commerce enablement engine.

Discover how integrating affiliate marketing into your media plans can complement and fuel your investments across search, social, video, and display, while driving measurable business growth.

Whether you're a seasoned marketing professional or exploring new growth opportunities, this episode offers valuable strategies for getting affiliate marketing a seat at the planning table. Tune in to learn how to maximize ROAS and elevate your media performance!

Podcast transcript

 
 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.286)

And welcome, Patricia. Please introduce yourself and tell us more about your extraordinary background.

Patricia Marange (00:07.91)

Sure, so I'm Patricia Marange. I am the head of affiliate at Mindshare and Across Group I've been in the affiliate space for, I like to say over 10 years, so I'm not aging myself so specifically, but I started first on the platform side at Rakuten and then came over to Group when they were starting to really build their practice. And I've been here for, I believe, almost eight years now.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:33.448)

Excellent. Great. so Group being a large media agency and you're kind of navigating the affiliate space. How has that been?

Patricia Marange (00:47.85)

I think it's been illuminating is the word I would use for it. I think, you know, I think the affiliate space, the great thing about it is it's so relationship based. And so you go to the conferences and you meet all your old friends and all of that. But I think, you know, maybe sometimes that makes us, makes it a little bit of a navel gazing channel. and so it's nice to sit where I am at, at, at group and mind share, because I get to see the entire media landscape and how affiliate fits in.

Which I think is a nuance that we need to start bringing more and more to the channel. I remember years ago when the first, I think it was the first ever e -marketer study on affiliate came out and it was an increase from, you know, 8 billion to 12 billion. Everybody inside the affiliate world was like, yes, that's a huge increase. And it is, it's like, it's an amazing increase. But where I sit, you know, where I sit in the large media holding company, I know that it's like a small sliver of the pie.

I think it just motivates me and our team more to try to really think affiliates deserve a bigger seat at the table.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:53.75)

Yes, definitely. I was with Group for 12 years before I moved over to the affiliate space. And I like to say I grew up at Group So I totally understand the large media agency. And you're right. You get exposed to so many different channels and the planning process behind at the very beginning of the budget allocation.

So the channel strategies and the, you know, coming, when I went from group where you kind of see how it's allocated and prioritized, when I started learning more and more about the affiliate space, I was like, this is fascinating. There's so much potential here. We need to get an affiliate a seat at the planning table. So I'm going to continue beating that drum because I think it's a valuable asset for any marketing initiative, any customer acquisition, whether it's B2B or direct to consumer or e-commerce, going to the retail media network. So we have our work cut out for us because it's different, it's definitely a different language. But one of the areas you and I were talking about is that it is so full funnel. So talk about how you've kind of communicated that and try to educate that aspect of affiliate.

Patricia Marange (03:29.83)

Sure, you know, I feel like affiliates could probably do with having like a big PR maven come in and really change any biases people have against the channel because the affiliate of today is very different from the affiliate, you know, back in 2000, I won't say the exact year that I started. It's a very different channel, whereas I think in the past it was much more a lower funnel tactic, which is still valuable because if somebody's sitting on the fence about whether to convert or not, affiliates can come in … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (03:47.306)

Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Patricia Marange (03:59.952)

Helps them with that decision very quickly. So it's still a very powerful conversion channel, but it can move so much more just because of the fact of like, I feel like next gen affiliate needs to be looked at more as a commerce enablement engine rather than performance channel because affiliate is the mix of the partners that you put into it. So no two affiliate programs need to look the same. Can you have a public funnel program that's purely focused on having a high ROAs and really helping push people on the conversion course. Yes, you absolutely can have that. But you can also have a very upper funnel, mid funnel. Because if you think about it today, anytime somebody goes online and researches a product that they're going to buy, whether they know it or not, they are interacting with affiliate links. They're interacting with affiliate content. And so if you think about it that way, it's like, why isn't this the biggest channel ever?

Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:55.67)

Right. I definitely agree. And we're talking a bit about commerce and content and the publisher content that, you know, it ranges from more an article about travel that has a few links in there to different hotels or luggage to, you know, the top 10 travel suitcases and or, you know, best father's day gifts like content themes, you know, there's a wide variety between all the publisher types, but these are publishers that are very well known and already buying programmatic ads or display ads directly with these publications, but it's yeah, it gets lost in the media plan, right? Like you're like, so I guess explain a bit more about commerce content and kind of what that looks like for both consumers and marketers.

Patricia Marange (05:58.116)

Yeah, I think it essentially started back when, you know, print magazines started going by the wayside that all of a sudden all the big publishing houses needed to figure out how to, you know, take the money that they were making from the print magazines to their dot coms and so on. Yeah, exactly. They needed to start hiring, you know, I think some of them were called commerce editors. Some of them were called, you know, they have different types of names, but usually most of those publications then are trying to figure …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:12.573)

We're getting the ad revenue anymore.

Patricia Marange (06:24.858)

How can we basically get paid for the content that we're creating? Enter in affiliate links and content commerce because it's very different from the type of media you can buy through other channels. And I have this conversation a lot when I meet with a planning team and I say, hey, here's some of the partners that we're going to go after. And then you get the question of, no, no, we work with.

We're already buying them. I'm like, yeah, great. Please continue to buy them. I am not buying that image. We are touching different spots. So you can buy inventory through them programmatically. You can be displaying your ads on their websites. That's not an affiliate. You can work with them to develop sponsored content. Great. That's also not an affiliate. That is sponsored content. Affiliate sits, I think, in the more authentic area.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (06:51.796)

Yes.

Patricia Marange (07:12.934)

Where it's, you know, when they're writing an article about the best, you know, the 10 best red lipstick shades, you know, the editors are making that decision. They're deciding what they think the 10 best ones are, monetizing by adding the link and driving that consumer to go shopping and making it easier for that consumer to make that purchase. And that's where affiliate kind of lives best.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:17.622)

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Agree. And to your point of let's both be there, the display ad, the video ad, mean, isn't that the best scenario? They're reading an article about the 10 best red lipstick shades and there's the ad for the lipstick brand right there, creating that visual and reminding them that that's, you know, it's an additional touch point, it's more reinforcement. I think what's, as you were talking about, two, we're not buying the ad space. It ends up being a commission or cost per action that we pay back to the publishers.

So I mean, you're really only paying then when it works, when it sells, which should be a no brainer.

Patricia Marange (08:22.606)

It is a no brainer. really, it really is. There's a reason that once the brand starts an affiliate program, it's very rare that they fully shut it off. Do they change tactics? Do they shut off certain partner types? Absolutely. I I always say that I think affiliate is a choose your own adventure.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:31.04)

Yes, that's a really good point.

Patricia Marange (08:42.564)

Channel because it can be whatever you want it to be. if, you know, I've definitely had conversations where somebody's like, my CMO doesn't like affiliates because, now, we're trying to move away from coupons. Great. Don't kill the affiliate program. Let me just adjust how we work with coupon partners. Let's shift away from those bottom funnel partners and let's look more …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (08:55.645)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Patricia Marange (09:02.054)

… creators, let's lean in more on content commerce, let's see other areas we could go to that's kind of not doing the thing that you don't want to do. You don't have to do anything. There's no prescriptive way of saying this is what an affiliate program is, which is again, maybe look at it more as a tool than it is a specific channel because search is very clear what search is. Programmatic, it's very clear what programmatic is, whereas affiliate, the only thing clear about affiliate is that we've got excellent tracking.

Able to work with a large number of partners and pay them out very cleanly through the different platforms that we're working with and that it's flexible.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (09:38.699)

Yeah, no, I definitely agree. it's, it's big brands too, right? Like it's a New York Times wire cutter. It's CNN. It's, you know, the Rolling Stones is always one that comes up like any of them, right? Good, good housekeeping. They're all other publishers. And maybe that's it. It's like, maybe we need to change how we're talking about those brands as well to further promote it. But I mean, it ranges from those kinds of marquee Hearst, Conde Nast to the Dodd Meredith, the Ziff Davis to like Betches Media, which I think is a hilarious content site that you go to for entertainment and then they also have content there. 

So it's such a range and to your point, it's such a great way to kind of get closer and there's that authenticity. It comes across more native and you know, the majority of those bigger publishers, as you mentioned, their editors are really testing and trying the product. They are writing what their opinion is and then just including the link to make it easier for shopping.

Patricia Marange (10:55.226)

Yeah, and you really can't, I value the editor's editorial integrity a lot. I work with some very large, powerful brands and I cannot throw the weight of some of these brands around and get anything to happen. So the wire cutter is going to choose what they write about, they are gonna test the product, they test the products and that's why they are such a trusted source. Now, do I want to try to get that link to my client's website when they talk about my client's product?

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:09.034)

Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Patricia Marange (11:23.438)

Yes and that's where I can play and where the commissioning and all of that stuff will win but you can't tell them what to write because they have that authenticity which I think is just beautiful and I hope you never mess with … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (11:25.802)

Great, yeah. Yes, and I hope that the people realize that too, authenticity is there. And you mentioned creators. So how are you seeing kind creators kind of grow into the affiliate space?

Patricia Marange (11:50.074)

I think that they've always been in the affiliate space. I think there were even years and years ago when I was running programs elsewhere, there were bloggers in our affiliate program.

They've always kind of been in there, but I think they're becoming more of a focus. I think now that creators are more aware of what affiliate is. And I think that, you know, the, I think there was a, you know, when the first round of FTC disclosure things came about, people worried that, this is going to hurt things. But I think it's actually helped the affiliate channel because now, especially Gen Z kind of trusts affiliates. They're used to going on TikTok and Instagram and seeing commissionable links, affiliate links, and they get it. They're like, okay, this is like not.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:31.05)

Hashtag, ad.

Patricia Marange (12:32.278)

Yeah, it's not a paid ad. This is just like this creator that I love linking me out to this lipstick that I'm obsessed that she's wearing and I want to purchase. So I think, you know, I think the younger generations are kind of caught on to affiliate and they trust what it is. And I think creators are now understanding how they can.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (12:40.17)

Yeah.

Patricia Marange (12:50.746)

You know, they don't have to just sit around and wait and check their DMs for a brand to reach out to them anymore. They can go out there and go like, you know, put their feet on the pavement and join different affiliate programs and pull the links of products that they love. And I think more of their authenticity that way too, because they can monetize what they're doing, but talking about things that they legitimately like are obsessed with and not just things that they like that they got in a PR box.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (13:03.648)

Mm-hmm.

Right, right. No, I agree. And I find, you know, I think we've talked about this once before, I spend way too much money on the kind of creator affiliates on Facebook, right? And it's, if it gets you at the right moment, the right time, you're like, I've been meaning to buy a new vacuum cleaner. Or you're like, huh, look at this great sale on vacuum cleaners. I think I'll buy one, you know? So it's like, it is, I know it works because I think paying for the affiliate woman's child's braces from all the money I've spent. No, but I think you're right. There's an authenticity of when it's creators that are sharing the content that they're, you're sharing a product that falls within their audiences or what their kind of theme and content of what they're already passionate about.

Patricia Marange (14:09.422)

Yeah, and I think my one kind of word for brands with creators, and I think once brands really get kind of in line with this, and I don't want to say line, I think when brands really embrace what creators can do, it'll be able to really scale. But right now, I think there are still a lot of brands that are nervous about giving these creators like carte blanche to talk about … 

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:35.978)

Yeah.

Patricia Marange (14:36.228)

… which is how it works. you want to dictate kind of how your product's being messaged with the creator, then you need to do a paid campaign. And there's absolutely like the creator economy involves all of these things. that's one is the other, but then that's your only thing in that paid space, as opposed to really like having a deeper relationship with the creators and getting more organic social engagement by kind of being picky about who you let into your creator affiliate program. Absolutely. Make sure …

Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:46.634)

Right.

Patricia Marange (15:03.174)

… content aligns and do the work and go back and make sure that they haven't said anything that is not online with your brand in the past. Once you do that, let them in and talk about a product that you love. Because usually, if creators, we've all seen them enough, if they are saying that they don't like a product, they aren't tagging the brand and including an affiliate link.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (15:23.178)

Right, right. No, you're right. And, what I keep hearing from the influencer strategists and marketers, is that you have to give them the guidelines to your point of like, you know, this is what you cannot say, but then let them create, they know their audiences, they know what's going to resonate. And if you do your research, as you're saying, the background checks, looking at their other content, building that trusted relationship with them before they go live with brand content.

You should be, you know, it's a really strong, valuable way to introduce your brand and have the opportunity to drive conversions.

Patricia Marange (16:02.648)

Yeah. And I think to that point of the brand guidelines as well, one of the other, you know, again, going back to affiliate as a commerce and age enablement engine is that part of, part of what we have with our platforms is terms and conditions. So every single partner that we work with, every single creator has to know, whether they're reading them or not, that's one thing, but they are acknowledging and adhering to terms and conditions. And so you can put your brand guidelines in there. You can put.

What type of content you don't want your content next to. You can put it in and say like, if you do any of this stuff, we will remove you from the program and you won't get paid your commissions. So there is a proper setup of the program.

You should be able to do a lot and you really should be able to scale things in a really meaningful way. And I think the great thing about, again, Gen Z is maybe smarter than some people are giving them credit for, but I think they know that a creator talking about your brand is not you talking about your brand. So even if it's maybe not exactly how you would message this new feature, I don't think they're going back and being like, well, Sally said this. so therefore that means giant brand ABC means that like, I think.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:09.556)

Right, right. They get it. Yeah, yeah. For sure. And so it's such an important part of the content and creator strategies is the measurement aspect of it. So talk a bit how you're measuring for success to a point where you can optimize on the publishers or partners that are working.

Patricia Marange (17:11.396)

I think we're all late. Let's give each other credit.

Patricia Marange (17:33.474)

Yeah, again, a great thing about affiliate is that we're getting in cart tracking. So we know the exact skews. Sorry, just gonna try and reconnect. Notice on my side. I need to restart.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (17:49.406) 

Okay, it wasn't her that was you or me.

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

So an important aspect of all of the content and the creator programs is to be able to measure for performance and optimize on that data. So talk a bit about what you have access to and how you optimize.

Patricia Marange 

So in an affiliate program, we have an amazing amount of data at our fingertips. we have, you know, we get the actual sales data. So we know the amount of SKUs that are sold. We know if they were sold using a promo code and what the exact amount was. So it's true.

It's just a matter of kind of going in and slicing the dicing the data as you need to. So understanding, you know, if we're talking about the creator economy, what products with certain types of creators are really popping and what we could potentially do there. And, are there opportunities to expand into other types of products with the content commerce sites? We can, you know, even go to them and say, Hey, you've been doing amazing on this type of product yet there's not that much content there. seems like there's a desire from your audience, at least from our brand to talk about this line of business that we have. Maybe we can, you know, maybe you can develop more content.

With your editorial integrity. So there's just a ton of data available to us that is really useful. And I think every time I talk to people in the kind wider media world about all of the tracking that we're doing through the channel, everybody's like amazed.

Kerry Curran, RBMA

Yeah, and the ROIs too. So talk a bit about the kind of the ROIs you see on different publisher types and for different brands.

Patricia Marange 

Sure, mean, an ROI for a program can run anywhere from $30 down to four or five. Again, that depends on the type of program that you're running. So you are having a kind of more affiliate 1 .0 type of program that indexes a lot on things like coupons and deals and loyalty sites. You are gonna see that kind of thing …

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

Right.

Patricia Marange 

… 15 to $25 potentially ROAs from your program. If you're doing a more kind of upper funnel, mid funnel program, that ROAs might be more along the lines of like, you know, from a four to an eight. Again, where I sit in the media, those are all still excellent ROAs numbers. And I think again, kind of the shift that brands need to make to kind of transform their like affiliate 1 .0 programs into kind of full funnel next gen affiliate is they need to let go.

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

Excellent. Yeah.

Patricia Marange 

of the ROAs we're used to. So you had an affiliate program that was driving and $18 ROAs, but then you're also saying, I don't like working with, know, having a really promotional affiliate program. That's fine. We need to change your program, but you're not going to, you have to give up that $18 ROI, which again, a $4 ROI would be very acceptable in other channels. So let us just hold us to the same standards as other channels you're investing in, you know? We'll still probably exceed the expectations, but I think if brands, …

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

Yeah. Yeah. Right?

Patricia Marange 

Let affiliates play more and buy more placements and pay higher commissions to make sure that we're winning the link versus other brands. I think, again, that will also help affiliate scale as a channel.

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

Right. And keeping in mind that a lot of that commerce content, you're only paying when somebody clicks through and purchases. So all of those eyeballs that are reading the article, maybe they're reading it and then they go back and purchase or then they go back and search and purchase there or they purchase after a separate, an additional touch point. You're not paying CPMs on the people who either don't convert or convert elsewhere. And so I think that makes it such a valuable investment as … 

Patricia Marange 

Yeah, I've had so many brands that I've worked with where we're recommending a new partner for them to work with and they're like, ooh, kind of sitting on the fence about whether they should let them in. I'm like, do you agree that this is a brand aligned partner? 

This partner makes sense for your brand and they're like, yes, it's a beautiful website. Love it. Well, then why wouldn't you let them in? Well, we're not sure if we're going to get the traffic or maybe they'll send too much traffic. And I always have to stop and remind them that the traffic is free, guys. there's, it's a brand safe site that you do not mind your brand being associated with, there really is no risk in letting them come into the program and seeing what they can do. Because if they're driving traffic and it's still traffic that might convert down the line and through another channel.

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Patricia Marange 

Or they come in and they drive a ton of revenue and everybody's happy. you're, it's interesting that you still have to have these conversations. And I think that's why, again, if some PR maven wants to come in and kind of take the affiliate channel under its wings, please do so.

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

Yeah, yes, no, I was actually just speaking with the PMA about ways to do that better. And so again, going back to kind of the beginning of our conversation, you have the opportunity or may hopefully get the opportunity to be that affiliate voice at a broader media planning table, the proverbial planning table. I mean, no, it's very complicated how...

Agencies are determining which channels get which dollar amount. You know, everyone has their proprietary technology that helps them determine how much goes to TV and, or display or video and search, et cetera. So I guess what is your, like, when you get a seat at the table, what are you saying, as far as the affiliate contribution?

Like where it's gonna fit in, how it fits into the broader media plan.

Patricia Marange

So I think I love planners and actually anytime I talk to planners about affiliate, they agree that it's a complete no brainer. I think affiliates' challenge at getting the seat at the proverbial planning table is mentioned.

Every agency that is kind of a full channel agency relies on tools. Affiliate data is so hard to get for these tools that there's often not a good either affiliates not included in planning tools or there's not a good proxy because maybe there's a good proxy for the amount of like revenue contribution it should be. But then the ROAs are off or it's the right spend, but then the revenue contribution is off because affiliate is such a unique channel. So I think, and maybe this is another thing to do next time you talk to the PMA folks.

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

Yeah.

Patricia Marange 

If we need, know, it would be amazing if somehow all the affiliate platforms could come together so that there is a true kind of mixed data.

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

Yeah.

Patricia Marange 

that then these planning tools could kind of ingest affiliate data and really understand, okay, well, if, if, know, if we're spending X on search and X and Y, we should spit out a recommendation here. Because it doesn't convince planning teams and I can convince brands. Once you explain it to invest in it, but it would be nicer if you didn't do less convincing and that it was actually part of the tools. So I think we need to standardize how we report out on the channel, because even, know, if you look …

Kerry Curran, RBMA

Yeah.

Patricia Marange

… network data, you know, it all depends on the mix up of that network's clients. So if one, you know, index is very high for like consumer electronics and travel brands, what they might report out for the first six months of the year is going to look different from somebody that index is really high for mid price fashion brands.

Kerry Curran, RBMA 

Right, yeah. Yeah, think.

Patricia Marange

So data, we need standardization. need to mature as a channel.

Kerry Curran, RBMA

Yeah, think that's there's, yep. It's because the performance is there. And like I said, the commerce content, like that. It's very visual. It's sexy. It's more exciting than paid search. It should be recognized at the amplification that it brings. And again, back to that example, you add like, sure. Have your programmatic and your video ads on that same publisher website. It just reinforces what is already there or what's also there in the more native reading commerce content. but we'll keep fighting the good fight and get an affiliate planner at that media planning table someday, someday soon. So great, Patricia, thank you so much.

Always enjoy speaking with you and wish you all the success as you continue to grow affiliate with the media planners and strategists across Group So thank

Patricia Marange 

Thank you, Kerry, for having a good place for people to learn about this funny little channel that we're in.

Kerry Curran, RBMA

For sure. Thank you.