Matthew Lloyd
Commission Factory.
Michelle Lomas
Hey there, hustlers. Welcome back to the show and do we have a treat for you this week. In this episode, I have the pleasure to sit down with Matthew Lloyd. Matthew has held many roles in the performance and affiliate marketing space from Mycel Group, Catch and more. He's a veteran of the affiliate marketing industry.
Michelle Lomas
You are someone who has been working in the affiliate space for quite some time and have a lot of really interesting viewpoints on, you know, the future of affiliate marketing. And so I really wanna dive into that today. So, um, for the listeners out there, maybe, let's just start off with a quick intro.
Matthew Lloyd
Yeah, sure. So I've been in the digital space since 2000s, so probably one of the dinosaurs. There are a few out there that have been in the industry longer. I got into affiliate marketing back in about 2002, 2003. I got a phone call on a very rainy day from a guy who I'm still in touch with, saying if would I be interested in free traffic to a website?
Michelle Lomas
What are you currently doing at OZSALE at the moment?
Matthew Lloyd
I currently look after all the digital performance, so we're a small team, so that pretty much includes everything. That's your traditional page search, the affiliate space, we're looking at expanding more into the social elements as things as well.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah. Great. And how are things going? I mean, from a performance perspective, you're obviously looking at all the different channels. How is affiliate playing against some of those other channels that you're playing in?
Matthew Lloyd
Yeah, it's really interesting. I only think there is one performance channel, and that is affiliate marketing. Mm-hmm. To me, performance is: you credit someone when they've actually performed, you don't credit someone that you pay in advance for. So I think there's a place for everything. But in terms of how I define performances, someone has done something for you in advance.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah. And so what are some of the examples? What are they doing in the space that's really exciting you?
Matthew Lloyd
Yeah. I would say four or five out there at the moment that are really promising. They are fantastic, they go and source the influencers for you. Obviously we are allowed to vet them. They'll go out and come back to us, and what these new softwares do is that they say, well, we will give them value upfront in terms of they will pay on a CPC, which is pretty much unheard of, but as the merchant, we actually pay it on a CPA. So that's a really big change. So to us that's fantastic. I think it's gonna take us probably about 18 months to see the full value of it. I think there's some really good traditional performance influencer companies out there, and I think we can probably name one of them. And that's, uh, LTK. So they've been on the market for a very long time.
Michelle Lomas
It baffles me a little bit how it works, right? It's shifting the mind, like you're never gonna shift the mindset of an influencer, that their followers are the most important number known to mankind, and that their influence is the biggest influence in the world, right?
Matthew Lloyd
To me, follower numbers are vanity. And in the past it's said, oh, you get this reach, you get this, and I think, well, that's just vanity measurement. But what this does, and the ones that we've been working with, we'll get reports, so we get total transparency. We understand how many clicks they send, what they're converting, and I think that makes the difference.
Michelle Lomas
It's a nice way of looking at it. Obviously, they build followers to make money. The dream is to just be able to create content and live off that and build your following so that you don't have to have a full-time desk job.
Matthew Lloyd
Well, it's very new. We've literally just finished our first campaign.
Matthew Lloyd
Look, I'm hoping that we, we can build it to the level that we have with other affiliates.
Michelle Lomas
So you mentioned, um, evergreen content, which, it makes sense almost taking like the blogger publisher style content where you know, who specialise in a certain topic. When that content is evergreen, they can continue to make money off that content eased down the track. I guess my question to you is, what does evergreen content look like in the context of OZSALE?
Matthew Lloyd
Yeah, it is. It's different ways of looking at it. And again, that's something that we're learning. I think the vloggers are particularly strong in this space. There's a couple in the UK and you look at some of their videos. And they're still getting views years after they've done it. And the really good ones are out there and they list all the products that they wear.
Michelle Lomas
That's so true actually. Like you mentioned tactics like unboxing, which have been around forever, so it feels like the, since the dawn of, of social media almost, but why, like, why do we continue to chase kind of the next best thing in the shiny thing when there's still proven tactics and content out there that people are still engaging with?
Matthew Lloyd
Yeah. Look, I think to me, writing a blog and I have my own little blog, we won't mention it. It's, pretty, I, I dip in and out periodically. It takes a long time to do your research and put content together. Yeah, it's, it's hard. So I think, and if you get your SEO right on your content site and you get it right on YouTube, it's there for ages.
Michelle Lomas
What are vlogmas? I don't even know what that is. Explain it. What is that?
Matthew Lloyd
Oh, so, um, outta the UK, Zoe Sugg, I think she started doing a video every day in the run up to Christmas about 10 years ago. And they're just massive. And you watch those every year now. And, um, It's funny entertainment. It's almost like an event calendar online.
Michelle Lomas
Oh, my son watches some actually funny that.
Matthew Lloyd
And yeah, a bit more adult.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah, I'm sure those are a bit more adult. My sons are more like toys and decorations to decorate the house and stuff. But yeah, same, I guess same sort of concept, a bit like the event calendar.
Matthew Lloyd
Yeah, they're brilliant. All the UK, big UK ones. I suppose off the top of my head, Fashion Mumble would be the biggest, uh, I would've thought, uh, in that space. So of those that I'm aware of, and we have a few family favourites that we follow every Christmas, but they're, they're great.
Matthew Lloyd
You've gotta remember that.
Matthew Lloyd
And, um, has its, has its advantages, it has its disadvantages. But yeah, I think if you are in that space, yeah, you probably wanna push it a bit more, or a thought.
Michelle Lomas
I'm sure like there's a lot of influencers out there who could use having a chat with you to give them some ideas on how they can start to be a little bit more commercial.
Matthew Lloyd
I agree with that. And I think the other thing we have to take into account is the demographics as well. When I started back in 2000, I worked for a new media agency and we had a thing called the Red Bible, and one of the articles in this was about how many touch points you required back then to get a conversion.
Michelle Lomas
I completely agree with that. This kind of concept of the funnel and there's a three part stage and you move from one part to the next and it's kind of like that's how you make a decision is so antiquated, in my opinion. Even us, you know, strategists, we sit there and try and talk about the funnel yet because it helps us, but that's not how consumers are making, you know, product decisions.
Matthew Lloyd
No, absolutely. They're not. I mean, I'm walking into a store. Well, I'm not, but you get the gist. I'm walking into a store and I'm gonna buy product. And then I think, ah, right now actually, I'm gonna look this up on my mobile. So there's your digital straightaway. Then you walk outside and then you see a billboard and you think, oh, that shop's got it.
Michelle Lomas
Yes. I was about to say-
Matthew Lloyd
There's a, there's no funnel in that.
Michelle Lomas
There's none.
Matthew Lloyd
A lot of people are gonna shoot us down for these sort comments. I get that. I get that. But I've been a true believer that it's not really there anymore.
Michelle Lomas
I definitely feel like every consumer's pathway is so different. You know, there's a lot of channels that are coming and going. You talked about social and the fact, you know, we've gotta stop thinking and putting all our eggs in one basket with Instagram. What are your thoughts for the future here?
Matthew Lloyd
Yeah, look, I think the main one is content. Content is the bread and butter of SEO. You know, it's what people are digesting and I think that is gonna come back quite strongly.
Michelle Lomas
And so what are some of the things you feel the Australian market are behind that they need to catch up on?
Matthew Lloyd
I think that's it. I really think that is truly it. I was in the UK about four years ago for PI Live. And it was quite interesting seeing the difference of what affiliates were offering in Europe to what they're offering here in Australia.
Michelle Lomas
Too small a market in their eyes, I'm afraid.
Matthew Lloyd
Yeah. But I think the Europeans could look at us as being quite a small market as well. But there seems to be a great encouragement. One of them is in that influencer space.
Michelle Lomas
I worked overseas for a number of years, um, in a publisher as well at Hearst in New York. And, you know, entire sites built off the back of affiliate marketing in Hearst that were extremely profitable for the publishing house. And, you know, there was, there was never any doubt that affiliate marketing was a tactic that needed to be deployed within the business and was highly profitable and had that, I'll call it the SEO effect. You know, it starts off slow, but it just continues to make money years on, you know, so it takes time to build, but it definitely has a lot of groundswell. And so then coming back to Australia, it seemed, to your point, I think it was behind but it's not behind because there isn't great publishers and great content creators. I think there's a mindset that still just needs to shift, and that is that affiliate marketing is not something that's just another tactic that you put on the back of your media plan.
Matthew Lloyd
Oh yeah. Oh, you've got me going now. Okay. So there's a couple of things. Um, I just wanna go back over the original question. I think what's really encouraging is the diversity within the current affiliates in Australia.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah. But you raised such an interesting point, which is don't put a budget on it. If, I mean, to be fair, we have had people on the show, for instance, we had Sam Viney from Lounge Lovers, and he talked about affiliates sometimes can impact his business based on the margins and shipping and delivery costs. So there are always circumstances in which there are some categories that do have to limit that.
Matthew Lloyd
What we learned from the global finance crisis and definitely during Covid is how many people pulled out of paid and went into affiliate marketing 'cause they can control their budgets from a profitable point of view. And I understand where you're coming regarding that last comment, but you just change your margins in your commission rates. It's as simple as that, and what I love about affiliate marketing is you are always learning something new.
Michelle Lomas
Got it. We had Lovehoney on here one episode. It's all good.
Matthew Lloyd
Oh, they're a great team. Great team. I met them, they're a great team. And um, but you've got some fashion comparison sites. Oh, they're bread and butter for us. And there's always someone new coming on and so you have to understand, and I will mention him, Chris Tragit, who used to be at Bayat, which was one of the original networks. Um, I have to thank him because the second I hang up from that phone call on that rainy day in Putney, I've never really looked back. I just love the space. It's evolving the whole time. And someone new is coming up with something different all the time. New users coming in and people thinking of new ideas, and it's just so encouraging that people are so creative and they want to come up with something that's completely different. It's just, the diversitys amazing.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah. You know, we've had a few guests on the show who've talked about chatbots and other things that they've leveraged from an affiliate marketing perspective, and so there's a lot of different ways as well.
Michelle Lomas
So I'm gonna end with a question. There's a lot of people who listen to this podcast who might be new to the space, just trying to get their head around it. What advice do you have for them?
Matthew Lloyd
Get into it. Whether, whether you start in your bedroom, trying to be an affiliate. Whether you are in marketing or to be quite honest with you, even if you're not doing marketing, I think sometimes the best people I know in the affiliate space have never had a marketing qualification in their life.
Michelle Lomas
But yeah, I completely agree with, you know, just getting into the space to the industry is still small and it's still relatively new in terms of hitting that sort of mass reach for a lot of marketers, and that means that there is a skill shortage out there. And so for anyone thinking about getting into the space now is the time. I'd say it's only going to evolve with technology and capabilities and publishers jumping on board.
Matthew Lloyd
Yeah, and to be quite honest with you, my job is very diverse. I take up lots of channels, just add it to your channel. Just add it to your channel of mixes that you work on, and away you go.
Michelle Lomas
Yes, there's literally nothing to lose, only only sales to be gained.
Matthew Lloyd
That'd be fantastic.
Michelle Lomas
Well, I hope you got a little bit of inspiration from that great chat with Matthew. I know I did. Next week we have another great episode. Here's a sneak peek.
Julia Stevanja
So really interestingly, we expected to be largely coupon and sales driven. And when we first started this, that was absolutely the place we started, 'cause it's easy to attract customers with that. But the research that we did both externally and we ran a survey as well to over a thousand shoppers, and we asked, why do you subscribe to brands? And there was a whole bunch of different questions, but what came about was truly that it was about 50/50 sign up and follow a brand because they wanna know about the sales, they wanna discount code, et cetera.
Michelle Lomas
If you aren't already, don't forget to follow, so you don't miss an ep. And while you're there, why not drop us a rating and review? We'd love to hear what you think. Flex Your Hustle is made possible by the great team at Commission Factory and produced by Ampel. I'm Michelle Lomas. Keep hustling and bye for now.