Affiliate Nerd Out

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 br...

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...

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 co...

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 hel...

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 act...

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,...

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 Ra...

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 mea...

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, h...

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. T...

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 d...

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 (nonp...

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 tha...

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 thousa...

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...

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 blo...

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 competit...

Many affiliate programs fail because they treat partners like a list of names rather than a human community. Most brands chase big influencers with massive fees, but they often ignore the organic fans already talking about them. Real growth in the health and wellness space happens when you stop buying reach and start building TRUST. I recently sat with Mark Jacobs from AirDoctor to discuss how the...

Most B2B companies fall into the trap of hiring creators based on follower counts alone. A person might have 100,000 subscribers, but if those people aren't your ideal customers, you're just throwing money at a megaphone. The real challenge is finding the niche experts who hold the attention of the exact decision-makers you need to reach. I recently sat down with Sam Cassman from Toksta...

Most brands have no idea what their affiliates are actually saying in their videos. They spend thousands on partnerships but leave the actual content to chance because manual monitoring is a massive time sink. Watching every TikTok, Reel, and YouTube mention feels like a losing battle. I recently sat down with Haafiz Dossa from Inflektion to discuss how AI is changing the way we handle social list...

Being a solo consultant means you are the CEO, the CFO, and the HR department. Christen Evans (she/her) I shared our best tips for handling the isolation and financial stress that come with the job. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/gdeWre4G and learn how to build a safety net and stay sane while working for yourself. Have you heard about Inflektion yet? They are changing the game in Affiliat...

Las Vegas conferences are unique, often leaving attendees drained and distracted. This video offers a comprehensive survival guide with actionable tips on early booking, scheduling, essential gear, professionalism, alcohol management, and maximizing networking opportunities. Learn how to balance professional boundaries and personal health to make the most out of your Las Vegas conference experienc...

Headline: "We want a viral campaign. Also, we have $0 for the budget." 🤡 We’ve all heard it. The CEO dreams of 50 high-quality partners and millions of organic views, all on a performance-only model with zero upfront investment. In my latest chat with Christen Evans (she/her) , we broke down the hilarity and the headache of managing unrealistic brand expectations in affiliate marketing....

In this episode of Affiliate Nerd Out Publisher Highlight, Dustin welcomes back Lucas, the founder of GoLoot, to discuss their innovative approach to content-based advertising. Lucas explains how GoLoot helps brands drive revenue through performance outcomes ranging from traffic to conversions and sales. With a network of 300 premium editorial partners, Go Loot reaches around 75 million unique sho...

Most affiliate programs fail because they are treated like a "set and forget" project. If you want to scale, your strategy must match your revenue. What works at $1M ARR will break your program at $10M. I’ve broken down the 4 proven stages of affiliate growth: Stage 1: Why you should NOT launch under $1M ARR. Stage 2: Testing the waters with part-time help. Stage 3: When to hire an agenc...