Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen:
Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast, everyone. My name is Arlen and I am your host. And today we have a very special guest, Lauren Lee, who is ClickBank’s Ecom Expert who works with e-commerce brands to unlock new sales channels with affiliates. She believes there is always a solution to scale brands, and you can always find a way to exceed goals. Lauren has partnered with top Fortune 100 companies like Walmart, Amazon, and Apple leading their affiliate marketing strategies and offer campaigns, and is helping brands like yours craft scaled affiliate channels. You can find her hanging with her husband and daughter when she isn’t supporting clients, traveling the PNW, and assisting in Buddhist meditation teacher training. Welcome to the podcast, Lauren.

Lauren Lee:
Thank you so much. What an introduction, right? It’s like

Arlen:
Yeah, thanks.

Lauren Lee:
all over the place.

Arlen:
Yeah, you’ve got quite a bit of things under your belt for sure. Yeah,

Lauren Lee:

Yeah.

Arlen:
I mean, you know, some top brands that you’ve worked with, and I know you’ve had some exciting times, you know, working with those brands. So, you know, as I always tell people in this space, it’s, you know, with technology, it just seems like we’re on a pace that is just like… I mean, it’s like never from before. It’s just like where it’s such a high speed pace with everything that’s going on with AI, with all of these other technologies. It just seems like somebody behind the scenes has just decided to hit the gas pedal and push us forward a lot quicker.

Lauren Lee:
Yeah, a lot of change really fast. It really feels like you kind of got to buckle up and, you know, enjoy the ride, so to speak.

Arlen:
Yep, exactly, exactly. Well, I’m super excited to talk to you. You know, today, we’re going to be, you know, diving deep about a subject that’s kind of near and dear to my heart, as well as with you, as far as the affiliate aspects of what you do. And that’s really going to be how to leverage affiliates and maintain control of your brand. Because I think it’s a tricky thing, because we talked earlier before we started recording. These days, Influencers and affiliates, they’re bigger than ever. And a lot of times brands, you know, before kind of launching out into that journey, you wanna make sure you got the right partnerships because these people, affiliates and influencers, they’re representing your brand. And so they really are kind of tied to your brand. So kind of whatever they do, you know, really almost has to be representative of your brand. So it’s a kind of a tightrope act. You gotta have to walk when you’re dealing with them and trying to get things aligned. So I know… you’re going to enlighten us on that and some strategies for how to best leverage them and then maintain control. But before we do get into all of that, if you don’t mind sharing a little bit more about your background and specifically how you got into what you’re doing today.

Lauren Lee:
Sure, I’m excited to talk about the topic. I think it’s an important one and one that I can share some insights on and also would love to learn from you too. What are you seeing that’s working as well?

Arlen:
Sure.

Lauren Lee:
Gosh, how did I get where I am today? It’s a big question. I won’t bore you with a long story. The short version is that I went to college to study fashion design. fell into fashion business. There wasn’t really like an e-commerce type of degree you could get at the time. So it was fashion business, fashion merchandising. I grew up in Chicago and Chicago has a lot of retailers there, that’s really where I started working, which was in brick and mortar and then quickly evolved into the e-commerce world. Wore a lot of different hats in brick and mortar and also in the e-commerce industry, but ultimately. I started working for a company called Groupon, which was founded in Chicago, which I think is still around these days, although it may look very different than it did a long time ago. 

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
And that was really my introduction into marketing and into affiliate marketing and how does that work and how do people leverage one another in different kinds of capacities. I was working in their products division, so I was a buyer, so I got a lot of experience understanding. what e-commerce brands are going through, what buying means for an e-commerce store, really piqued my interest, and in particular affiliate marketing. And so I started working for a publisher, and that’s where I spent a lot of my time. So the last seven and a half years, I was director of business development for an online publisher in the affiliate marketing space. And that’s where I got the experience working with Apple and Walmart and Amazon and some of those big. big brands, but also other brands in between and up and coming businesses as well. And so today I am working at ClickBank, which is an affiliate marketing network, still in the affiliate marketing space and industry, just a different position within that, and helping and supporting them grow their client base and welcoming in e-commerce brands onto the platform. Like I said, that’s kind of the short version.

Arlen:
Okay.

Lauren Lee:
But you know,

Arlen:
Okay.

Lauren Lee:
yeah, just. Following the breadcrumbs and following my interest and curiosity has led me here.

Arlen:
Okay, that’s awesome, that’s awesome. And yeah, great stuff. And as I was telling you before we started recording, I am originally from Chicago as well. And I grew up in Evanston, Illinois, which is somewhere right north of Chicago. And yeah, not a lot of people realize how much Chicago is a kind of, I guess, known for fashion. You know, a lot of people don’t really think of it. You think of New York, you think of LA, you think of Paris. That’s usually the top three

Lauren Lee:
true.

Arlen:
people. Chicago is like, people are like, Chicago what? But yeah,

Lauren Lee:
Yeah.

Arlen:
I mean, when you think about some of the top fashion brands that are on Michigan Avenue, which is of course the main kind of fashion street or retail street in downtown Chicago, where you have some of these high end fashion brands and boutiques that. I’ve had shops there, you know, over the years and years, kind of it’s always kind of been that way. So, yeah, it’s just

Lauren Lee:
Yeah.

Arlen:
that’s always kind of a fun fact when I tell people

Lauren Lee:
I know,

Arlen:
that.right?

Lauren Lee:
It’s always good to meet another fellow Chicagoan.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
right? 

Arlen:
Yeah, definitely, definitely. Well, I think, as I mentioned, of course, we’re going to talk about affiliates and maintaining control of your brand. Where I really want to start our discussion today is, I guess, for any of the listeners, the e-commerce brand owners or digital marketers that aren’t really sold on affiliate marketing, what would you say are the benefits of using affiliates to market your e-commerce brand?

Lauren Lee:
Well, so I think just off the bat, some of the benefits from leveraging affiliates is it’s very low risk, it’s very low cost. So I think that’s a good thing upfront, right? And a lot of brands, at least that I’ve worked with, really look at affiliate marketing as an additional sales channel that you’re unlocking. And there’s a lot of different strategies and a lot of different ways that you can do that. So just like If you have an e-commerce brand or you have a product you want to get into distribution for retail stores You know you’re thinking about how do I unlock those channels? It’s very similar with affiliate marketing. You’re unlocking an additional sales channel Um,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
just it’s the strategy that’s different. So I see a lot of brands leverage Affiliate marketing and see them it benefits their business by acquisition customer acquisition And then as I mentioned a channel to drive additional sales So those are the two primary benefits and overarching all of that is that it’s very low risk. Oftentimes, you are not having to pay an affiliate for driving awareness or traffic or acquisitions to your business unless there’s an action taken. Whereas something like paid media or some other types of avenues that you might use to drive sales and awareness, they require cost upfront. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
And I find that that is really appealing on many fronts for a lot of people. I’m curious if maybe you see and hear the same.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, that’s that’s kind of one of the huge major benefits that I’m seeing across the board from the customers that I’ve dealt with in our business, the e commerce businesses and the fact that it is just a performance based, you know, performance based type of channel. And so you’re not paying anything upfront typically, and That’s very exciting, you know, for especially smaller businesses and startups that are, you know, dealing with this affiliate space because it could be new to them. They’re not familiar with these affiliates, not familiar with these influencers and their whole track record. And I think it really does. kind of, you know, it obviously incentivizes the affiliates because if they don’t do anything, they’re not getting paid. And so, yeah, I think that’s a huge benefit. So yeah, I totally agree. I’m seeing that across the board from a lot, most of the businesses that I talked to.

Lauren Lee:
Yeah, and I think a really good. perspective to have when you’re thinking about how am I going to leverage affiliates? So if I’m not bought into the idea, the strategy behind affiliate marketing, I think it’s good to just understand the lay of the land. 

Arlen:
No.

Lauren Lee:
Like what is affiliate marketing? How does it work? And who are the players in this space? So typically

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
there’s a network or there’s some sort of system that is supporting your affiliate program. Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
An affiliate program means like this is the strategy you’ve built within your organization. So you might have like a business development program or a marketing program. this is your affiliate program. So this is the strategy you’ve decided to use to implement into your business, leveraging affiliates. We call it an affiliate program. I don’t think most people just know like terminology off the bat. Inside there, there are the affiliates. So the individuals or companies or publishers that you’re using and leveraging to drive awareness to your business. And then there’s you, the brand or the e-commerce brand or the digital marketing agency that are supporting brands, right? And the networks

Arlen:
Hmm?

Lauren Lee:
generally are the people who are and the organizations that facilitate that relationship. So they are the point of which you can then meet the affiliates if you’re a brand or get connected to them. They also help with tracking and I know there’s other services as well.

Arlen:
Hmm?

Lauren Lee:
But within affiliate marketing, there are different types of affiliates. And I don’t know if everybody’s clear on that off the bat, which can be a deterrent to even implementing this strategy. So you mentioned one type of affiliate, which is an influencer. Influencers are really popular right now because it’s top of mind. It’s where all of us are spending so much of our attention and our energy, which is on these social platforms. Or as I’ve learned from TikTok, they’re not a social platform. They’re an entertainment platform. So.

Arlen:
Hmm.

Lauren Lee:
That’s where I think just why it’s top of mind. It’s just where the attention is right now. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
But there are also a type of affiliate called publishers. Publishers are like, you know, the big publishers you might be thinking of, digital publishers, right? Not somebody who’s producing books, but people who are producing content online. But there’s also bloggers and other types of lists like published content. And so getting access and working with them is really important. being able to get your brand awareness to new audiences and driving traffic to your brand, driving conversions. And then currently where I work at Clickbank, we work with a type of affiliate called performance affiliates.

Arlen:
Mm.

Lauren Lee:
It’s kind of a generic term, but performance affiliates are media buyers.

Arlen:
Okay.

Lauren Lee:
Media buyers are individuals, organizations, agencies that are Literally, quite literally, buying media, so on these social platforms, on behalf of the brand. So, they’re taking on that risk, they’re taking on that cost. It’s a way to leverage the affiliate marketing strategy for paid media. So, this is a particular type of affiliate. You would work with media buying affiliates to drive traffic to a designated landing page for your business to drive conversions.  important

Arlen:
No.

Lauren Lee:
And it’s to note that that’s cold traffic. where an influencer’s traffic is warm. They’ve been prepped to some capacity to be interested in your brand. And I’ll

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
add one more. I know it’s a lot, but I’ll add one more. There are email list managers.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
Email list managers are affiliates who are managing multiple different lists, email lists. So multiple different audiences. It’s individuals or organizations, again, that are managing these. these audience segments and so you can get in front

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
of them and connect with them and use and leverage them like you would any Other affiliate to drive traffic and awareness to your brand So I think understanding

Arlen:
Okay.

Lauren Lee:
that as a brand owner as somebody in the digital marketing space It can help you have the conversation around do I want an affiliate marketing strategy in my business

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
and of those types of affiliates? Which ones do I want to build a strategy around?

Arlen:
Yeah, that’s a great breakdown and thank you for kind of segmenting it like that because a lot of times when people hear affiliates, you know, they think of kind of just one thing, you know, they hear affiliates a lot of times, influencers are used with that in the same, you know, breath and they’re kind of mixed inter-exchangeably but those segments are really, really defining what’s kind of underneath them and so that gives our listeners and our viewers an idea of okay, you know. I can target this. Maybe I can target the publishers. I don’t necessarily have to just get influencers. I can maybe look for some email list managers because that’s a really big segment, especially now. I mean, it’s growing more and more day by day.

Lauren Lee:
I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to the audience. 

Arlen:
Whereas, you know, in the past, people were thinking that email was like a dying concept

Lauren Lee:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Arlen:
or a

Lauren Lee:
Thank you.

Arlen:
dying

Lauren Lee:
Thank you. Thank you.

Arlen:
thing, but it’s further from the truth. It’s bigger than ever, I think, right now. So there’s a lot of options. And so… you know, you kind of ended up saying that once you’ve found which one of these, I guess you could say sub channels under affiliate marketing, once you’ve found the one that you want to kind of move forward with, then comes the next question of how do you select the right affiliates that are under these segments for your brand? What does that process look like? And do you have any tips or suggestions for doing that?

Lauren Lee:
Yeah, so I, not because I work for a network right now, but like even when I was working with the publisher, you know, we’d work with all different networks and all different agencies and all different brands. But I do think that you need to be able to validate and legitimize the affiliates that you are selecting in some capacity. So if that’s through your own research, like you’re researching and you understand and you know this affiliate or you know this influencer or you know this publisher, right? And you feel confident in bringing them into your affiliate program and have confidence in them promoting your brand the way you want them to, I think that’s excellent. You need to do those due diligence.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
However, if you want to work. with a platform like a network or an agency or to some capacity that will allow you to, they are already pre-vetting these affiliates and bringing them onto their platform because they are trustworthy, right? And they will be able to promote your brand the way you want them to. Ultimately, what I’m getting at is that you have full agency over what affiliate you welcome into your business.

Arlen:
Mm.

Lauren Lee:
and who is promoting your brand. And so I think protecting your brand is part of this conversation, and it’s something that I have often with clients. They wanna know, I’ve worked so hard to create a brand with an ethos and a value system that

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
is XYZ, and I need to be able to maintain that. And

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
my response is always, you have full agency, right? So you are gonna determine, you are gonna decide. You’re not going to just put out your content and allow anybody to promote it. You can gate

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
your offer. You can gate your content. You can only connect with certain affiliates. And you do need somebody inside your company that is going to nurture and facilitate those relationships with your affiliates. I think oftentimes affiliate marketing gets painted as a set it and forget it.

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
When the reality is, is that it is a very active and relational type of strategy and that you do need a point person, whether it’s you or somebody inside that can say, I’m going to monitor these affiliates, I’m going to monitor their, their performance. Not only on like what they’re converting for me as a business, but like, what is the content they’re putting out there? And is this okay with me? And then last thing is, you know, I think a good, a good way to scale that and not have to have everybody looking at everything is that you create tools for your affiliates. We call it an affiliate tool page, but it can be anything. And you’re providing the assets, you’re providing the copy you want them to share, you’re providing the links, obviously, because you want it to be trackable. You’re really giving them all the tools available and necessary for them to promote your brand in the capacity you want them to. In that

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
same… vain, you’re letting them know the do’s and the don’ts. What can

Arlen:
You’re

Lauren Lee:
be

Arlen:
right.

Lauren Lee:
associated with my brand and what cannot? And I think the biggest

Arlen:
I’m sorry.

Lauren Lee:
message is that you have agency and control.

Arlen:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s so refreshing because yeah, that’s often a big concern is, you know, getting these affiliates, these influencers to promote and work with your brand. And then it’s like the loss of control is, I think, a big concern. It’s just like, what do you do? But I understand what you’re saying. I mean, it ultimately starts with what you were talking about in finding these affiliates, vetting them, creating that relationship first before you you know, then engage them into where they’re promoting your brand. I think that’s, that’s kind of the key thing there. It’s not like you, you know, you know, your message, an influencer, an affiliate, and then overnight the next day, you know, they’re immediately off to the races, you know, promoting your brand. It does take some time. Like you said, you got to grow that relationship. You got to vet them. And then everything that they’re doing, you’re in full control over those offers, those assets. and you make sure that they’re aware of the guidelines. And yeah, I think going through those steps, it’s something that will allow you as a brand owner to maintain control of that whole process. Now, there of course are caveats to that. You can follow all of that. You can make sure that you’re control of the offers and you make sure you find the right influencer or affiliates, but… You know, just like we all know, everything is unpredictable. We never know, you know, day by day, what’s going to happen, what somebody’s going to do, what are they going to promote? And so, you know, ultimately, what are some ways that you can also as a brand ensure that your brand is still represented in a positive light amongst affiliates?

Lauren Lee:
Well, I think also letting people know upfront, you will shut them down.

Arlen:
No.

Lauren Lee:
You will shut down the ability to promote the brand if they violate anything that you’ve said cannot be promoted alongside your brand. And sticking

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
to that and ensuring that you do. And affiliates are a community. And so

Arlen:
Hmm.

Lauren Lee:
that will be clear to not only just that one affiliate, but you know. Additional affiliates. So I think again remembering you’re in control You are the brand and the other thing I think is we’re thinking about is like what are the audiences that you want? Coming to your landing page to your ecommerce shop Who are you trying to recruit towards your business and that will help guide you in terms of the affiliates that you choose? To work with and that you grant approval to promote your brand. So

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
Thinking about it that way too is just, I think will help you be selective and discerning. Again, so that you’re not just allowing anybody to promote your product and your brand. And

Arlen:
I don’t know.

Lauren Lee:
at least in my personal experience, like what I’ve seen, most affiliates are respectful to the brands that they are promoting. And of course, from time to time, I’ve seen a few people push the boundaries. Like I’ve seen publishers push the boundaries of what they can say, and the brand is responsive to that. And I think that’s

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.Lauren Lee:
important, right? The brand is saying, no, that you cannot do that and you must take this content down,

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
or you’re no longer part of our affiliate program. And the other

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
thing that you can do as a brand owner is you can really leverage the payouts.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
So you can use that to your advantage. You are in control

Arlen:
Sure.

Lauren Lee:
of that. So… If you’re paying affiliates X percent and it’s performative and it’s working, um, and they violate your, your dos and don’ts, you can drop their percentage.

Arlen:
Yeah, true.

Lauren Lee:
Right. And that

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
will be a direct impact to violation to that. And then there’s

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
always the opportunity to make good, like, okay, well, we’ll give you the next 90 days. If we don’t see any of this again, then we’ll, we’ll increase your rate to the original percentage.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
So brands

Arlen:
Yeah, that’s

Lauren Lee:
are really

Arlen:
it.

Lauren Lee:
in a lot of control over protection of what they’ve built.

Arlen:

Right. Yeah, that’s a really good point as far. I hadn’t really heard anyone kind of mention it that way. You we always hear about the various tier levels that you can also set with affiliates where, you know, once their performance hits a certain amount of sales that they send you, you can bump them up, bump up their commission.

Lauren Lee:
Yeah.

Arlen:
But alternatively, yeah, if they’re not not necessarily if they’re not performing. But yeah, like if they’re performing negatively, then they can be penalized. And so, yeah, that can definitely. you know, especially for the affiliates, they’re not necessarily intentionally trying to rock the boat or tarnish things, but maybe they’re, like you said, pushing the boundaries of, you know, things that they could say, you know, and then you can penalize them for that. So then they can see, okay, baby, I shouldn’t do that the next time. I can’t use this type of language or what have you. So yeah,

Lauren Lee:
Yeah.

Arlen:
I think that’s a great, great strategy. Um, you know, with anything, any type of marketing venture or any marketing channel that a business is going through, um, or utilizing, I’m always a huge advocate of just kind of learning from the mistakes of others. I mean, that’s where you, I think you really truly learn. So I wanted to see what are some common mistakes that you’ve seen that e-commerce brands have made when they’re working with affiliates, you know, that we can learn from.

Lauren Lee:
Well, what I mentioned, which is that there’s no point person inside the brand’s company. It’s like a marketing person who’s wearing several hats. So I think that can be an area of resistance, an area of challenge if you don’t have a point person or somebody who can dedicate majority of their work efforts towards the affiliate program. I’ve also seen brands give up too fast. you’re creating this program and like I mentioned, it’s relational, you’re building your relationships with your affiliates, you’re starting to create content that they can promote, you’re starting to see some benefits but it’s not moving as fast as maybe you anticipated or would want for the sales channel and you decide to move your efforts into something else which is totally fine. However, I do see brands give up too early to be able to see out their affiliate marketing program.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
And then I think Again, noting that it’s relational, not cultivating a relationship with your affiliates. Ultimately these are not only individuals, but they’re businesses that are extensions of your sales efforts, of your acquisition efforts, of your marketing efforts. You want to have a good standing relationship with them and reward them for the things that are working really well, like you mentioned, like increasing commissions or payouts or you know, facilitating relationship opportunities where you guys are meeting at affiliate network events or something to that capacity. I think without that, right, the affiliates are gonna either maybe move on to other brands or, you know, you can drop out of your relationship together.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
So those are three things that I’ve noticed across the board, pretty

Arlen:
Okay.

Lauren Lee:
general, but.

Arlen:
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. I mean, I think those are, are some really key things that, um, you know, it makes sense. And that, you know, I can see brands making the mistake and like you said, I think the not having the point person is a key thing there. Um, a lot of times, you know, brands, their digital marketing team or the people that they’re working with to do their digital marketing are wearing a bunch of hats. You know, they may be managing their email campaigns. They may be doing some of their content marketing. So they’re doing a lot of things and a lot of times the affiliate marketing kind of gets thrown under the hat, the same responsibility of that same person. And you know, depending on the brand and how you know, Um, how big they are and then what the responsibilities are. It could work, but like you said, as you’re growing, if you really want to be successful with an affiliate program, you want to have a point person, a point person where that’s really kind of almost their date and their main job is you know, because it’s a lot, it’s a lot to handle, maintaining these relationships, growing the relationships, finding affiliates, you know, managing, you know, their needs, what type of creatives do they need? So it’s when you think about it and you just listing out just those few tasks, items there, you really kind of see how it can quickly and easily become a full time job. So, yeah, that’s that really is, I think, how a lot of businesses fail when they don’t have that poor, their affiliate programs fail when they don’t have that point person.

Lauren Lee:
Yeah, and I’ll just

Arlen:
Well.

Lauren Lee:
add if you think about it from the perspective of I have a point person in my company that runs marketing, that runs business development, that runs product development or products, or you have these people who are the point person for the strategies of your business that are meaningful to you. and

Arlen:
Yep.

Lauren Lee:
driving growth and driving scale and driving sales and driving customer acquisition. The same is true for affiliate marketing. Again, I mentioned this earlier in the show, but there’s this mindset that affiliates set it and forget it. And the reality is that it is very much a strategy that you implement into your business and somebody has to be there to drive that strategy.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Lauren Lee:
So I think it’s just more about perspective, more about mindset than anything.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And like you said, somebody just really just has to be there to just to drive all of these things. That’s that’s

Lauren Lee:
Mm-hmm.

Arlen:
really the bottom line. Well, Lauren, as we get ready to wrap things up, I really wanted to see if you would be able to share just any success story that you’re familiar with of a brand that you’ve either worked with or that you’re just familiar with in general that has achieved, you know, any success through affiliates and affiliate marketing and has been able to maintain control of their brand.

Lauren Lee:
Yeah, you know, the brand that comes to mind is not a brand that’s currently on ClickBank just because of the limitations of the type of offers that we have on our network. But when I was working at the publisher, we worked really closely, I worked really closely with Lululemon and they really learned how to leverage affiliates, specifically publisher affiliates. So… Publishers are like, think like Forbes Magazine or Buzzfeed or something like that, right? And they really learned how to leverage publishers that worked for their brand. They didn’t lose their brand’s vision or ethos or credibility, right? They were able to produce and share content that publishers could share to their audiences in a way that was really scalable. And it was very price driven. It was like they’re overstock or they made too much of things. And we, as publishers, could really create a lot of content around that. It’s a very successful brand, very notable.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
And then to

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
offer discounts was really important. But the main goal for Lululemon was acquisition, customer acquisition.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
And this channel, this affiliate channel, was driving that for them in a very, very big and scalable way.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lee:
So that’s that. brand came to mind in that experience of where you really fine tune the strategy of affiliate marketing that works for the business and then lean into it and start to really scale it.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, that’s great. And that’s a great success story. And yeah, it just sounds like they knew upfront. Their goal, their goal was to increase their customer acquisition and through affiliate marketing, they were, they were able to do it. So that,

Lauren Lee:
Yep.

Arlen:
that’s another, another great point is to, um, define your goal before even starting this, before even, you know, setting up your own affiliate program or engaging with an affiliate network. what’s the end goal? And yeah, I think from there, you can, that’ll help you better guide you into everything that you’re doing and even the types of affiliates that you’re looking for once you

Lauren Lee:
Yeah.

Arlen:
know what that end goal is.

Lauren Lee:
Yeah.

Arlen:
Well, Lauren, this has been an awesome conversation. Affiliate marketing is something I can talk about for just kind of days and days. And it’s kind of dear and dear to my heart. And so we definitely appreciate everything that you’ve brought to the table. with respect to this concept of affiliate marketing and maintaining the control of your brand when using affiliates, which is, you know, I think definitely very important as we’ve seen. But, you know, I always like to close things out with, and switch gears just a little bit, just so our audience can get to know you a little bit better. So if you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact about yourself that you think we’d be interested to know.

Lauren Lee:
Well, fun fact. Fun fact, oh god. Well, in my intro, you mentioned that I assist in Buddhist meditation training.

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
So I’ve been practicing meditation and learning in a very condensed manner for the last six years.

Arlen:
Okay.

Lauren Lee:
And I just finished classes at Harvard Extension

Arlen:
Oh

Lauren Lee:
School

Arlen:
wow.

Lauren Lee:
for compassion training and contemplative practices and studying at UMass for. another meditation modality and also the Stanford compassion cultivation training. So I think that those are all fun facts you probably wouldn’t anticipate from somebody

Arlen:
Right.

Lauren Lee:
in the e-commerce world.

Arlen:
For sure, for sure. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s, yeah, I mean, you’re right. That’s somebody in the e-commerce space, in the whole online space, social media and all of this. I mean, it’s almost juxtaposed to mindfulness because of that’s

Lauren Lee:
Yes.

Arlen:
just the nature of everything with this whole online space and social media. It’s

Lauren Lee:
Yes.

Arlen:
like, you know. the king of distractions with all of the stuff we have here. But you do have to find meditation, you do have to find mindfulness and meditation is a great way to do it. It’s something that myself, I’ve been trying to do, I’m trying to get better at meditating and doing it daily, but I struggle. As you know, and anybody that’s meditated, once you initially try doing it, you really… You really… quickly see how out of control your mind is, you know, and how all over the place it is when you try to settle it. But yeah, that’s awesome that you’ve been able to really advance to those higher levels and you’ve been practicing for six years and able to teach it. So yeah, thank you for sharing that. That’s some good stuff.

Lauren Lee:
Yeah, and just so you know, being able to notice that your mind is busy is a huge win. So you’re not struggling in

Arlen:
Right,

Lauren Lee:
your

Arlen:
right.

Lauren Lee:
meditation practice, you’re actually really winning. And

Arlen:
Right, right.

Lauren Lee:
it’s the ability to be aware that you’re actually cultivating.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Thank you. Thank you for that reaffirming of fact. We

Lauren Lee:
I’m sorry.

Arlen:
have you’re right. Yeah. Because it’s like in the when you’re in the midst of it and you’re like, oh, man, you know, you know, you try to do it and you know, it’s it’s a practice where I mean, it takes years and years to really, I mean, I don’t know if you ever really master it per se, unless you’re like, you

Lauren Lee:
It’s

Arlen:
know,

Lauren Lee:
a lifetime.

Arlen:
a higher level. Yeah,

Lauren Lee:
Yeah.

Arlen:
it takes a lifetime. Exactly. Exactly. You said it. You said it. Well, yeah, that’s that’s some great stuff. Well, thank you again for sharing that fun fact. Lastly, before we do let you go, if you don’t mind sharing the best way for our listeners to contact you if they want to pick your brand anymore about affiliates and maintaining your brand’s control when dealing with them.

Lauren Lee:
The best place to connect is LinkedIn. So if you use LinkedIn, you can find me under Lauren Lee under ClickBank and that you can message me directly there. I’m happy to have a conversation about anything affiliate related, anything that I can do to support and continue this conversation, feel free to message me there. And then if you’re interested in ClickBank, you can literally go to ClickBank.com and hit, you know, join as a seller, it’s completely free and you can set up your account. We’ll also share with you, that you can put in the show notes, just a resource hub that we’ve created for e-commerce brands coming into ClickBank and learning more about what does that mean and how does it work and who are the affiliates that you’re working with and what do I need to be able to be in the ClickBank marketplace. So all of that will be available to you and I look forward to connecting.

Arlen:
Okay, great. Well, yeah, thank you for sharing that. We definitely have a link to the site in the show notes and, um, definitely encourage people to check you out on social media, look you up on LinkedIn and, uh, you know, pick your brain if they have any other further burning questions for sure.

Lauren Lee:
Sounds good.

Arlen:
All right, Lauren. Well it’s been great talking to you and we definitely appreciate having you on today on the e-commerce marketing podcast.

Lauren Lee:
Thank you so much for having me.

Podcast Guest Info

Lauren Lee
Senior eCommerce Development Manager with ClickBank