A Plethora of Performance Podcasts

The retail side of affiliate marketing now has what may be more podcasts than ever. These are the ones I listen to, should you care to bend your ear.

• The Affiliate Marketing Podcast with Lee-Ann Johnstone of Affiverse
  • Lee-Ann asks sharp questions to guests in and out of the traditional affiliate space. (She has significant experience in gaming.) This otherwise great podcast  has what might be the worst intro music, not just of this list but of any podcast, ever. Indeed, should my inequities land me in one of Dante’s circles, I fear this shall be what plays for all eternity.
• Affiliate Nerd Out with Dustin Howes of Performance Marketing Manager
  • To churn out twice-weekly live episodes, Dustin must be the hardest-working man in all of affiliate marketing podcasting. Even when he hands things over to Christen Evans, he can’t stay away and calls in to his own show. 😛 Casual format with personal and business questions.
• Always Be Testing with Tye DeGrange of Round Barn Labs
  • A fellow co-host of our Affiliate and Friends gatherings in Austin, Texas, this agency principal burst onto the scene in late summer with a long list of notable guests in- and outside of affiliate marketing. He has a particular interest in conversion optimization and user interface design.
• Awin Talks, usually with Rob Davinson
  • Fairly buttoned up, as one would expect of the Brits. Listeners shall be soothed by the dulcet voice of Davinson, who seems to harbor a secret fear he’ll be replaced by AI … which may actually be about to happen! The show announced a mysterious pause after its latest episode.
• Gen3 Marketing — Actionable Insights with Kerry Curran
  • Like competitor Round Barn Labs, this podcast appears to have launched over the summer. Good topics and guests.
• The Partnership Economy with David A. Yovanno and Todd Crawford of impact.com
  • Interview format. Yovanno and Crawford have settled into a nice tag-team rhythm with advertiser, publisher, agency, and tech solution guests.
• Profitable Performance Marketing with Jamie Birch of JEB Commerce
  • Dual format — interviews and solo. Birch puts out some of the most practical suggestions for hands-on program management. The host and I share a special bond as looong-time affiliate managers who are often presumed to be the opposite gender because of our names.
• Smooth Operator with Blake Saunders of Methuselah Advisors
  • An apt name: minute for minute, the most value for listening with an easy flow. In the five episodes thus far, Saunders digs the meat out of the work experience of a who’s who in commerce content — unsurprising given that this is on behalf of Martech Record.

Affiliate-Adjacent:

• AdExchanger Talks with Allison Schiff
  • Mostly the programmatic and walled garden worlds. It can’t be left unsaid that the host shares my wife’s first name and four out of six letters of my last name.
• The Jason & Scot Show with Jason Goldberg of Publicis and Scot Wingo of ChannelAdvisor
  • The show anchors to earnings announcements, major trends, and major features. A bit dry, but a sober assessment of the world of e-commerce, or at least its major players.
• The Digiday Podcast
  • Digiday is one of the top media sources for the online traditional publishing world, which now sometimes includes affiliate. It currently has a compelling series on the history of ad tech.

I’ve been honored to have been a guest on most of the affiliate-related shows above. While this list is a complete one of everything I listen to, forgive me and please let me know if I missed any. I’d love to check it out (provided the intro music isn’t the same as Lee-Ann’s).