Introducing Rob Schab
Rob Schab is our first former TUNEr to turn out to be an authorized Affiliate Rockstar! Since his days at TUNE, Rob has co-founded two affiliate expertise corporations. In 2020, Rob began an affiliate recruitment platform and company referred to as Grovia, which offered to Acceleration Companions. At present, Rob is the Co-Founder and CMO of Levanta, an affiliate platform for Amazon sellers. Rob can be a College of Washington alumnus, a reluctantly obsessed Seattle Mariners fan, and an avid traveler.
Take it away, Rob!
Rockstar Q&A with Rob
What are your day-to-day duties?
As Chief Market Officer, my day-to-day is a wholesome stability of technique and execution round something that will increase the worth of Levanta’s Amazon Affiliate community. Whether or not that’s onboarding extra manufacturers via gross sales and partnerships, or constructing a recruitment technique to activate creators at scale, my aim is to maximise market exercise.
How did you get into the affiliate business?
Following a few helpful startup failures in faculty, I used to be fortunate to get my first actual job at an unbelievable firm referred to as TUNE (I nonetheless name them HasOffers). I had the perfect mentors that an affiliate rookie may ask for in Nate Ivie, Nessa Voigt, and Connor Sliva.
What are your most essential KPIs?
With income being the final word KPI, my aim is to develop either side of our affiliate community to encourage extra transaction quantity, therefore producing extra income. At a excessive stage, we take a look at the variety of energetic associates, and the variety of advertisers (i.e., sellers). In the meantime, we hold an in depth eye on SaaS income development and retention price.
What’s your greatest pet peeve concerning the affiliate business?
The truth that nearly all of affiliate packages are last-click and measure down-funnel associates (e.g., coupon, loyalty, money again) proper alongside content material and influencer associates. These two teams have utterly totally different ranges of incrementality and shouldn’t be competing for attribution. With enhancements in affiliate tech, corresponding to multi-touch attribution, refined attribution fashions have gotten extra commonplace. However there may be nonetheless plenty of work to be carried out!
What do you suppose is undervalued in advertising and marketing on the whole?
The usage of LTV as a significant metric. So many manufacturers (particularly in affiliate) are aiming to revenue on their preliminary buyer acquisition. Associates aren’t simply driving gross sales, they’re driving new prospects. In case you actually consider in your merchandise, your model, and your capacity to create returning prospects and referrals, you need to be keen to pay associates a proportion of LTV, not simply proportion of sale! Identical logic applies to setting a goal CAC in different advertising and marketing channels.
What are a number of the issues that you just or your advertisers would possibly do in a different way in the course of the vacation season?
Prime Day is a crucial stretch and basically a vacation for Amazon sellers, and consequently a large alternative for Levanta. Throughout Amazon deal days and different huge buying occasions, we turn out to be very deal-focused. We offer instruments for our advertisers to share deal particulars with associates, and conversely, for associates to acquire deal data at scale. Our market offers a catalog the place associates can browse product/deal data, drill down into particular product classes, and type by fee/worth/finest vendor rating.
What’s the subsequent huge factor in online marketing?
You most likely noticed this reply coming, however there isn’t any doubt that affiliate packages for market sellers will make a giant splash within the affiliate world.
However I’d additionally hold an in depth watch on AI. I noticed a extremely attention-grabbing article from Neil Patel on website positioning for ChatGPT. When will we see paid adverts in ChatGPT … or affiliate hyperlinks?
What are 2-3 traits you’re seeing within the affiliate business?
The influence of AI on content material and online marketing. Little question that AI goes to vary the best way that we create and eat content material. I’ll even be curious to comply with regulatory responses round AI, content material, and commerce.
I sound like a damaged file, however I believe the most important development can be online marketing for marketplaces. Amazon alone accounts for practically 40% of U.S. e-commerce. Till just lately, the thousands and thousands of Amazon sellers had no resolution for tapping into online marketing as a scalable income stream. Regulate Levanta and the fast-growing Amazon Affiliate ecosystem.
What’s your high tip in relation to negotiating affiliate offers with companions?
Be empathetic, open-minded, and analytical! Most incremental-revenue-driving associates will know their worth and won’t all the time wish to work on a commission-only mannequin (the identical motive gross sales executives don’t work on a commission-only mannequin). Be keen to be versatile in your payout mannequin and discover a plan that works for each events. Do your finest to uncover metrics like anticipated views/clicks, then think about issues like conversion price and LTV to calculate the potential earnings from the affiliate deal. From there, discovering a stability between CPA, CPC, or flat price that may fulfill the wants for each events.
How essential is it to comply with the journey of a consumer after your advertisers first purchase them or after their first buy?
Extremely essential. If nothing else, it’s completely important to have a superb learn on buyer LTV. This may assist decide how a lot you’re keen to spend to accumulate a buyer. You may also leverage your buyer journey insights to get suggestions and enhance your product, enhance upsells/cross-sells, and generate extra referrals.
