mThink recently had the opportunity to virtually sit down with a few members of the leadership team at Perform[cb], including Chief Operating Officer, Brad Dobbins, Chief Strategy Officer, Matthew Lord, Executive Vice President of Marketers, Lee Aho, and Executive Vice President of Partners, Brian Taylor. The group answered questions ranging from the state of the performance marketing industry to technological forecasting, and how affiliate networks drive efficiencies for advertisers and affiliates alike.

Blue Book: Perform[cb] has been changing quickly, with acquisitions, new technology, and a change of name. How should an advertiser or publisher think about working with you to understand the overall strategy? How does it all fit together?

Brad Dobbins: Our goal has always been to offer a one-stop-shop for all of our marketers’ and partners’ performance marketing needs. In recent years, we have been very fortunate to have added some exciting acquisitions that are all now integrated under the Perform[cb] brand, allowing us to achieve the goal of being the premier performance marketplace. Built upon the strength of our legacy brands, Clickbooth, Adperio, and Ignite OPM, Perform[cb] continues to be recognized as a leader in performance marketing.

Lee Aho: Overall strategy starts with understanding our clients’ goals and objectives. Those goals and objectives help our team identify the best in-network strategies to achieve the marketer’s desired results. The Perform[cb] team prides itself on educating and collaborating with clients to explore new opportunities for campaign growth and clearly communicating which strategies to employ in order to achieve specific KPIs, acquisition, or revenue goals.

Cutting edge technology combined with multi-model campaign capabilities, traffic channel alignment options, and advanced targeting strategies can be complex. However, the Perform[cb] team streamlines that process for our clients so that they can focus on strategies that drive scale and improve performance.

BB: Many advertisers and publishers struggle with some elements of affiliate marketing. How does a network help them with their pain points while still being able to scale?

Matthew Lord: When I think about setting up clients for success, it’s all about alignment. Performance marketing is scalable when we get the conversion point to align with what matters most to a marketer. If the model is centered around highly engaged consumers in this way, it also correlates to commissions for affiliate partners, which is representative of the valuable activity they are driving.

Lee Aho: While each client is unique, marketers and partners alike express shared pain points throughout the affiliate marketing space. Perform[cb] leverages its longstanding relationships, industry experience, and proprietary technology to put our clients in the best position to reduce those pain points. With nearly two decades of experience, we’ve utilized direct client feedback to create the tools needed to solve client concerns; in fact, client feedback and strategy discussions consistently remain top of mind as our teams plan what is next for our products and business as a whole.

BB: Perform[cb] has now fully integrated the Adperio mobile network. What advantages will product marketers and publisher partners see as a result?

Brad Dobbins: Our clients can now experience the full benefits that come along with the integration of two highly successful networks that have each been dominant players for decades. We offer access to highly competitive campaigns across all traffic types, in addition to our full suite of distribution channels including display, email, mobile, search, social, and SMS. All of our marketer’s campaigns benefit from our team’s expertise in compliance and fraud protection, providing marketers 24/7 protection.

Brian Taylor: In a word: Scale. With the integration of Adperio, our offer inventory virtually doubled overnight. Our affiliates now have access to app install offers (CPI) and web-based offers (CPA), which translates into immense growth opportunities. In addition to more offers, affiliate partners are also getting immense knowledge and experience from two networks, now integrated into one, that have both been around for over two decades. Along with that knowledge comes innovation and technology that’s optimized and suited to the needs of our clients. Our proprietary platform continues to create internal efficiencies, allowing us to better support our clients

BB: You seem to have continued to invest in your technology and platform when other networks have cut back. What are the competitive advantages you and your partners derive as a result of your ongoing investments?

Brad Dobbins: Our proprietary platform, PerformLEAP, is the engine that powers our business. As such, we will continue to dedicate resources towards evolving our technology. One of the biggest advantages of having an in-house platform is the ability to release new features that are purposely built for our business, many that come from direct user feedback, and that continue to separate us from our competition. We believe that technology will play an even bigger role in performance marketing in the years to come, and plan to make sure that our platform remains on the cutting-edge of where the industry is going before it gets there.

Brian Taylor: One thing that’s continued to set us apart and allowed us the flexibility to continue to innovate is our proprietary platform, PerformLEAP. PerformLEAP was launched in 2015, and for five years and counting, it has been supported by our talented and dedicated internal tech team. Our in-house team allows us to consistently add new features and optimizations that take the client’s platform experience to the next level. Some competitive advantages include customizing link redirects, A/B split testing, image/brand rotation links, API, and transparent reporting to name a few. Best of all, most of these features have been inspired by feedback directly from our clients. Welcoming client feedback and acting on it shows loyalty that goes both ways.

BB: Is there still room for technology to improve or is this as good as it is going to get?

Brad Dobbins: Yes, I believe there is always room for improvement in technology. A platform’s ability to assist with more granular campaign targeting, A/B split tests, and offer rotation are just a few ways that technology can continue to help improve our clients’ ROI.

At the same time, networks can streamline affiliate partners’ campaign management by ensuring they are using their platform’s automation tools to their fullest capacity, in addition to segmenting their campaigns with the most competitive offers to deliver the best overall return. The more processes that a network can help their affiliates automate and alleviate, the more that these partners will be able to focus their efforts on scaling their business versus simply just managing it. This creates a win-win-win for everyone – the network, the marketer, and the partner.

Lee Aho: Any company operating with the mindset that performance is maxed out is destined for extinction. We’ve experienced growth this year across multiple traffic channels, verticals, geographic locations, and performance models – each of these contains performance advancement opportunities. We’re continually looking for ways to improve our technology and the transparency of our reporting. Experienced and knowledgeable Affiliate Managers are critical too, of course. Perform[cb]’s Affiliate Management team consists of over 100 years of combined experience.

Are you an advertiser or marketer looking to add a new channel to drive user acquisition? Or perhaps you’re an affiliate looking to connect with a new network and deliver high-quality traffic? Visit Perform[cb] to apply to be a marketer, or apply to be an affiliate now!