Interview with Blue Ribbon Panel Member Gus Brito, Director of Network Development at FlexOffers.com

What should an advertiser using performance marketing be thinking about in 2017?

I’m a firm advocate of performance marketing. It is the most cost effective way of marketing your products and services. If return on investment is the highest priority, one should have a positive and optimistic outlook for 2017. Therefore, they should be thinking and planning of how to get the most out of performance marketing.

What were your takeaways from ASW?

The Affiliate Summit West conference was jammed full of great information for new and existing marketers. The interaction with all attendees from all areas of affiliate marketing is key to build anyone’s business. You might not win a new client on the first interaction, but if spend some time finding out what they need and offer ways to solve their situation, you might win their attention.

What does Affiliate Window’s acquisition of ShareASale mean for the rest of the industry?

In my humble opinion, it means the affiliate marketing industry continues to grow and expand its horizons. I’m all for accelerating grow and client reach and I supposed that’s Affiliate Window’s goal to grow and expand.

An increasing number of networks have major new-investor money behind them, funding more sophisticated technology and greater scale. Are networks inevitably going to get bigger, and will small networks be driven out?

I strongly believe that some networks will get bigger than others, but the opportunity continues to be there for others still. We are, after all, in a business with constantly evolving technology. We should also consider that if client services are not met, it will open the door for more solution providers.

There have been several reports exposing the massive amount of fraud that is pervasive in the AdTech industry. Performance-based pricing seems like an obvious solution yet is still too often seen as the red-headed stepchild of online marketing. How do we bridge the gap?

We bridge that gap by educating the public, as we in the industry are responsible for properly marketing “performance marketing.” I spend as much time as I can explaining the advantage of performance marketing; it is my favorite way to market. I was on the advertiser side for many years, and in my experience, there is not better feeling out there than reporting costs based on revenue.

About

As Director of Network Development at FlexOffers.com, Gus is responsible for the development and growth of the FlexOffers Affiliate Network. Gus managed the TigerDirect.com affiliate program from its infancy and helped create one of the largest and best run programs on the web. His hard work and dedication has been recognized by his peers and the performance marketing industry with several LinkShare Golden Link Awards. He has 7 Golden Link Awards nominations and is the recipient of Awards for Best Online Merchandising Campaign and Publisher’s Choice in 2007 and LinkShare’ s Golden Link Affiliate Manager of the Year Award in 2010.