On Tuesday, 29th April, marketers, brands and affiliate programme leaders headed to the Everyman on Finsbury Avenue to discuss the future of the industry at APMA Advertiser Connect.
The exclusive event, hosted by APMA Founder and industry expert Kevin Edwards, was clearly designed to open honest conversations with industry leaders and featured speakers from The Sole Supplier, ITV, and Expedia, among others.
The first speakers included Clare O’Brien, Associate Media Advisor, ISBA, Emily Latham, Head of Marketing Technology, Carwow, and Jayesh Rajdev, Controller of Advanced Advertising, ITV. Together, they unpacked the current state of advertising and marketing in a rapidly evolving landscape.
O’Brien noted the huge growth of the industry in the past few years. “I have never seen the industry change like this in my career. We’re living in a time of conversion, and the internet underpins everything we’re doing.
“The UK spends 40 billion on advertising, which is the highest per capita it's ever been. The big drive for expenditure is really coming from performance.”
Latham explained how performance marketers have become “addicted to clicks” and “obsessed with data,” but should instead be centring their team around a roadmap with clear targets for success.
“Performance marketing is having an existential crisis,” she said.
Rajdev stressed the importance of signalling to customers that your brand should be “noticed,” which comes with having a “testing mindset.”
Later, Edwards shared new APMA insights, revealing that UK brands invested £7.1 billion in affiliate marketing last year. Subnetworks, voucher partners, and price comparison tools attracted the bulk of funding, though notable growth was also seen among tech partners, CSS, and subnetworks.
Afterwards, Eitan Jankelewitz, Partner at Sheridans, and Nick Stringer, Public Policy & Regulatory Affairs Adviser, examined the evolving blueprint of affiliate marketing in the UK. They talked cookies, GDPR and UK legislations, and even shared some insightful stats about affiliate and partner marketing—including how it’s generated £19 billion for advertisers, marking a 5% year-on-year increase.
Maya Traykova, Chief Product Officer, and George Sullivan, Founder of The Sole Supplier, then explored how a full-funnel strategy helped their brand drive £250 million in revenue and achieve 2 billion impressions, all guided by what they called their “gold standard” framework.
“We are not evaluating the channels properly,” Traykova said. “We need to level the playing field.”
Closing the event was Helen Southgate, Chief Strategy Officer, Acceleration Partners and Nick Caulfield, Senior Director of Growth & Operations + Global Business Development, Expedia Group. Lucky audience members got a look inside Expedia’s huge strategy shift.
“At Expedia, we’ve proven we’re more of a business than a marketing channel. That’s how we’ve been able to scale. We sit in an intersection of B2B and B2C, but we’re much more tailored to B2B,” Caulfield explained.
However, he made it clear that it’s not all smooth sailing for the affiliate industry.
“There’s no one at the table championing affiliate marketing,” Caulfield pressed. “We line up with the attributes people perceive us to have.” He pushed the importance of being a unified front as affiliate marketers.
The highlight actually wasn’t the mini croissants, but instead the opportunity to meet like-minded individuals all facing the same industry challenges. Intimate and refreshingly honest, Advertiser Connect offered the kind of dialogue usually reserved for flagship events like PI Live, but with a more stripped-back, focused atmosphere.
