How long have you been working at Acceleration Partners?
This is my third month. I started at the end of November/start of December and time has flown by! Everyone in the company works remotely and that’s quite an interesting thing to be doing. It’s a completely different dynamic to what I’ve worked with before.
What’s your typical day-to-day is like?
Everyone works remotely so things are a little different. Not having to commute means an extra few minutes in bed which is always appreciated ha!
As with most account managers, I start with checking previous days figures, catching up on emails etc. Because the company is US based and works with different markets, we have to do a lot of video calls so I spend a lot of my time doing conference calls. That does mean that despite working remotely, I need to look presentable and not sit around in my PJs.
What to do enjoy most about performance marketing?
From a professional point of view, I quite like the idea that everyone involved is generally boarded up in performance, so if you’re a publisher and generally working well with an advertiser, you’re going to be rewarded for that. From a personal perspective, everyone in the industry is awesome; there are so many types of people involved and everyone is really fun which helps because this industry requires a lot of relationship building and networking.
What do you think are some of the key trends happening right now in the industry?
The importance of influencers is going to continue to grow. You can’t go anywhere on social media or YouTube without seeing content providers pushing products that are made from majors brands or their own startups. If you look at the Influencer Marketing Show, being combined with PI LIVE, which is the main conference in the UK for performance marketing shows just how important it really is.
Another is that brands are expanding globally. It’s really interesting to see global programmes being run and how it works across multiple currencies. It’d be interesting to see how that develops as we’re a US based company but we’re already expanding into new markets such as EMEA and APAC.
And some of the key challenges?
GDPR is definitely the biggest challenge in 2018. Whilst we’ve had meetings and big talks around the industry, I still think it’s a steep learning curve for everybody and I would expect to be hits to growth from May because everyone will be conservative while we are all expecting or waiting for that first big fine or breach. I can imagine when that happens everyone’s emails and LinkedIn will go crazy.
What’s been your biggest career highlight so far?
In my previous role working for USwitch, I was responsible for managing several partnerships, including our energy affiliate programme. At the PMAs last year we were nominated for Best Management Affiliate Programme. We didn’t win but we came out highly commended so that was cool.
Aside from the affiliate world, do you have any other interest/hobbies?
I’m a pretty big hockey player, I play four times a week for Wapping Hockey Club. We either play in Wapping where you’ve got views of the Tower Bridge, The Shard and city which is amazing, or we play at the national hockey stadium in the Olympic Park. A 5,000 seat stadium; it’s really amazing to know that you share that with gold medalists etc. You got 350 men and women involved in it which is great. There are not many places where you’ve got that social aspect so it’s really good and fun.
Three words that best describe you?
Committed, joker and cynical (I take everything that people say with a pinch of salt).
Favourite book of all time?
I should say that Acceleration Partners’ Robert Glazer has a book called Performance Partnerships and it’s a title that really promotes the affiliate industry and one we’ve been giving away at our events.
My personal favourite is Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. He’s the kind of guy who’s into his science and history and explains why we are here right now; it goes through the history of everything in a very accessible, funny and precise way.
If you could meet one famous person, dead or alive, who would it be and why?
There was an American comedian called George Carlin, he died in 2008 so never got the chance to see him performing live but his videos went viral on YouTube. It’s really interesting because he’s quite the political satirist. I was only 18 at the time but he changed the way I thought about things. All your favourite comedians, if you were to ask them who their favourite influencer was, they would say George Carlin. I definitely recommend watching his stuff on YouTube as I think he was the greatest comedian there ever was.
Lastly, any exciting things in the pipeline for Acceleration Partners this year?
The EMEA expansion started in June last year, we’ve already got six employees. There’s more in the pipeline so it will be exciting to see how that team expands. With that large team, we’re going to be increasing our international reach as in America we were voted the number one agency so it’s good to take that on globally, so very excited for 2018.
