On today’s episode of The Engaging Marketeer, Darren is speaking to Anthony Quinn, an old friend and colleague back from his days working for GAME.
Now based in Thailand, and a managing partner of Lodestar Marketing, Anthony discusses how he found a huge gap in the Southeast Asian for affiliate marketing, which lead him to co-founding the most experienced affiliate marketing agency in Thailand.
Darren: We met in 2000, when I first started at Electronics Boutique (EB) – as it was then known! How did you get into the industry at GAME?
Anthony: That was actually my first job out of university. I was brought on initially as a marketing analyst, and to be honest, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do back then. I did a marketing and psychology degree, and kind of went in thinking, “right, this is my first job, let’s see what happens.” The marketing analyst role evolved very quickly, shall we say, within 3 to 6 months.
Within a couple of years, the guys bought a development team in-house, and basically re-rejigged the whole site. I think that was when GAME became a standalone brand and EB kind of went away. That was the first kind of pivot for me, because I remember the team becoming really keen on affiliate marketing. I didn’t know what it was back then, but they were convinced it was going to be big. They explained to me it was all about partnerships, and ways to drive traffic and sales.
I guess my first proper foray into affiliate marketing was when we launched on Tradedoubler, who were one of the biggest affiliate networks in the UK at the time. They had big clients and a massive base, but I was quite fresh into the industry, and didn’t really know what partnerships looked like. But what I did know was that I needed to brand it as something good and special. You may have helped me with this, I don’t know …
Darren: I’m happy to take credit for it!
Anthony: I’ll give you some credit anyway! But there was some artwork designed, and we launched. I basically branded it as the “Get Into Game” partnership program, which I thought was a pretty cool name, even though it was it was all about affiliate marketing. I learned quickly about the good and the bad affiliate marketing, because there was a lot of some not-so-nice stuff happening, like the cookie stuffing on websites. PPC was also happening, which is the ability to bid on a brand term and drive traffic to the website, and at the time, many brands weren’t utilising Google and didn’t really know how to do it. The publishers did, and they learned very quickly how to use it, and took advantage of it.
Shall I maybe explain affiliate marketing in terms of how it works as a channel?
Darren: Yes, go on, explain – because there’s probably people listening to this who are business owners, and thinking, “what the hell is affiliate marketing?” For those unsure, how could a business use affiliate marketing to build themselves up?
The fundamentals of affiliate marketing
Anthony: So essentially, affiliate marketing is all about partnering with a website, or an app, or someone that has the ability to promote a brand or a service – usually online.
They will promote that brand, or that service, and anyone that clicks from their website – whether it’s a bit of content, or they’re promoting an offer that the brand’s running -anyone that clicks through and makes a purchase, they receive commission on the sale. So, you’ve got all these different ways of working with different channels. With Google, it’s a pay-per-click, so you bid on how much you want to pay when someone clicks on the link. With affiliate marketing, you only pay when an actual sale happens, so it’s almost risk-free for the brand in terms of setting something up. It’s a really powerful channel for being able to control your spending and build up partnerships.
Darren: And of course, the trick is getting affiliates on board, because some are better than others. You’ve got your “super affiliates” that are earning tens of thousands of pounds a month just for running content ads on their website for other people – how do you get in front of those people who are going to make you a lot of money? What is it that they’re looking for in a business that means they’re going to promote you over someone else?
Anthony: That’s exactly what affiliate marketing management is all about, because you’ve got all of these different partners out there. You’ve got consumer facing partners, you’ve got cashback and reward sites in the UK, and they’re all promoting thousands of brands. So, how do you get on that homepage?
That’s the management part, to know how to be able to do that, and get the brands that you manage in front of the audience through these types of sites, but there’s hundreds of thousands of different partners that you potentially could work with, depending on what you’re selling. I mentioned cashback and loyalty – I’m sure most people when they’re shopping are looking for some extra value or a discount, and they might go to Google and try to find out if there’s a discount code for something they want to buy. They’ll get loads of results for websites promoting discount codes for different brands, so that’s one type of partnership. Then there’s social media, and community blogs forums. Influencers have become more powerful, because you can give them an item you want to promote, and they’ll make a content piece about it – whether that’s a video, or a blog. They get given a link, and they’ll get commission on any sale that’s made from clicking that link. That’s a really good example of monetising content using affiliate marketing.
Darren: And, of course, I think people listening will know about companies like Compare The Market and Go Compare, who are affiliates because they’re getting commission every time someone goes through their site and buys insurance.
Anthony: Exactly, it’s like an evolution of what was happening before. Back in the day, when people used to complete a sale over the phone for insurance, they’d receive commission on that sale – so it’s the same model, but it’s just all digital and automated now.
Darren: So, you left GAME in 2005, and now you’re not even in the UK! We’re recording this in January, and it is absolutely freezing – where are you now?
Anthony: I’m in Thailand now, and I have been for coming up to nine years actually. It’s been an interesting journey, of which I’ll try and give the shorter version!
After I left GAME, I went on a traveling trip to Thailand, just to take a bit of a break and try to figure out what I wanted to do. I had picked up some really good experience in GAME, so I think I just needed to finetune what I wanted to do and have some time to think about it. Two weeks before I was due to come back, I ended up getting work in Phuket for an eBay power-seller. They were selling some bizarre products – kind of Gothic dresses for women, mainly based in the US – and I did that for about 9 to 10 months.
When I came back, I was speaking to a few companies about getting work, and I ended up getting a job at a company called Rakuten. This company is a global powerhouse – they’re especially big in Japan – and their brand presence is ridiculous. I started working as a client facing account manager for them, and by the time I left, I think I was responsible for about 90 clients we were giving a full service to. I think I had about 40-something clients under my wing, and then obviously a team that I was managing as well, so this was an amazing experience for me. I got to know the industry massively, and also built my management skills as well, with knowing how to manage people and deal with all different types of things associated with being a people manager.
So, it was really good, but I got to a point where I wasn’t learning as much as I wanted to learn, so I decided it was time for a change. So, rather than a small change, I thought I’d just go full force, so I was told my wife I was leaving the company, and that we were going to move, probably to Bangkok. Kudos to her for coming along and supporting me!
I started doing some research, and obviously affiliate marketing was what I’d worked in for a long time, so I was looking for opportunities out there. Going back to the cashback sites, I realised that no one was doing it in Thailand. So, within three months, I basically got a template cashback engine and just launched it. I knew what I needed to do to get advertisers on board, because I knew about all the affiliate networks. I knew the process, so within three months I had about 250 stores on the cashback site. The hard part was looking for investment to try and get moving quicker, as I’d never done that before, so I joined a company that offered what’s called an incubator program – I don’t know if you’re familiar with that term?
Darren: I haven’t come across that, no.
How Anthony built his business from scratch, in a new country
Anthony: If you’re running a startup, there’s options to allow you to access support or funding as an entrepreneur, and one of those options is what’s called an incubator – so, it’s basically a company that you sign up with, and they’ll help you to understand the legal processes, how to how to scale on a limited budget, all of that knowledge. So, you sign up, and you either pay a fee, or they will take a small equity chunk for their services. I joined them to get some guidance, as getting investment initially was a really tough gig – have you done that before?
Darren: Nope – we started Engage Web with 100 quid!
Anthony: Right! So, I was just kind of winging it, and came across a similar company called RebateMango that was already live in four countries. They offered cashback to the consumer, along with points for using certain telecoms companies, or food shopping / taxi services. They also gave you the ability to donate your cashback to a charity, or put it towards airmiles. I got talking with the one of the co-founders and told him my situation, and that I was looking to scale up, but also that I’d like to potentially join another company. We realised that our objectives of what we wanted to achieve matched, so we joined up.
Things were going well, but then Covid happened. We’d just been about to receive a seed fund, I think of about a million dollars, to extend what we wanted to do, and then Covid started snowballing. The investors told us to wait a couple of months to let it blow over, but of course, it took longer than expected, and people stopped travelling, so the revenue we were getting through the flights booking sector of our member base just dropped to the floor. We didn’t get the funding either, so we had to make some real drastic changes.
We came to realise that no-one in Southeast Asia really knew how to manage or grow affiliate channels, so there was a huge gap in the market. E-commerce was growing really quickly, especially during Covid, and we realised that there was going to be companies based in the UK based, Europe, Australia or the US that wanted a piece of the southeast Asia e-commerce market. So, we decided we could probably pitch to them, and say, “we’re going to grow this channel for you in this region”. We also started securing some SMEs in the region, to grow our reputation and build our client base here. Then we started going for the big guys.
Darren: Well, we’re almost out of time – as a final question, what sort of businesses are you looking for to work with, and what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Anthony: Our company name is Lodestar Marketing, and we work with brands from all over – basically, any company that sells something online and has an e-commerce capability who’s interested in driving more sales through affiliate marketing, we’re happy to speak to them.
Darren: And is that purely in Asia, or you doing this across the world now?
Anthony: We focus on the APAC region, so southeast Asia mainly, but we support in other countries when needed.
Darren: Fantastic, thank you. It’s been a pleasure catching up with you!
Anthony: It has – it’s been too long!
About Anthony:
Anthony first started out in GAME, which was the beginning of a successful career in affiliate marketing. He now manages Lodestar Marketing with his business partner, and works with businesses across the globe to build their revenue. Anthony is based in Bangkok, and you can connect with him here:
Website: https://lodestar-marketing.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyquinn/
About your host:
Darren has worked within digital marketing since the last century, and was the first in-house web designer for video games retailer GAME in the UK, known as Electronics Boutique in the States. After co-founding his own agency, Engage Web, in 2009, Darren has worked with clients around the world, including Australia, Canada and the USA.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/engaging-marketeer/id1612454837
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenjamieson/
Engaging Marketeer: https://engagingmarketeer.com
Engage Web: https://www.engageweb.co.uk