With almost a decade working in the affiliate industry, CJ Affiliate caught up with Gabriel Akin, director of business development and marketing UK at Global Savings Group.
What’s the one misconception people make about Global Savings Group?
That we just offer discount codes! Outside of our discount codes, we create a lot of full price sales driving content, influencer collaborations and even have newspaper spots - so if you see us as a pure code site, then you’ve missed all the fantastic things Global Savings Group can offer.
In a tweet how would you describe GSG?
"Lord of the Seven Voucher Code sites, Protector of the Margin #GameofCodes #Incrementality”.
We have worked tirelessly to answer the difficult questions posed by our retailers surrounding incrementality and finding cost-effective ways to grow their sales.
What is affiliate?
A website, online software or mobile app that enhances the shopping experience for customers and brings measurable value to brands that they work with.
What do you enjoy about being in the affiliate space?
I enjoy the flexibility to move quickly with market trends and build creative ways of connecting commerce to content. For starters, Global Savings Group has created dynamic coupons, worked with influencers and even created pop-up stores for campaigns. On a personal level, I’ve been fortunate to wear a variety of t-shirts, jeans and trainers to work over many years and it still feels like I've acquired a sort of career cheat code.
What differentiates you from your competitors?
Our industry has been stagnant for a while centred around hosting codes and sending mailers. GSG in our two and a half years have worked hard to be creative and change that.
With our new products such as 'dynamic coupons', we actively target people based on location, time of day, AOV and even mobile network, which offers different segments of our base a more personalised experience.
What’s unique about your audience base?
By leveraging the MailOnline and Metro audiences, we find that we're able to drive high volumes of new customers and increase reach in areas where our brands under-index.
What’s the most memorable thing you’ve done at work?
It's hard to pick one moment - I've been in the industry for almost ten years. Working at Nike's international affiliate agency, I was able to launch affiliate campaigns into a lot of new markets - such as Russia, Israel, UAE, and Greece. I learned a lot from those markets and also working with Kate at Nike.
I won't forget looking for networks and affiliates in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and not finding anything; I guess I assumed there would be networks or a Quidco in every market, but I was wrong!
Given a magic wand, what would you change about affiliate marketing?
To standardise and improve tracking technology and de-duping across all networks, advertisers and browsers. If I could have a second, all advertisers would have variable budgets that could expand and cope with high sales volumes as long as they are within CPA/CoS limits.
Favourite Instagram account and why?
Jay Versace because… memes.
One example however, would be when he worked with Klarna to create content that was engaging with the advertiser's target demographic.
What’s your focus for 2019?
Rolling out our dynamic coupons to even more brands and building a content marketing platform that creates discovery and sales for them.
Give us a big number and why?
5,722. That’s the number of followers Darren in our team has on Instagram.
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