Say ‘HELLO’ to Erin Kerr!
With 6+ years in the affiliate marketing space, Erin has worked with award-winning companies in many verticals, most notably in the travel space. Erin has grown in her career with experience as both a publisher and an account manager, giving her a unique perspective when managing programs.
Today, you can find her with her beloved pup as she launches and maintains affiliate programs globally; with a strong focus on EMEA, LATAM and the Americas.
Please read on for a deeper look into Erin and her light-hearted look on affiliate marketing and life.
Question: You are a new addition to the crayon box. What colour would you be and why?
Erin: A soft, pale Yellow. Optimistic, gentle and overall happy.
Question: If you were a super hero (and we know you are), what would your super power be and what can we call you?
Erin: Captain Analogy because I can whip together an analogy on the fly faster than Taylor Swift can put out a new song based on an ex-partner.
I used to be known as the “Tea-Pun Queen” back when I helped manage an affiliate program for a tea merchant. I would always include puns in the emails I’d send to partners and it even became part of the official training documents for the company on how to structure your emails. I guess you can say I have some creative-tea 😉
Question: Your favorite Inspirational Quote and Why
Erin: I have two of them:
“If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” – Jim Barksdale.
A partner said this to me during a meeting at a conference and it stuck with me. There are so many things that data can tell you once you start to play around with it, where opinions are just that: opinions.
“Well-behaved women seldom make history” – Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.
Before embarking on a 3-month journey to work remote from Europe, my close group of friends gave me a gift and one of them wrote that quote in the card. These ladies have made their mark in the industry in their own ways and it’s a good reminder that I should look to do the same.
Question: Name one thing about your job that inspires you to keep working at AIM and gets you out of bed in the morning?
Erin: As cliché as it sounds, the team at AIM. Hands down. We are a remote team and I believe that because of that, we all take the time to know and support each other more. We all have our own quirks and come together at the end of the day to make it happen for our clients.
We try and do things together when we can, even if it is remote! Some of us internally have been doing #FaceMaskFridays where we put on face masks as we work to promote self-care. It’s easy for that line between work and life balance to blur when you are working from anywhere, and this is a great way for us to remind ourselves to take a few minutes for ourselves.
Question: How did you become an expert in Affiliate Marketing?
Erin: I still don’t see myself as an expert and it’s still a trip whenever someone refers to me as one during conversations, haha 😊
Honestly, hard work and a determination to grow! I started off in the affiliate industry with no background in marketing nor a college or university degree; and a Canadian Coupon site took a chance and on-boarded me to manage their backend and update their HTML. From there, I grew my list of contacts and relationships with people in the industry and continued to learn while still pushing myself forward, and that ultimately led me to the team here at AIM!
Question: You have recently been selected to be a member of the 2019 PI Live advisory board, congratulations! Tell us a bit about the role of the advisory board and what do you hope to achieve?
Erin: Thanks so much! I’ve had the chance to attend the PI Live conference numerous times; and it’s one that I always looked forward to each year due to the content, sessions and opportunities.
The PI Live Advisory board was formed to help shape the overall content and sessions of the conference from the order in which each session will occur and to who will get a chance to speak at the event. We also need to pick 10 sessions that will go up to a public vote, so attendees can have a say in what they want to see.
One of the more exciting things this year to come out of PI Live is their pledge to try and have a 50/50 split in male vs. female speakers for sessions this year. This is a great and innovative move, as too often, there’s not enough women who are given the opportunity to speak or don’t feel supported enough to even try and apply.
Question: What are the three key Trends in Affiliate/Performance Marketing in 2019?
Erin:
1) Data, Data and More Data: This has been coming over the years; and both merchants and partners want to be able see more actionable data. Everything from what kind of shoe size sells the most to if your sales are coming more from an app or your website and more.
2) Personalization: With more competition coming into the space, you need to find a way to capture that user at the right time, with the right item, with the right offer. Partners can help with that at all points of the funnel to ensure new customer acquisition by creating a personalized shopping experience.
3) Privacy Concerns and User Data Usage: Users are becoming more and more savvy to the information they share online and how it’s being used (as seen in a post GDPR and Facebook scandal era). Both Safari and Apple have made changes to cookie tracking and we should expect other browsers to follow suit and potentially be bracing ourselves for more regulations coming from a government level.
Question: What is your biggest professional challenge?
Erin: Not trying to stress out over the simple things and to slow down. Some things in life you just can’t do anything about to fix, so why bother stressing about them? You can only control your reactions at that point and there’s not enough time in the day to be constantly worrying over every little detail.
Question: What is the one piece of advice you can offer a budding Affiliate Marketer?
Erin: I’ve given this answer to numerous people starting off in the industry and it still rings true: Be willing.
Be willing to ask for help when you don’t know something.
Be willing to offer guidance or tips when asked.
Be willing to accept that you might have made a mistake and more importantly, be willing to figure out a solution.
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