Matthew Wood, Founder of the awards, gives advice: “The vibrancy and atmosphere at this year’s awards were one of the best I’ve seen – the incredible teamwork mostly during the pandemic was rightfully celebrated and rewarded. For next year, we have refined many of the categories and added new ones to the mix. The entry deadline is fast approaching so now is the time to get heads together, speak to your team and clients and put your best foot forward!”

Celebrate at Grosvenor House

We’ll be gathering once again at the glorious Grosvenor House venue for an elating evening of networking, dinner, and awards. You can look forward to being back surrounded by your peers, celebrating all the hard work and efforts that have gone into making this channel so effective and durable.

Study the entry kit for steps-to-enter, judge’s advice, mistakes-to-avoid and more.

Save the Dates!

• Earlybird Entry Deadline – 25/01/2023
• Regular Entry Deadline – 01/02/2023
• Last Chance Entry Deadline – 15/02/2023
• Shortlist Announced – 06/04/2023
• The Awards – 11/05/2023

For full details of the entry criteria, categories and deadlines download the entry kit.

The post Performance Marketing Awards 2023: Entry Kit Ready For The Performance Industry’s Oscars appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Here is your rundown of this years’ winners, including the link to the all-important book of the night…

The post Brave, Creative and Unique – Winners of the 2022 Performance Marketing Awards Revealed appeared first on PerformanceIN.

The coveted Performance Marketing Awards Rising Star award seeks to recognise up and coming talent that is paving the way for innovation and positive change.

It’s no secret that, in the past, the performance and affiliate marketing industries have earned a reputation for being dated and insular. The Rising Star award is a chance for those who are new to the industry to be recognised and to show off their talent, to inspire other new and seasoned names alike.

Sponsored by Just Media Group, this prestigious award recognises key attributes in performance marketing professionals at the early stages of their careers, including natural talent, work ethic, enthusiasm, creativity and innovation.

The standard of entries received this year was extremely high and tasked with interviewing the shortlist are three highly esteemed members of the judging panel, including last year’s winner, Mel Blue, Director of Affiliate Marketing at Optimus Performance Marketing.

Joining Mel will be industry veteran, Jim Nichols, alongside Executive Chairman of Envolve Tech, Mark Smith.

One winner will be decided by an algorithm of 70% for each of the three judges’ scores, while a crucial 30% is reserved for the final industry vote.

Here’s a chance to meet this years’ candidates, along with some words from peers on their progression in the performance marketing industry.

Here are this years’ candidates:

Raman Gill, Business Development Manager at CJ Affiliate

Raman’s role at CJ isn’t her first within the channel – she worked at Awin for six months prior to joining CJ in November 2019 as Business Development Executive, before being promoted in 2020 to Business Development Manager.

From whichever way you look at it, Raman has gone beyond the ordinary to achieve excellence in terms of business results, company culture and the promotion of the affiliate channel.

Since joining CJ, Raman has successfully onboarded 49 new clients, 45 of which completely new to the affiliate channel – a telling statistic that shows Raman has pushed her role to its maximum, presenting not just the benefits of CJ, but the channel, attracting new blood to affiliate marketing.

Raman is a founding member of CJ’s global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) Group; this, as well as her training as a mental health first aider to assist her colleagues during the weary lockdown periods and beyond; her nomination as CJ’s Dare To Think Big: Global Team Player of the Year; or even her relentlessly over-achieving against sales targets alongside all of her additional commitments to the business described here.

Her peers said: “It’s clear that Raman is a rising star within performance marketing, and we look forward to seeing her shine.”

Smita Pillai, Customer Success Director at impact.com

Smita has only worked in the partnerships and performance marketing industry for three years, but in that time has made a significant and lasting impression both professionally and personally.

Alongside maintaining and growing impact.com’s existing roster of clients, and driving new organic revenue streams, recent highlights for Smita include building on the company’s relationship with HelloFresh, directly securing the extension of their contract period, and overseeing the migration of Swarovski onto impact.com’s platform. She also helped strengthen the relationship with agency partners such as Acceleration Partners, Optimus, Reprise and Planit.

Smita’s team has tripled in size since she joined, and is steadily growing. She has fostered strong ties with impact.com’s other departments and regions, increasing cross-region knowledge sharing and collaboration.

As impact.com’s Diversity and Equity Ambassador, Smita cultivates a more empathetic, diverse workplace, in which people can thrive. Her involvement has directly helped impact.com’s DEI response evolve and grow over the past year. She is also passionate about creating a positive presence in the wider industry. As well as being a member of AllBright, the networking group for female business leaders, she is a familiar face at industry events and a thought leader in the marketing press.

Smita’s peers said: “It is Smita’s passion for personal growth and development – crucially for her team as well as herself – that set her apart. She nurtures talent by creating a space in which people feel safe and comfortable while empowering them to develop their own leadership skills, in the knowledge they will have her support and encouragement as well as constructive feedback and advice.”

Francesca Dakin, Partnerships Manager at Vamp, previously Senior Influencer Partnerships Manager at Awin

When she joined the industry in 2018, Francesca immediately immersed herself into the affiliate climate. In 2020, Francesca embraced the opportunity to drive and shape Awin’s influencer strategy as Influencer Partnerships Manager. Francesca started this role as the sole member of the influencer division – pitching and managing end-to-end campaigns, securing budgets, and providing consultation and education to Awin colleagues on the value of influencer marketing. 

When Awin launched a series of external webinars, as a passionate advocate for the influencer space, Francesca jumped at the opportunity to host one, presenting Awin’s influencer key stats and securing industry figures to participate in a panel. Francesca participated in a panel at the Influencer Marketing Show on a subject she is passionate about: Social Good & Activism within the Influencer Channel.

Awin dedicated more resources to the influencer division for the first time as a result of Francesca’s early success. Francesca coordinated management and training, and led strategy to ensure greater campaign results, part of which was implementing a unified influencer campaign approach. Traditionally, influencer campaigns via Awin often involved liaising with advertiser affiliate departments in silo. Francesca started to initiate meetings with advertisers’ affiliate teams and PR agencies to ensure content, PR and affiliate strategy supplemented one another and resulted in 360 campaign management.

When nominating her, Francesca’s colleagues at Awin said: “Alongside her career, Francesca has a natural flair for creativity, having an established blog and social following, giving her first-hand experience of being a social content publisher. Francesca spearheaded affiliate growth strategy for her accounts, championing diversity beyond traditional incentive publishers – introducing new content, editorial publishers, and influencers.”

Francesca has now moved further into the Influencer Marketing industry having moved onto a new role as Partnerships Manager at Vamp.

Nicole Wellman, Senior Manager, Client Services at Rakuten Advertising

Nicole manages a portfolio of high-profile brands including Net-A-Porter, H&M, Microsoft and MATCHESFASHION. With clients focused on international growth, she works with teams across seven time zones with as many as 18 contacts to ensure alignment and efficiency to drive strong affiliate performance.

Due to her exceptional account management and people skills, Nicole has recently joined the leadership team and now manages six account managers. Whilst overseeing her demanding client portfolio, she has supported this team to grow and develop in their roles which has resulted in two recent promotions.

As a confident speaker, Nicole regularly participates in leading industry events. In 2019, she took to the stage at the Influencer Marketing Show to discuss the challenges of measurement drawing on her attribution experience. Last year, she spoke at PI LIVE on how to design a high-performing affiliate marketing programme. She is an active member of the Rakuten Advertising International Collective – a group of affiliate experts with the aim to promote affiliate marketing as a strategic digital marketing channel.

In less than six years at the company, Nicole has had seven promotions reaching the title of Senior Manager ahead of her 27th birthday. She has proven herself to have a unique skill set. Not only does she manage a demanding portfolio of leading brands, Nicole mentors and supports junior team members and encourages her peers to look at the industry through an alternative lens. She continues to challenge measurement and push the boundaries of affiliate marketing to drive success for her clients, team and the wider industry.

Her teammates said: “Nicole’s career trajectory has gone from strength to strength. She’s someone who is constantly learning and will quickly become a subject matter expert, much like she has for her key global accounts. Nicole brings a certain energy and positivity in everything she does, and it’s really impressive to watch her grow both professionally and personally.”

Amelia Ensell, Account Director at Wavemaker

With just four years media experience, Amelia is Wavemaker’s youngest ever Account Director. During her time at the agency her tenacity, passion and hard work have delivered substantial successes for clients and helped shift the industry’s behaviours around inclusivity.

Finding innovative solutions for growth has been a key area of focus for Amelia in her new role as Account Director. Recently, Huawei set Wavemaker the challenge to identify new growth areas for promoting their growing product range. Working closely with Twitch, Amazon and Twitter, Amelia spotted an opportunity to tap into gamers for the first time, a growing audience amongst their laptop community, pioneering the first ever test with Xaxis and Anzu on in-game advertising for Huawei. Tapping into a rich gaming community, the campaign was able to drive a staggering 128% uplift in ad-recall vs standard display.

As a leading player in the development of Wavemaker’s Inclusive Planning approach, Amelia is passionate about diversity and inclusion. Partnering with Nationwide and the IAB, she recently led a workstream to publish a guide to help small and diverse media partners carry digital ad investment from large brands and agencies; and has worked tirelessly to bring different diverse publishers, including Able, Jamaica Gleaner and Jewish News onto Nationwide’s digital media plans.

Amelia’s peers commented: “Amelia is an exceptionally talented member of the Wavemaker team, her ‘can do’ attitude and relentless drive to make sure the work we do positively impacts our industry and the communities it serves makes her a critical member of our business.”

Jacob Woodhouse, Partnerships Manager at TopCashback UK

Jacob is a positive, witty and well-liked member of the TopCashback Partnerships team, consistently being named one of the company’s high-performers. Despite the turbulence of the last 18 months, Jacob has taken everything in his stride and has been eager to take all opportunities that come his way. This positive approach has seen Jacob rewarded for his efforts and given further responsibilities including taking ownership of key, strategic projects whilst keeping stakeholders abreast of performance, managing some of the company’s biggest commercial partnerships, as well as taking managerial responsibility of junior team members.

Jacob’s team also stressed that his technical knowledge is second-to-none. They said: “With his ever-growing confidence he has become an essential knowledge bank and is regularly the go-to-person to ask for advice and help, not just by junior team members but by other teams internally too.

“Jacob also demonstrates the importance of keeping up-to-date with wider industry initiatives and local market news, so much so that he hosts a section in our weekly team meetings around updates and trends that the team should be aware of. This ensures not only a knowledgeable team, but also enables us to react to trends by planning in additional campaigns, driving further value to our advertiser partners. It also ensures key offers reach our members at the best times and generates additional revenue for TopCashback, over and above our original forecasts.”

Jim Nichols was keen to stress the importance of acknowledging the individuals that are driving positive change in the industry, something the Rising Star award does. He said: “Each of our nominees has vision, tenacity, and a deep commitment to helping others grow and progress. Thank you to each of these individuals for their outstanding contributions to our industry.”

Who should be crowned 2022’s Industry Rising Star? Vote now for your winner. Voting closes at midnight on Wednesday 20th April.

The post Meet the Performance Marketing Awards Rising Stars Nominees for 2022 appeared first on PerformanceIN.

This year, the judging panel was thrilled to be able to gather in person at the IAB office in London, allowing them to put their heads together to deliberate over the industry’s most effective and dynamic work.

From ensuring ample affiliate tracking amidst tightening legislation and cookie regulations, to establishing a local brand with a global audience, this years’ entries have overcome many a hurdle.

Those entries that have made it to 2022’s shortlist demonstrate true innovation, something which really stood out in the judges’ comments, especially in the way that data was used to deliver exceptional outcomes.

Matthew Wood, Founder of the awards: “You can’t beat an in-person judging day, with many categories just points apart, the ability to debate and challenge peers who are judging comes into its own. 

“The power of successful affiliate partnerships was clear to see this year, with many entries demonstrating exceptional collaboration, alignment and results with a fair balance of innovation and best practice being adopted.”

Make sure to take a look at the full shortlist to find out who is in the running for the accolades; the ceremony will be taking place on the 18th May at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London – maybe we’ll see you there…

Have your say

As part of our ongoing commitment to providing a voice for the industry, voting for the following categories are now open for you to have your say:

• Industry’s Choice of Publisher
• Publisher’s Choice of Network

Becca Maier, Senior Director, HuffPost & International Commerce at Buzzfeed, and one of the PMA judges, said: “Reviewing the PMA submissions this year was truly inspiring and a reminder of how talented the people in our industry are. This year’s entries were so thoughtful and detailed across categories – so making a final decision was going to be difficult.

“If it wasn’t for the expert guidance of the PerformanceIN team and for the rigour in the conversations with the other judges, it would’ve been impossible to choose a winner as there was so much fantastic work to choose from. I feel very privileged to have joined the PerformanceIN team and panel of judges this year and I am so excited for everyone who submitted their entries to celebrate their success in May!”

Secure your seat

The best tables are selling fast, you can book your seat or table online with a debit or credit card, or speak to Drew Cameron for more information.

Matthew said: “Huge congratulations to everyone who was shortlisted this year. We’ll see you at the glorious Grosvenor House next month for a much needed industry celebration.”

The Performance Marketing Awards, now in its 16th year, concentrates on the UK market. For those based in North America check out the new Partnership Awards, co-hosted by PerformanceIN and Talking Influence.

Entries open soon – the Entry Kit is now available to download.

The post Who is Making Waves in Performance Marketing? The PMA Shortlist is Here! appeared first on PerformanceIN.

The PMA 2022 ceremony will be taking place at the stunning Grosvenor House Hotel in London on the 18th May. This year the team has received a record number of entries, so the gathering together of industry professionals is set to be a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the pure talent and innovation we have witnessed over the last year.

With focus on best in class affiliate marketing, performance media, influencer marketing and partner marketing, the judging panel will put their heads together to discuss, deliberate and decide this years’ winners.

Let’s take a look at who’s on the panel in 2022…

There are a host of incredible brand names joining this years’ judging panel. We will see the return of Three’s Iain Davidson and digidip’s Ante Letica. Some more familiar faces will be joining, including eBay Partner Network’s Richard Lane, as well as Leo Harrison and TopCashback’s Eniola Ogunbanwo.

This is in addition to some new faces from a number of incredible brands. Boohoo’s Edith Bachelor will be joining the panel, bringing with her ten years of experience in the affiliate industry. Edith started out at a network before moving client-side – from travel, so has experience across a wealth of verticals.

Burberry’s James Harrower will also be a judge, using his 15 years of experience both agency and client side across a number of industries.

Becca Maier joined BuzzFeed US over six years ago and moved to London to join the International team a year after. She will use her knowledge publisher-side to deliberate, alongside Johnson Kiete, who currently leads performance marketing globally at Curve, the all-in-one financial app, where he is focused on building and scaling the function for the fintech start-up.

This year we’re seeing the most diverse panel of judges yet, who will be able to pool their varying experiences for this ever-evolving industry.

If you wish to see the full list of judges, make sure to head to the Performance Marketing Awards website. The shortlist will be announced next month, closely followed by the ceremony itself, on the 18th May.

Make sure to sign up to receive the Pick ‘n’ Mix newsletter to stay up to date and be the first to see the shortlist!

The post Who is Going to be Judging You This Year? The Performance Marketing Awards 2022 Judging Panel Has Been Unveiled… appeared first on PerformanceIN.

We’ve gathered some tips and insight from some of our Performance Marketing Awards judges. Ante Letica, Kudzai Mubaiwa and Eniola Ogunbanwo are absolute experts in both the industry and in what makes a winning award entry. Here are their thoughts on what you should be doing:

Firstly, let’s take a look back to 2021. We asked the judges which entries and points really stood out to them when judging last years’ PMAs.

Kicking us off, Ante Letica, Chief Operating Officer at digidip, spoke of the importance of advertisers having very specific goals. He said: “One of my favourite entries from last year was Denby and Increasingly. I think one of the reasons this stood out so much to me is because the advertiser has a very specific and clear goal that was given to the Increasingly team.

“Once that was very clearly defined, the rest of the entry contained a nice and clear description of how that goal was achieved with clear results and the impact this brought to the brand.”

We also chatted with Kudzai Mubaiwa, Head of Performance Media at Spark Foundry UK. Something she noticed in 2021 which really worked was having a single key theme – this allowed the entries to tell a really strong story.

She said: “When a judge is reading an entry they are not trying to figure out what each tactic was supposed to be in aid of – this should already be clear because of the single theme.

“As a judge you have to read through many entries in a short space of time. Having a theme creates that vital ‘red thread’ effect of great storytelling that will keep us engaged, and ensure your entry is memorable. Also back up your entry with strong and realistic numbers. We want to see the outcome and impact the campaign ultimately produced.”

Eniola Ogunbanwo, Senior Manager of International Growth at Refunder said: “The Best Wellbeing Initiative category as a whole really stood out to me last year – at a time when we were forced to adapt to a ‘new normal’, it was great to see how organisations also adapted their businesses to cater to their staff’s wellbeing. The champion in this exciting category for me and 2021 winner was AWIN with their 4 Day 4 Success Initiative.

“They set out a goal that was completely employee focused and didn’t compromise on salaries, or client and partnership service-level agreements. The bold move which initially may have been heavily criticised turned out to be one that enabled the team to work smarter, leading to better productivity and that was extremely impressive.

“In their entry, they also were able to demonstrate the long term effects that such an initiative had and it’s been great to see not only the wider industry but other channels and sectors take notice of the inspirational move.

We also spoke to the judges about the points they think are important to pay attention to when submitting a campaign.

Ante stressed the importance of being completely clear about the campaign KPIs – the shorter and clearer the better. “You would be surprised how often these are vague. Once you have those presented, describe the path you took to reach those KPIs; what did you do, what did you learn but also what did not work? Everyone loves a good story!”

According to Kudzai, having a clear strategy and starting point is key when making an entry great: “You can always tell when you read the entry title or the first sentence of the entry whether the team had a clear objective that they wanted to achieve. Some entries fall into the trap of covering everything and explaining every tactic they used in detail. Judges are given certain categories to review, and the entry needs to align with the category as that guides how we judge an entry.

“Highlight elements such as teamwork – an entry is only as good as the team that worked on the campaign. I remember those that mentioned teamwork as a lot goes on behind the scenes. Also, keep your results realistic. Whilst it’s great and very important to state impressive percentage increases, if they are too high, it makes me question the credibility of these results.”

Eniola said that, aside from demonstrating creativity and outstanding results, the key thing for her that separates a good campaign from a great campaign is the human touch element. 

“Regardless of how big or small your organisation is or the fancy technology you may have access to, it’s always the people that make a campaign excel. So, don’t underestimate this section within the award entry submissions and always highlight how people made a difference to the success of the campaign.”

“Those entrants who aren’t afraid to be transparent and honest with how the process went, go a long way.  We all know that sometimes things don’t always go to plan – sharing how you’ve overcome those setbacks and achieved great results helps the judges better understand why your campaign was such a success.”

The Performance Marketing Awards are hugely successful for many reasons:

Talking about the awards, Ante commented: “Winning one [a PMA] is the perfect way to get your technology and its possibilities to the market and raise awareness about your brand. Not only will your campaigns and tech be presented to the board of judges, but also to all key networks, publishers and agencies on the market which could open a lot of doors for you.”

Judges are selected from across the industry so you have a broad viewpoint from those that have actual experience and have worked in this industry for years.

Kudzai said: “Winning a PMA shows recognition of the innovative work that we are surrounded by in our field and also adds credibility to the work as all entries are judged impartially. Being able to benchmark your work against others that are leaders in the industry is possible with the PMAs. Winning or being shortlisted shows that the work you are delivering sits above the rest in the field.”

Eniola said: “The PMAs have and continue to be an integral part of our industry and play a key role in highlighting and championing those organisations and individuals who are helping drive this industry forward.

“It’s great to have an awards show that doesn’t discriminate but encourages individuals, organisations, no matter their size or scale, to be innovative and think outside the box.”

Just entering the awards in itself helps everyone reflect on their challenges as well as successes over the past year and I think that is really important for the growth of the organisations as well as the industry as a whole. It also helps identify those gaps and areas that have been untouched, positively challenges old mechanisms and hopefully inspires the next generation of marketers to strive for better.

PerformanceIN and the judges are wishing good luck to all the entries and we can’t wait to celebrate with you all in person in May at the Performance Marketing Awards ceremony! If you haven’t yet submitted your entry, please make sure to do so now!

The post What Makes a Winning Campaign? Ask the Judges… appeared first on PerformanceIN.

With some brand new categories designed to support the development and acknowledge the efforts of those pushing the boundaries of performance-driven marketing, this years’ PMAs will be the perfect opportunity to be recognised for doing exactly that, and showing how you are a changemaker in the performance marketing industry.

The final deadline to enter the awards is 14th February 2022, so there is still time for you to curate your conquering entry.

We understand that inspiration will be highly appreciated in the lead up to the entry deadline, so we spoke to one of the winners of the 2021 awards.

Giftcloud, Santander, Moneysavingexpert.com and Moneysupermarket.com all worked together on a ‘A Revolutionary Way to Incentivise New Customers With a Helping Hand’ which won them the Best Finance Campaign. Here’s how they bagged it:

Why was winning a Performance Marketing Award so important to Giftcloud?

At Giftcloud we see ourselves as being a small organisation that delivers a big impact. We have worked in the affiliate space since almost day one (2015) growing our reach and fine-tuning how we operate every day.  Since 2019 in particular, we have developed our proposition to utilise a wealth of data by then we had built up, to support a number of household names to acquire new customers using rewards.

Rewards are a commercially effective way to incentivise a purchase, we know it, our clients know it so in order to grow and establish ourselves in the affiliate space we are always looking for ways to get ourselves out there and be able to stand head and shoulders above our competitors.  The team at Giftcloud work their socks off each and every day to ensure our client’s campaigns are as effective as possible. So it is really important for us to be able to demonstrate to the team that what we do is seen as being industry-leading outside of our own four walls. And where better to be recognised than the PMAs!

Can you give readers some insight into the efforts that won you the award?

The MoneySuperMarket Group (MSMG) briefed Giftcloud with the aim of creating an appealing acquisition incentive with a difference. The collaboration resulted in an industry first – the solution being a digital gift card which ‘auto-redeems’, meaning less time and effort for the consumer.

Santander wanted to offer a Balance Transfer Credit Card promotion by rewarding customers with a £20 Amazon gift card (the only promotion of its kind offering an incentive and 0% interest on purchases for three months) ensuring that the offer would be the strongest available to customers.

This was promoted across the MSMG websites and produced brilliant results, with Santander seeing a traffic increase of 161% and a sales uplift of 103%. It also proved to be highly profitable too, adding an 80% uplift in net profit over five years compared to a non-incentive led campaign. The Giftcloud team offered customers the best possible journey by ensuring they were efficiently rewarded and by using their voucher status tracker, kept customer queries to a minimum, adding a new dimension to the Money Saving Expert brand.

How did your learnings from this campaign inform the work you have been doing since?

Powering incentive campaigns that are attractive to customers is not a new thing for Giftcloud, but what this campaign brought home was that the COVID-19 pandemic had changed the perception of what a reward (digital gift card) was or could be to the consumer.  When you think about it, this makes sense as at the time the campaign ran, the world was coming down from the hangover of the first two lockdowns and that still came with a sense of financial uncertainty for many.

Throughout the months prior, we had noted a change in habit when customers were offered a choice of brands; luxury retail brands were beginning to lose market share to more essential brands such as supermarkets. Identifying these trends in post-pandemic recovery and the lessons learned with the MSMG campaign, we began to introduce a prepaid Mastercard into campaigns with other clients and immediately saw a rise in consumers selecting a prepaid Mastercard over other brands that we had not seen pre-pandemic.

Offering a prepaid card allowed customers to manage their finances further as the balance could be used to pay a bill or for essential shopping, etc. What is important is that we are now seeing the use case of gift cards change overall. They are increasingly being seen as having a real financial value and as the digital currency they represent, which is a seismic change from the use case of old, e.g. a forgotten Birthday present.

The efforts detailed here earned the companies impressive comments from the judges, with them congratulating the great results. They said:  “This is a great success for all parties involved, with a customer-centric focus for the gift card. This has paved the way for other retailers working with MSMG.”

The Performance Marketing Awards Shortlist will be announced in April 2022, and the ceremony will be held in the Great Room at the Grosvenor House Hotel on 18th May.

Download the entry kit to begin shaping your entries if you have not already done so, and keep your eyes peeled for more upcoming insight from previous winners…

The post Taking Inspiration from #PMA21 – How to See Your Efforts in the Spotlight appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Early-bird entries to the awards are closing at midnight tonight, but don’t fret. You are still able to submit your entries until midnight on the 14th February. Here are some helpful dates for your diaries, just in case you’re still putting together your winning entries:

• Earlybird Entries Close – 24.01.22
• Regular Entry Deadline – 31.01.22
• Last Chance Entry Deadline – 14.02.22
• Shortlist Announced – April 2022
• The Awards – 18.05.22

The entry kit has all the information you could possibly need to shape your winning entries. If you need some inspiration, here is the Book of the Night for the 2021 awards, in which you can find details about last year’s winners and their efforts, including the judges comments.

The ceremony will return to the Great Room at the opulent Grosvenor House Hotel and is set to be the perfect showcase of the innovation of the performance marketing industry…hopefully we’ll see you there!

The post Time is Ticking – 3 Weeks to Go Until Final Entry Deadline for the Performance Marketing Awards 2022 appeared first on PerformanceIN.

The evolution of the performance-driven marketing channel

Matthew Wood, Founder of the awards comments on this step change: “The last 12 months has seen a dramatic shift, with affiliate marketing widely recognised as being adopted within the partner marketing channel, albeit under the umbrella term of performance marketing. A quick scour of the websites of main affiliate networks re-enforces this. We’ve seen TikTok sponsor PI LIVE as shopping behaviours change and platforms launch performance-driven social commerce opportunities for brands, whilst influencer marketing continues to thrive, often on a performance-basis.

“The historically powerful and traditional affiliates such as voucher and cashback sites, whilst incredibly valuable in their own right, are moving aside as innovative partnerships, performance-based technologies, data science and improved digital experiences have made their way to the top of brands wishlists.”

In order to evolve the awards, four new categories are now available to enter in 2022, with Best Social Commerce Campaign, Best Innovation, Best Partnership and Best Programmatic Campaign added to the roster.

Celebrate at Grosvenor House

The ceremony will return to the Great Room at the opulent Grosvenor House Hotel and is set to be the perfect showcase of the innovation of the performance marketing industry.

The entry kit has all the information you could possibly need to shape your winning entries.

Important dates for your diary

• Earlybird Entries Close – 24.01.22
• Regular Entry Deadline – 31.01.22
• Last Chance Entry Deadline – 14.02.22
• Shortlist Announced – April 2022
• The Awards – 18.05.22

For full details of the entry criteria, categories and deadlines download the entry kit.

The post Performance Marketing Awards 2022: Entries Open for the Performance Marketing Industry’s Oscars appeared first on PerformanceIN.

Niamh Butler-Walton wanted to find out how Stephen has grown and progressed over the past year, especially during the pandemic.

Has your role or responsibilities changed since you took the Rising Star crown? What do your current responsibilities in your role look like?

Since being awarded with the Rising Star, my role has changed from Product Manager to Product Lead. That means less of a focus as an individual contributor (although I do still enjoy being hands-on) and more of a focus on helping a team of product managers to grow and create great products with their engineering teams.

I primarily look after the tracking service as we strive towards making sure advertisers have the best-practice sale measurement methods implemented to ensure publishers are fairly attributed for every conversion that they drive.

How do you feel that winning the Rising Star award motivated or influenced your career moves since?

I first heard about Awin when a recruiter attended one of my university’s lectures looking for internships for the Technical Services department. Coming through the internship programme at Awin and being fortunate to receive many opportunities on the way, which culminated with the award, I have a lot of time for the internship programme at Awin and especially for the managers who champion it. Being awarded the Rising Star helped me reflect on that journey and I hope to begin to support that programme.

2020 was a very difficult year for many. What were some of the career challenges you faced during this period, and how did you overcome them?

On a day-to-day basis, I’m fortunate to work with a group of incredibly talented engineers in one of our development hubs in Hannover, Germany. These teams look after our Tracking Technologies at Awin. Even pre-pandemic this brought about it’s remote challenges with myself being based in the North of England, but I’d try to get out there once a month for a few days to have some planning sessions (and drinks). 

With the growth of the company, we now have many ‘new’ faces that I’ve been seeing over video calls every working day for 18 months without meeting them in person – that’s tough. I still wonder how tall they are…

Are there any projects that you are working on currently that are particularly exciting to you?

Consent is a hot-topic that isn’t going away over the coming years, unfortunately there is a distinct lack of technologists in legislative chambers around the globe. That being said, I’ve been working in a cross-functional team to make it as simple as possible for our partners to pass us consumer consent status while maintaining optimal sale measurement and attribution in any given circumstance.

This is a constantly evolving topic and I always find it interesting hearing from our team of legal experts on the latest developments as they unfold with new interpretations and legislation always being announced around the world.

Looking forward to another years’ time, what are some of your goals and aspirations for the next moves in your career?

When applying for universities it was a real toss-up between pursuing Computer Science, which I was okay at, versus something more like a business or management degree – which I actually enjoyed! I chose the former. With Awin’s new four day working week (not #sponsored), I’ve been able to begin an MBA programme and begin to fulfil the latter desire, so completing that is a particular goal.

As for the next few years, I think I work best at the interchange where business and technology meet and so I am to continue in a role and on projects that support that.

What would be your number one piece of advice for the future rising stars in regards to entering the industry, and thriving within it?

For me, I’ve found finding your niche to be incredibly beneficial as a catalyst for career growth and providing value to the industry.

Towards the beginning and end of careers, people tend to lean towards a generalist role, whether that’s someone fresh to the industry dipping their toes in many pools because they are learning. Or a manager, who is spread across many domains and functions in a leadership capacity.

But finding your niche, something that interests you, that you can spend a fair amount of time crafting your specialism to create expertise and be called upon as the go-to person in that domain – that’s pretty valuable.

People may think in an established industry going twenty years that all the niches are taken. I feel we’re still very early, and there are opportunities to specialise everywhere whether that be card-linking, App Tracking, Podcasts as the new influencer frontier, or even just being an incredible storyteller and presenter within your organisation.

If you want to see who this years’ judging panel and the industry voters selected as 2021’s Rising Star, you can download the Book of the Night for free.

You can now register to vote for the International Performance Marketing Awards 2021 Industry Choice categories. Sign up to be part of the decision making process.

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