Katie Canton

How Bad Incentives Quietly Break Affiliate Programs Most affiliate problems aren’t caused by bad partners. They’re caused by bad incentives. ⚠️ In this episode of Always Be Testing, I sat down with Ziggy Kopetti—affiliate platform founder and long-time operator—to talk about what actually drives behavior inside affiliate programs and why so many brands misread what “performance” really means. We get into: 🧠 How affiliates think about risk vs. reward 📉 Where brands unintentionally break their own programs 💰 Why incentive design matters more than tooling 🤝 How trust and transparency impact long-term scale 📈 What sustainable affiliate growth really looks like If you’ve ever wondered why an affiliate program looks fine on paper but struggles in practice, this episode connects the dots. 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gkxf4erN

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Here’s what quietly kills content velocity: SEO flags missing coverage. Product corrects outdated claims. Editors clean up the structure. All valid. All necessary. All happening separately. Each review only sees part of the problem. The fix isn’t better project management. It’s running readability, positioning, and PAA analysis together — on the same sentences, in the same session. One scorecard. One revision scope. One draft ready for CMS. Are your reviews sequential or integrated? https://lnkd.in/g5mcssfw

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Everyone’s fighting to rank on Google. But not everyone’s letting their customers do the talking. Here’s something we’ve seen over and over again at Mavlers User-Generated Content (UGC) isn’t just social proof. It’s SEO fuel...real, relevant, and algorithm-friendly. Think about it....your customers are dropping long-tail keywords in reviews, feeding Google the kind of authenticity you can’t script. Every Q&A, testimonial, and even product complaint becomes fresh content that builds authority without you lifting a pen. Most brands obsess over page speed, backlinks, and meta tags. Few realize that the best-performing pages are often the ones updated by the people...not the brand. Because the future of search isn’t about how loud brands speak. It’s about how consistently customers echo your message. If you’ve ever wondered why your perfectly optimized pages aren’t converting the way they should, this breakdown will help you see why UGC is the missing piece. 👉 https://lnkd.in/d5F6rWDu

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The marketing "funnel" isn't dead, at least not from the perspective of site owners seeking an analogy of the business-side experience. BUT... if you're seeking analogies for buyer behavior, the funnel really doesn't work anymore. IMO it's more like a pinball machine. Potential buyers bounce between sources of influence, researching, observing, asking, searching, and browsing before, after, and during the decision-making process. This week's new #5minutewhiteboard breaks down how this works (and hopefully convinces your boss/team/client to stop thinking of buyer journeys as linear, funnel-like processes) 👇

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Automation can lift conversions by 44 percent, when it scales clarity instead of chaos. If your CRM feels like a junk drawer and leads get double messaged, the tool is not the plan. Your process is. Start by defining lifecycle stages in one shared doc, set one owner per stage, and lock in one follow up rule that never breaks. Then fix one core journey like inbound demo requests or trial sign ups. Automate only what is repetitive, measurable, and easy to reverse. Watch the three D’s: delays, duplicates, and dead ends. Full article here: https://lnkd.in/g6xg_sun

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iOS updates didn't break e-commerce. They just exposed brands with weak offers. Most brands are panicking about attribution loss. But here's the thing… If you need perfect tracking to be profitable, your offer was never strong enough. I’ve seen brands spend €50k thinking they’re scaling… only to find out they’re bleeding cash. So what’s the fix? Shift the focus away from attribution… and toward building offers that convert profitably from day 1, no matter the traffic source. Here are 5 tips how you can do it (without sacrificing your growth): 1/ Bundle your hero product with 2–3 high-margin add-ons (digital or physical). 2/ Price based on perceived value, not just cost. 3/ Add a bold guarantee (money-back, results-based, or “keep-it” style). 4/ Use urgency the right way (bonuses, limited drops - NO fake timers). 5/ Measure first-order ROAS. That’s your real scaling lever. This approach helped me scale a desk accessories brand from €158K to €1.5M per month. When your offer converts profitably from day one, iOS changes become irrelevant.

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It’s wild how much time Shopify agencies spend co-marketing with partners who never send them a single lead. They should instead prioritize a client-led marketing strategy. An agency founder I was consulting asked me: “If other agencies like X seem to be getting more leads than us, and they’re not creating content with clients, why should we?” Fair question. Especially when budgets are tight and results aren’t instant. I pointed back to the Founder’s pipeline and client portfolio. His agency keeps getting referrals from the same clients over and over. One client specifically brought 3 other clients to the agency. These were the most strategic partners the agency could partner with at their scale. These clients are doing the work that agencies wished their tech vendors could do. Now imagine if an agency were an app vendor on Shopify. They’d double down on the partners bringing them deals and quietly de‑prioritize the ones that don’t. But agencies rarely apply that same logic to themselves. Instead, they invest in co‑marketing with vendors who’ve sent maybe one referral in three years. You wouldn’t be a partner manager for too much longer if you prioritized partners like that. Shopify agencies should be amplifying the success and elevating the careers of their clients within the client’s network. Clients will remember that. They’ll refer again and again. I’ve literally seen this in-person at a recent event I co-hosted for another agency client. So if you’re a Shopify agency, ask yourself: Who actually grows your business for that migration project or high-quality retainer, your clients or your vendors? And who are you treating like a partner?

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Some of the most impactful work we’ve done on Shopify was not only for large scale migrations. It’s existing Shopify merchants who want to move fast, enhance performance, and improve sales. That’s why when TYR Sport needed to deploy performance and conversion optimized enhancements pre-BFCM, they came to Avex E-commerce. - Fully revamped navigation - Updated PDP experience - Improved cart functionality - Enhanced PLP filtering - UX/CX improvements The stakes were high because the brand recently migrated to Shopify and needed to make sure everything was ready for BFCM. Not only was the deadline met but we’ve set the foundation for continued growth on the platform. Our #360Program is a process designed specifically for high-growth brands who require a faster time-to-value, technical excellence, and the strategic guidance to make it happen. #shopify #ecommerce #bfcm

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RB2B is the only company I know that does this ⬇️ In their footer, they link not to their company page for RB2B, but to Adam Robinson’s LinkedIn and YouTube. Adam is the founder and public face of the brand (which is close to $7m ARR), and as such, his social profiles and his content are the major engine behind people finding + learning about RB2B. I actually think this move makes a lot of sense, and in our influencer-led growth era of SaaS, I expect more brands to do this. Here are a few reasons this is a smart play… 1) Tactical learning / insights over just product releases / updates. Most company pages on social are just a feed of accomplishments, product releases, and new hire announcements. Meanwhile, the top personalities on social from those brands are often sharing in-depth insights and learnings that build trust. 2) Linking to personal social profiles in the navigation might help in LLM placement. LLMs seem to prioritize links in the navigation on homepages as important. When I typed in “Tell me more about RB2B” I noticed it included multiple references to Adam’s LinkedIn and Youtube. In many cases, brands would rather accrue followers on highly active profiles of key executives than the companies handle. And it creates a growth loop: website → personal social → algorithmic reach around key pain points → product discovery → website. Can you think of other brands where the top personalities have more brand equity than the company logo itself? Would it make sense for your brand?

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Nobody cares about your product. Not yet, anyway. This is the thing most DTC brands refuse to accept about their marketing funnel. They run ads talking about ingredients, certifications, and product features... to people who don't even know they have a problem worth solving. Then they blame the algorithm when nothing converts. The funnel has four stages. Each one requires a completely different approach: Problem aware — your customer knows something is off but can't name it. Your job is to name it for them. Pure emotion. No product yet. Solution aware — they know what they need. Now logic kicks in. Benefits, comparisons, proof. This is where you earn consideration. Product aware — they know you exist. Now you differentiate. Why you over everyone else solving the same problem? This is where specificity wins. Most aware — they're ready. And here's the part that surprises people: emotion takes back over. They're not looking for more facts. They're looking for a feeling. What does life look like after they buy? The other thing nobody talks about? As you move down the funnel, the audience gets smaller and the ads get more expensive. You're paying a premium to reach people who are close to buying. If you didn't do the emotional work at the top, you're now paying top dollar to close a cold customer. The best brands treat the entire funnel as one continuous story. Not three disconnected campaigns. One story. Told in the right order. To the right person. At the right moment. Map your creative to the journey. Or keep wondering why your bottom-funnel ads aren't converting.

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Yotpo just broke up with you… now what? I’ve seen so many D2C lifecycle marketing managers posting about this news, asking for insight on where to head next. As someone who has run a D2C marketing team that led to a top spot on the Inc. 500 list, here are my two cents: Yotpo was a minivan—and now they’re stripping away the unnecessary to become a fast sports car. Hats off to them for biting the bullet and making the hard (but in my opinion, smart) choice to do what they are best at and only that. Now it is up to you to know what you’re looking for in your next software (and what kind of marketer you are). Below are my 3 prediction (and recommendation) paths moving forward. ➡️ The “MAKE MY LIFE SIMPLE” marketer If you’re looking for simplicity, Klaviyo could be a great option for BOTH your email and SMS needs. It houses both inside one platform, lets you blend email and SMS into single automations, and it’s just less work overall. Plus, their training videos are solid. I believe most people will end up here. ➡️ The “DO WHATS BEST // EFFORT” marketer If you’re serious about growing your D2C lifecycle marketing (which you should be), I’d recommend going with experts in each field. Klaviyo – use them for email. They’re great. They’ve been killing it for a long time. BUT… SMS is second priority. Always has been. Postscript – use them for SMS. It’s their core focus, and they dominate. Plus, their customer success team is second to none. When I was spending over $250k annually on email & SMS, I did a serious evaluation of every platform—and this is exactly where I landed. (And I used Yotpo for reviews and loyalty only.) ➡️ The “LET IT HAPPEN TO ME” marketer You’re too busy to really evaluate, and you’re just going to let the migration to Attentive happen to your business. Attentive paid a lot of money knowing there’d be a large chunk of these marketers at the helm of major brands. I wish everyone good luck out there who’s currently stuck in this pickle. Whatever you do, I simply recommend being intentional about it. Oh, and get it figured out before BFCM. ✌️

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Measurement geek out... This is awesome and I had to share from the folks at Incremental. When it comes to the BEST way for DTC to measure their marketing efforts IMO there is still far too much emphasis placed on last click attribution OR voucher code uptake at a channel level. That is crazy. We all know what it feels like to be a customer, bombarded with marketing messaging across a wide variety of sources. We know how messy our own journey can be to purchase. So why do we apply half measures to our marketing performance analysis and lean on unsound principles? You don't have to! Every marketing channel you used can be tested easily through the right test and control methods to gain insight on incrementality and value add. If you are not working with partners to help you see this across your marketing spend you should be. Paperplanes UK helps clients understand this when it comes to Direct Mail. Full on awareness and acknowledgment end to end in the customer journey and better decision making. Tell the waiter he can keep the tip but he certainly can't have all the credit #dtc #crm #measurement #attribution #shopify #directmail #papeplanes #klaviyo

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Your content library is a garden, not a repository. 💐 🍀 🌺 Let it go for a season and it shows. Stale pages, broken links, positioning that stopped being true two product cycles ago. Most content teams know it. The workflow to fix it is painful [and manual] enough that it keeps getting pushed. The garden wilts and no amount of manual tending can save it. That's what we've been working on at AirOps. Today we launched native integrations with 12 CMS and project management tools: Webflow, WordPress, HubSpot CMS, Contentful, Asana, ClickUp, and more on the way. Import your entire content library's CMS, run it through a refresh workflow with SEO & AEO insights built in, run it through expert review, push it back live in a few clicks. Without the copy-paste marathon in between. The teams staying visible in AI search aren't necessarily the ones publishing the most. They're the ones who keep tending to their garden. Really proud of what the team shipped! 💐 🍀 🌺 🌹 🪷 🌼 🌷 🪻 🪴 https://lnkd.in/gKBzf-uC

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My best affiliate hack: create a Klaviyo segment just for affiliate comms. Instead of subscribing them to marketing emails, send them: - Onboarding flow (drip with information over a 2 week period) - Content challenges and inspo - Product and sale announcements (before it's public for content creation) - Limited edition commission bumps/promotions - Affiliate spotlights with actionable case studies on how they're selling - Reactivation flows (no content posted in the past 3 months) Bonus if you also communicate this via SMS ^

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A founder told me last month they thought their pipeline problem was a content volume problem. They were: - Posting 5x a week - Two newsletters - A monthly podcast - Their team was running ads - The calendar looked like a NASA launch schedule But, pipeline was flat. We spent the first call going through the actual content. It was fine. Decent design, occasionally funny, sometimes useful. The issue was that none of it was about the same thing. Each post answered a different question for a different person. The newsletter sounded like a different company than the LinkedIn page. The podcast guests were chosen by who said yes, not by who their buyer would care about hearing from. Every piece they were already publishing needed to be doing the same job. That was the fix. We cut volume by about a third over the next two months. Inbound got more frequent and a lot more qualified. Most founders post more when something isn't working. That's the part I'd watch for.

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Prepped for a discovery call this morning. Not to pitch. Not to close. Just to listen. Two potential clients. Both have growth problems - visibility, conversion, budget constraints. Before I write a single proposal, I want to understand where they're actually stuck. It sounds obvious. But most agencies show up to discovery calls with decks already built. We show up with questions. Meanwhile - posted a Network Engineer role, exploring a new freelancer platform, building out LinkedIn outreach infrastructure. The operational side of running an agency is unsexy but it never stops. Multi-brand portfolio work for client continues. Three F&B brands, one digital strategy to weave them together. Complex but the right kind of complex. Building a consultancy means getting comfortable with a lot of plates spinning at once. #buildinginpublic #pulsenpixels

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Some final thoughts on the Yotpo sunsetting of email & SMS (and key observations on the way all merchants value paying for software). If your software isn't directly tied to revenue generation with clear ways to measure incrementality, you're always going to hit a ceiling on how much you can charge. Take reviews and analytics. Important components of a DTC tech stack (or practically any monetisable business). But at a certain threshold, it doesn't matter how large the store is, resentment grows at continuously increasing costs and alternatives are sought. Email & SMS isn't like that. Yes, the monthly bill goes up, but so does revenue generating opportunities. How much of a difference does 30,000 5-star reviews make vs 10,000? Probably little (if any at all). The upside of the software is capped in terms of the value it provides to the customer. And that's a problem when you're trying to grow NRR in SaaS. I see the same issues with all the fancy dashboard tools. Customers want actionable strategies that make a difference to the bottom line. Everything else is viewed as disposable. #saas #ecommerce #shopify

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Klaviyo's SMS pricing isn't a ripoff 👇 Shopify store owners and teams just don't know what they're actually paying for, so they end up comparing email costs with that of SMS costs. That's comparing APPLES to ORANGES, it's not the same thing. I explain below...

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Most 2026 marketing plans are already at risk... Not because the budget is too small. Not because the tech stack is outdated. But because the leadership team hasn't agreed on what problem they are actually trying to solve. Is it a narrative problem? A distribution problem? Or a churn problem disguised as a lead-gen problem? When marketing aligns around a shared definition of the problem, results follow naturally. Without alignment, even the best teams stall. Clarity is the most underrated growth lever. #marketing #growth

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