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When you hear the name “Advertise Purple,” what comes to mind? Data? Affiliates? The story behind the “Purple” in our company name? Adorable office dogs and cats? Our unassailable affinity for and domination of the fine performance art of ping-pong? I could go on, so let me redirect this word association game.
On our website, you’ll see words like “data-driven strategy,” “transparent reporting,” “the right data,” and “performance-based.” So, if the “data” word association resonated with you at all, I’d say you’re on the right track. Although, we do kill it at ping-pong. No lie.
All jokes aside, after a quick scroll on the AdPurp landing page, you’ll start to get a good idea of just how important data is to us. I mean, one of the first things you’ll see after you load our site is the number of affiliate partners we work closely with, clicks sent, and sales generated.
The truth is, data is king at AdPurp. From the way we advise client strategy to the way we optimize affiliate programs, data is at the forefront of just about everything we do. Shockingly, there’s still something even more vital to the way we approach affiliate management. What?!
I know, I’m shocked. Just think about it, though. How do we even have access to all of this data? Where do these numbers come from and how are we optimizing affiliate programs?
There’s one word that answers everything, and it’s technology. If data is king, then it’s only right to say that technology is the entire royal family. It’s at the core of both AdPurp and how the affiliate space itself operates. With it, the channel can track users, sales, sign commissions to affiliates, and so much more.
As I thought more about it, a thousand and one additional questions surfaced. To answer some of ’em, I figured a chat with our Vice President of Product, Rowland H, was in order. From marketing automation to future developments, we talked about everything, so let’s dive into it all together.
Jumping right into the titular content, what is the role of technology at Advertise Purple? Well, it’s kind of a loaded question, but to answer it simply, we’ve made it the backbone of how we do business. Through our proprietary technology, Purply app, our team gets access to a wealth of information that helps guide their actions every day. For more perspective, here’s a quick breakdown of how some of our teams at AdPurp use this internal platform:
- Our sales team uses it in the sales process to provide information to prospects
- Our operational team leverages it to communicate with clients and grow their programs
- Our recruitment team identifies opportunities with it in order to secure new affiliate partnerships
Truthfully, almost every department at AdPurp uses Purply to facilitate most of their daily activities. As a platform that’s so well-suited for so many uses cross-departmentally, I had to ask Rowland what it was like developing Purply in both his current role as VP of Product and his past role as Director of Tech:
“One of the ways that we use technology is to solve problems. So, in my past roles, I was able to identify problems or areas where I felt we could use improvement. Then we developed tech that could assist. One example of this is the way we communicate with clients. In the past, we had no easy way to identify if clients had or hadn’t received certain information. But, with technology, we do, “Rowland says. “This type of understanding of our actions at scale was something that was not able to be done in the past. When I started here, we had a much smaller client base and we were able to do things manually. As we’ve grown to the size we are, technology has not only enabled us to better serve our customers but it’s enabled us to grow our business successfully. Without it, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”
Since the inception of AdPurp, it’s apparent that our company’s relationship with technology has shifted dramatically. Something I wondered about, though, was how it changed during the pandemic.
We’ve always had the intention of using technology to improve our processes, capacity, and the way we serve our clients, but the last year has brought it even more to the forefront. In the past, technology was just being used for a part of our tasks. But today, for every problem or task that comes up, we’re asking a series of questions that all revolve around technology: Can we automate it? Can Purply assist with it? Can we use technology to facilitate these processes or assist our team members? You get it.
When the pandemic forced us out of the office and into our homes, our priorities never changed. There were still things that we needed to accomplish daily and weekly, and with everything being remote, we had to turn to technology. Now we ask those questions for almost everything we do as a business.
Speaking of how AdPurp has grown with technology before and through the pandemic, I wanted to see how Rowland’s relationship with technology has changed over the years:
“As I’ve developed and grown Advertise Purple in my roles, I’ve tried to better understand how we can use technology to serve all elements of our business. I’m now working closely with not only the operations team, but in conjunction with our software as a service team and sales team to make sure our technology does what it needs to do to best serve all departments,” he says. “In the past, we were focused pretty exclusively on the operations team and on the account management and analyst teams. Going forward, I want to use technology as a comprehensive part of the business and make sure every team at Advertise Purple has the tools they need to accomplish their department-specific goals.”
Good stuff, Rowland. As you heard him say, we’re trying every day to make sure that all of our teams can use technology to streamline their processes. Something we don’t talk about a lot though on our website or in past content is the more idiosyncratic ways we use technology.
As my introduction points to, when people think of technology with regards to the affiliate space, they may be thinking about numbers, dollars, revenue, traffic, clicks, and other data. But, you know, what I learned through my conversation with Rowland is that technology is about more than just 1s and 0s.
It turns out that we’re not only analyzing that quantifiable data. We’re also analyzing communication patterns, looking at response times from clients, and what types of messages will lead to better overall communication. Who would’ve thought? I’m not gonna lie, that one even surprised me.
What all of this makes clear is that technology, and marketing automation specifically, are agents of both quantitative and qualitative change. And what does that mean? That we have more time and capital to focus on the more intricate things that can’t be solved with technology.
“We’re always going to be dealing with a finite amount of time at any company or with any individual,” Rowland comments. “So when we can free up some of that time to work on higher-level tasks that can’t be automated, we’re doing a better job of serving our clients and our business.”
It seems like, through all of these changes, there’s been one unwavering goal for AdPurp with regards to technology. To bring more efficiency, time, and functionality to our teams. Talking so much about where we started out with technology and where it’s taken us got me a little curious about the future of it all.
What can we expect going forward? What are the main goals when it comes to the current and future implementation of technology at AdPurp? Given how this content has been progressing so far, you can probably tell that Rowland’s got some answers for us:
“Further developing the ability of our technology to have a machine learning and artificial intelligence aspect is incredibly important. If we can not only suggest and make decisions but learn and refine those decisions along the way, that’ll be a huge win for our business and customers,” he says. “I’d also like to fully integrate our clients into our technology offering. As I mentioned, we’re expanding our technology offering to include all departments at Advertise Purple. We do include our clients in that offering as well, but I’d like to fully integrate them so that everything flows seamlessly from the technology to each department, to the client, and back.”
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From the past to the present to the future, technology consistently plays an important role in what we do and how we work towards growth and optimization with our clients. That we know for sure now. Rowland dropped a ton of gems about technology, too, so a big thanks to him for this chat!
