[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Hey everyone, welcome to the Partner Marketing Podcast. Today I'm joined by Matt Wood, founder of Hello Partner and the mind behind PI Live. If you're in partner or influencer marketing, you've probably been to one of his events, like in London or here in Miami where we're recording today. We'll talk about how PI Live has grown, how the US and Europe differ, and what trends Matt sees in shaping the industry. He brings a really unique perspective and I'm excited to dig in. Matt, awesome having you today. Welcome to the show.

[Matt Wood] Thank you so much for having me. It's brilliant to be on the podcast, Matthias. Thank you. We know each other for quite some time. I've been at your events, super exciting, both in London as well as here.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] We're recording live now from PI Live here in Miami. Can you give a bit of a background of yourself and how you came to found Hello Partner and the events of PI Live?

[Matt Wood] Yeah, sure. Gosh, it's a long story. I mean, I've been involved in the industry for over 25 years. So straight out of university, started as an affiliate on pretty much all the models, search arbitrage, cashback, coupon. In fact, had the largest cashback in the UK before any of the incumbents today even existed. So I've kind of been there, done that. Co-founded an agency as well, as well as a larger coupon site, VoucherCloud, that was sold to Groupon fairly recently. I've been doing that for a while, but the passion has always been the events so um, I started really because I was a lonely affiliate right and I wanted to find other people that uh, similar to me, you know my tribe, um, other affiliates that had the same problems. And we did an event, a little get-together in Bristol once um, and 30 or 40 people turned up. And then momentum grew, and we worked with the networks at the time, and you know, including I think Trade Doubler back then um, and we had an event in London; I was just to get together in a pub, and I know 600 people turned up, and it was incredible. And that's when I thought, gosh, you know, there's something in this. There's something that we need to do for the industry to get a proper event for the UK and European market. And that's when really we started back in the day. It was called A4U Expo. And we got a consultant through because I had never run an event before. And he was just retiring, and he'd done it all his life. And I flew him into Bristol. We had three or four days together, and he taught me everything he knew, and we launched AFU Expo in 2008.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] That's great. So that sounds a little bit like a dream coming true, right? Is that what inspired you, this kind of like culture that we have in the industry where everybody is kind of like close together? Partner marketing is an industry where you have the brands on one side, you have the partners on the other side, right? There is a lot of relationship, talking, meetings and this kind of stuff. Is that what inspired you for that?

[Matt Wood] Yeah, I think so, Matthias. I mean, I sometimes get in trouble by saying, you know, it's a relationship industry because technology also does play its part. But, you know, at the very root level, I always say that affiliates are like the roots, right? They power everything and then everything else is the tree. And that's kind of what we did at the beginning and connecting people to, you know, back in the day, it was about increasing commission rates or getting exclusive deals. And brands were really receptive to kind of meeting and networking. And I think that's always been the case. And it's a very special part of the industry today at any show, really.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] When did you do the first event then? When was the first PI Live?

[Matt Wood] It was 2008. We did it at Excel. And it was a two-day event. And it was, you know, gosh, we made some mistakes. But it was a great event. We had a brilliant time. And we even did our first awards ceremony in the pub. We had fish and chips, pie and chips or something. We couldn't afford a comedian, so we had a Ricky Gervais lookalike hosting the awards. But it was great. We started something that became to be something much bigger.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Can you share a few memorable moments, maybe from the beginning? You mentioned that there were quite a few mistakes. I can imagine, right? It's a bit of trial and error when you haven't done something like that before. And especially, I think it's. I can imagine it's quite special for you because you're working in the industry, you already knew a lot of people that you were hosting this event for, which is a bit of a special setup, right? Do you have a few memorable moments or some learnings maybe from these early days that you can share with us?

[Matt Wood] Oh, gosh. I mean, we had just so much fun, I think. We did quite a few European events in our earlier days as well around Europe. So we went to Berlin, to Munich, to Barcelona, to Amsterdam. I guess it wasn't a mistake doing that at all, but what I think the market wanted at the time was a consolidated show because we were doing something in London and also another event during the year in mainland Europe. Maybe that's something we will do again one day, but at the moment our priority is expanding PR Live Europe in London to a wider European market. We did it really well last year in terms of about 35% of the audience were from outside of the UK. And we want to bring in more people from the USA, from Germany, from the Netherlands and other key markets to the show.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] What has changed mainly over the years since 2008? Now that is 17 years, right? I can imagine there are quite some changes over time. What would you say is the most important ones? In the industry in terms of what we're talking about, do you think? In the industry, the organization of the events, the people showing up, the whole thing.

[Matt Wood] Yeah, I mean, we've all gone digital uh and plastic-free, you know, that's the thing: we don't have any plastic at our shows; it's a lot more environmentally conscious um, but in terms of what we're talking about, you know, it's sometimes very similar things uh, we we talked about attribution back in 2008 and we still talk about attribution at PR Live Miami USA today um um, but at its core um, our job is to bring people together. That's what we do and that's what we want to try and achieve going forward and that's always been the same. I followed this discussion yesterday that was about vouchers, right? That was seen quite critical. I was a bit surprised about that because I thought this topic is kind of like over now because there is so many case studies and so much proof about the value that cashback or vouchers bring, right? When you look at the whole user journey, not only looking at the last click

[Matthias Stadelmeyer]  Do you see something like that in general that the topics kind of like repeat themselves or do you see some kind of evolution when it comes to the content for the shows?

[Matt Wood] I mean, there's definitely always evolution in new areas, you know, retail media, for example. In terms of cashback coupon incentive, it's such a big part of the industry, whether it's in the US or in Europe or UK. In some countries, it could be upwards of 60% of revenue for most brands. While some brands completely sidestep it, and, you know, I was chatting to a brand yesterday, he said, you know, Matt, we don't deal, we don't really work with coupon sites at all. All our energy into content, commerce, and creators. So there's definitely different ways of doing it, and there's no right or wrong answer. Coupon and cashback could be absolutely a genuine strategy for some brands, and for others, they choose not to, and there's no right or wrong. As you say, there's lots of data around the value of coupons, and having a large coupon site or being MD of a large coupon site, we saw that data firsthand. Now, it's called PI Live here and Influencer Marketing Show. You see these two areas rather coming together.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Does that mean for you as well that performance marketing, partner marketing, and influencer marketing is something that is coming together or you see them as two independent channels of each other?

[Matt Wood] That's a really good question. They are definitely, they have. Similarities, and there's synergy there's definitely synergy between the two. And that's you know we have two stages here, one for the influencer side and one for the PR live and Organic, there was conversations about the creative economy on the PLI side and how we can bring in creators. And that's one thing that fascinates me about the affiliate industry and the partnership marketing industry is that it's incredibly nimble. It always evolves and it always adapts. And affiliates themselves will always find the next opportunity when they arrive. Going back to 2007, 2008, when there was the big recession, certainly in the UK and I think in Europe – That's when discounting really took off. It's when consumers were looking for those codes, and that's where a bulk of the code sites just exploded. And you're seeing what's happening with tariffs and all things at the moment. There's going to be a big potential opportunity, really, I think, for affiliates to look at models and change. So whether it's the creator economy, it is a massive part, I think, of what's going to be happening in our channel as it becomes more data-led, as CMOs look to look at the ROI from their spend. And again, I sometimes get in trouble with this because creators are so universal. They can be used for so many different strategies. It could be just for pure branding exercises, or it could be one that says, you know what, we want to put this through the affiliate channel, and we want to track every creator conversion. It really depends, and the objectives are so different depending on who you speak to. For me, I perceive it a bit as affiliate marketing or partner marketing rather expanding at the moment.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] You mentioned retail media. We spoke about influencer marketing. There is content to commerce. So I have the feeling that there is rather things coming into partner marketing again. Compared to the past when we had programmatic advertising coming, display marketing, you rather saw things going out of. Affiliate marketing right it was a bit difficult times when you look back at 2008, you mentioned 2012 maybe as well; now I rather have the feeling we're expanding. Is that something that you see as well in the discussions that you have in the shows and presentations?

[Matt Wood] Yeah, absolutely! I mean, we always evolve. Content commerce is huge in the US market, whether you're on BuzzFeed, Wirecutter, Forbes. These opportunities, these editorial things can boost a program's success hugely overnight and really drive sales. And the same with creators. Once those go viral, if you work with just a few creators or lots of micro-creators, they can really push. Push your sales to the next level. And yeah, in your retail media products, you know, there's great things like brand swap, for example, that kind of like are really filling a niche in the UK market. Brand to brand partnerships, for example. And that's never going to change. And that's what makes it so exciting to program these events because the agendas, whilst we always do talk about the really data subjects, like, you know, we were talking about GA4 tracking and attribution yesterday, which is quite a heavy topic to talk about.

[ Matthias Stadelmeyer] We also talk about the creative stuff too. Do you think that with these changes in the content and this evolution that we just discussed, you think that the audience of the events has changed as well? Or is it roughly the same now? Like when I'm here, I was surprised how many people I know actually, right? And it's the same obviously in PI Live in London too, which is great. But then on the other hand, I see many, many young people that I obviously don't know so well. You see change there in the audience and the people themselves?

[Matt Wood] To some extent, yeah. I mean, there's There's lots of entrepreneurial publishers and affiliates out here in the U. S. market that are incredibly smart and are building things very quickly to capitalize. And they don't necessarily go into it saying, "I'm going to build an affiliate business", but they realize that they can monetize their business effectively through it. So it's really great to get those kind of people into the show, as well as those that have been around a long time. It's great to see people and friends that have been part of these shows for decades as well, and they can really sort of mentor. Guide these new newbies into the industry as well which is part of what we want to do, yes there's a really good vibe you can see the energy you can feel the energy when you compare the event here in Miami and the event in London.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Do you see any differences when it comes to the attendees the mindset but as well as the expectations on the event but the discussions the content etc.?

[Matt Wood] Um, Yes and no. I think the US is a mature market. It has a number of events in the market, whether they're network-led or whether they're sort of from third parties like ourselves. So there's no shortage of them. People love meetings. I mean, in Europe, we I think last year we had nearly 8,500 confirmed meetings at the show, which is an incredible number of meetings across the duration here in Florida. It might be a couple of thousand, but what we try and do is always have intentional moments for meeting people, whether it's at a mixer. And we had some Pilates on the lawn this morning. Definitely not for me, that one, unfortunately. But we had some Pilates, we have some mixers, we have some fantastic parties and events. And this is just what brings people together so well.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] But do you think there's any differences between the show here in Miami and in London?

[Matt Wood] The difference is, I think at their core, they're very, very similar. We have the same mission and that's connecting brands and publishers. I think a lot of the brands and networks take their own meeting rooms here and are very meetings-heavy, and they invest with that. We're also seeing Publishers court our brands a lot more as well in terms of making sure that, you know, they invite them to the show, they look after them for dinner and really embrace them and build relationships. And that's what's really important is that at smaller shows like ours, you can do that.

You can really; it's not just a really crazy environment where you're just shuffling around and have no space. You can really go and sit out on the lawn in the sunshine with a glass of wine or a mojito or a non-alcoholic alternative, and get to know them. And build a relationship and a friendship that will hopefully move on to something more later.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] I was a bit surprised. It's the first time for me to be at the event here in Miami. I had 12 meetings yesterday, all these 15-minute meetings, which is a bit short. But I was kind of like I knew it, I think. But I was surprised about this focus. It was really like introducing to somebody that you didn't know before. And one of the guys said to me, 'Well, I want to do business with you and you want to do the business with me. So let's talk about it.' It was so straight into that, right? And that's what can we do together and then move on. I think that is a bit of a difference in Europe. We like to talk a little bit. Maybe it's a bit more relationship-based and hanging out together, having a drink or something like that. Not that it wasn't here like that as well, but I was surprised by this. Focus and straightforwardness, right? I was quite a bit impressed.

[Matt Wood] Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's very direct and it's very kind of like, you know, focused. You know, you've only got so much time in the day here, so you can have maximum maybe 25 meetings if you're very, you know, packed. So you need to make it.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] I was full with my 12, to be honest, right? I tried to add to your 8 ,000 that you get there. I have another 12 today, but I was knackered in the evening. It took me on to six, right? Because I was always. kind of late, but it was good. I really enjoyed it. It was so good energy and really, yeah, focus. That was good. It was surprising for me. You set up this, when was the first event in Miami?

[Matt Wood] It was about four years ago, so no, this is our fourth, no, third edition, sorry.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Okay. Wasn't that a big challenge, setting that up here abroad on another continent, basically? How was that for you? How did you make this jump?

[Matt Wood] It's not as hard as doing events in Europe, I'd say, in mainland Europe. Because, although the model is completely different, so it's all based on food and beverage spend, which is why I have copium. copious amounts of food and drinks at the show. But, you know, it's actually not as bad as people think. We don't have an office in the US at all. We all do it remotely from England. And it works pretty well. We have, you know, the support of, you know, key sponsors such as, you know, that come back year on year and support us and want to see the industry grow. And that really, really helps as well, connect us to the right people in the market too.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] We leverage our own relationships for the success of the event. Can you share a bit about what it takes to set up an event like that? I think it's really interesting, like how much preparation is in there? When do you start planning for an event in advance so that you get it as well organized as it is here now?

[Matt Wood] Sure. I mean, we always start in about a 12-month cycle. So we have a team of 24 people now at Hello Partner. They work diligently across running the four shows and four award ceremonies that we run. So they're a busy team. And besides the events themselves, Hello Partner does other things as well, right?

[ Matthias Stadelmeyer] Do you want to share a bit about the other stuff you're doing too?

[Matt Wood] Yeah, sure. I mean, we do Creator Fest, which is a new show that we're really investing in this year and next year. It's in October. And I think we might move it to a summer period in 2026 and increase it to a two-day show, I'd imagine. But, you know, this is such an exciting area. The creative economy is growing hugely. We rebranded it from the Influencer Show because the creative economy is so much wider. And it also will have an affiliate arm to it. And we also do the award ceremonies. This is going to be our 19th Performance Marketing Awards at Gravena House in London, which is a scary thought this year. And that's always a brilliant opportunity to get, you know, nearly a thousand people to a black-tie dinner in London's largest ballroom to celebrate the industry and also recognize some of the up-and-coming talent, but also some really important categories that we need to program. You know, we have something on compliance and transparency. That we've just programmed for the GPMAs in October because we feel that there is a push in the industry for that and we should be providing support and a mechanism to celebrate those that are doing it.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] We spoke about the trends in the industry. We spoke about influencer marketing, content to commerce. What other trends do you see that will be shaping the future of partner marketing in the coming months or maybe years? You can't escape AI at the moment, right?

[Matt Wood] It's an incredible force, and that's just going to change the way that campaigns are researched, executed, planned, and also monitored in terms of fraud detection. There's so many things that you can do to see if there's any dodgy players on your affiliate program, for example. It could be cookie time, conversion time. doing it really quickly, pop it through a ChatGPT script and let it analyze for variables that aren't favorable. So it's going to change the way. For all our award ceremonies, we’ve started to ask people if they use AI in their campaigns, not to sort of downgrade it, that’s not what we want to do, we want people to embrace it and disclose it. And the same actually for writing award entries. You know if people are writing award entries using AI, we need to know that, so we want to disclose it.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] You see the changes rather positive or threatening?

[Matt Wood] Oh. Positive. I think it’s absolutely positive. You know, a lot of people are using it on a daily basis and it just speeds up everything you are doing. I think for the affiliate sector it’s going to really change the way of working. It means a lot of more production obviously, right, of content, it means automation as well. It should really be a boost, but on the other side it’s difficult to imagine how it really will turn out.