[ Matthias Stadelmeyer] Hello everyone, welcome to the Partner Marketing Podcast. Today I'm joined by Alex Ketter, Managing Director, US at Atolls. Alex is originally from Germany, where he left the DACH region. Now he's been in the US for two years, building the business from the ground up. We're recording here from PI Live show in Miami, perfect spot to talk about global growth. We cover launching a European company in America, market differences, and how coupons and cashback are seen on both sides of the Atlantic. Alex will share as well some of his personal learnings from this exciting journey. Alex, great to have you on the show.

[ Alex Ketter ] Welcome. Thanks, Matthias. Happy to be here. You're from Germany, you're a German native. We know each other actually around 10 years or something like that when you had been the country manager or managing director for Atolls in DACH.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Now you have built the US operations and you're the country manager for Atolls here in the US. That is an exciting story. How did that happen?

[Alex Ketter] Yeah, it is quite exciting, honestly. Actually, back then, when we first met, I didn't directly start at Atals or back then Global Savings Group as the managing director for the DACH region. I started as a country launcher of the US. So back then, we already tried to step into the market. I didn't know that. I was actually living before Munich. I was living in Amsterdam, launching the team, hiring the editorial team. Back then, we were working with a partner out of Amsterdam. And yeah, and after that, I then took over the role as the DACH lead, moved into VP of Growth, where I was in charge of different growth solutions, innovation within GSG back then. And yeah, exactly. After two years, then took over the US team and closed the circle. So very happy that after so many years where I started, I'm back where I started. it's two years now right that you're in the us roughly two years can you share a bit how how was this start you know I don't know I have shared with you um but Tradedoubler is now opening an office here in the US as well in Miami so I'm really curious.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] How did you start here?

[ Alex Ketter] Back then, we started out remotely, right? Like I said, already years back, but leading the market out of Europe. And that was in the initial plan, was to touch base, was to understand where we could really penetrate the market. And I think it came a few. Maybe a year later that we started, maybe two years later that we started building real local presence in the US, we decided to set up our hub in Atlanta, Georgia. And that being because of closeness to Europe, East Coast, time zone wise, it was pretty good. Atlanta being a tech hub that was in very strong growth back then. So we decided to settle there and build up the team. Build up local resources, account management, editorial team, marketing team, cross-functions, right? So that's how it all started. And yeah, today, where it's the US market is a significant contributor to the Atoll's ecosystem.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Okay, I come back to the beginning again. So you moved there or you started to build up the team by going there or did you do that remotely already, trying to hire a few people, get them on the ground and then you moved? What was first?

[Alex Ketter] We hired people on the ground, but the management team remained remote. And having local resources, already very senior resources here that were leading the operational part of the business. They were leading the sales, the commercial part, the operational part. But executive management remained in Europe and it wasn't until I made the move two years ago that we saw the actual need for real full leadership to be locally there.

[ Matthias Stadelmeyer ] So before you traveled back and forth?

[Alex Ketter] Before we were traveling back and forth, correct. Every few weeks we were, of course, doing this. It was pretty hard on the people that were working in this sort of way. And honestly, much easier to have a local lead here.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Now you're like 30, 35 people, if I remember correctly, right?

[Alex Ketter] Locally, yes. We're around that. We fluctuate up and down, of course, but that's where we're at in Atlanta locally. But we also have offshore team of about double that size working towards the market in different functions.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] That's a great success, isn't it? Building a team of 30, 35 people from scratch within only just like two years.

[Alex Ketter] Yeah, it has its challenges, but we were able to really establish a significant, yeah, really well-working and high-performing team that's also very close together working on our objectives.

[ Matthias Stadelmeyer ] What was the biggest challenge, would you say, when you started that?

[Alex Ketter] I think being so unknown. For me specifically, coming from Germany, where we were already very strong in the market. And in Europe, we have a very strong footprint. And I never had to explain really who we were until I got here. And the explaining had to start from scratch to really say like, 'we are actually, we exist, we are someone, we're significant in Europe.' We were lucky that at that time, also many of the networks had big presences in Europe, so they did know us. But there were, of course, cases where we had to reintroduce ourselves from scratch.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] How did you do that? How did you engage with the people? How did you engage with the industry coming in there basically as a newbie?

[ Alex Ketter ] Yeah, we had. I think these types of conferences like we're on now are a really, really big contributor to our connection with many brands, networks, and agencies. You know, there's geographical limitations in in this country-it's so big, you fly from one end to the other in five six hours right? So, the sizes are different than those in Europe, and the advertisers are spread throughout the country, so these conferences are where they all meet up together and where we really establish these connections.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Okay, very good. When would you say was this moment where it clicked, where you said, 'okay, now we have something that we can hold on to and we can start building now?

[Alex Ketter] Yeah, good question. I think I would say when we started in the US, we started with our partnership model, which was a white label approach of partnering with big media houses to offer the coupons on their site. So this was, we had really big success cases in Europe where the brands trusted us with this job to provide the service for their users. And we in turn, of course, relied on their big user base and trust element of that brand to enter the market. So I think one of the core moments where it clicked is when we were able to close partnerships with CNN, with Business Insider here in the US, both enormous brands with huge trust. And for them to give us that trust to lead their coupons business was a moment where we really believed this is something we can be significant here.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] That was a hard piece of work, I can imagine, right?

[Alex Ketter] Absolutely. These brands will not give you anything easily. It was a due diligence process that spanned over nine months of them really analyzing us on all sorts of levels and really scrutinizing everything we do, which I think is another testament to the fact that we're doing high-quality stuff that we want to deliver.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Well done. I think that's a really, really big achievement. Well done. Wow. Looking now, you have so much experience in Europe, managing the DACH region for a few years. Now you're in the US. What is the differences? What is the main difference between these two markets now?

[Alex Ketter] You know, in many ways, I think they're very similar in this niche, right? And if we're talking specifically coupons, cashback, and deals, they do act in the same way. Maybe the US is a bit more advanced in certain things, in innovation, things come out faster here. But if we're talking about, for example, types of coupons, one big difference that I noticed is the exclusive code coverage. In Germany and in the DACH region, it's pretty strong. We've got many brands that provide exclusive codes, branded codes. That way, leveraging the publisher as a real tool for incremental value, right? They know what code is being used because the code is actually branded for that publisher. It's exclusive during a certain period of time for that publisher, so no one else can use it. So they can really, really analyze that data. In the US, the exclusive code coverage is extremely low. And codes get shared amongst all publishers at the same time. And that, I feel, might be missing out on some of the data analytic potential that you can really read out of it.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] That's kind of a completely different way of working, isn't it?

[Alex Ketter] It is, exactly. It also gives a much more wider net to everyone to use and I think also the the competitive landscape all fight with the same code in equal um circumstances but at the same time maybe you're missing out on on the potential to focus on a very good publisher that can bring you additional value.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Okay. Was there any learnings from Germany that have helped you or is it really that you start from scratch that you like, like I discussed with a few people now when we set up the office here and one of them said to me like, Matthias, forget everything that you know. This is completely different. There's a completely different game. Be prepared like that. Is it like that or is there stuff that you like besides obviously the internal atolls and coupon stuff, but is there stuff that you could use that you have learned before?

[Alex Ketter] Absolutely. I'd agree with, forget everything you say, because this is a different beast. The sheer size of this is, we've got one single retailer the size of an entire market in Europe, right? But there are things that you can bring. There are things that aren't being promoted here. That's also a local presence of the team that helped us a lot to understand where we can bring in these differences and how things are done here. And I think for example, to mention an example in Europe, it's very normal to have long-term agreements with the brands you negotiate for the entire year. Seasonally, you know which are the peak days, you know what you're going to get, what kind of content you're going to then publish. You've got a calendar for this. US is much more short-term and so we have to be on top of our game every month, every week, right? To be renegotiating, re-emphasizing the need for Right now, we're going into Valentine's Day or we're going into Mother's Day or we're going into the spring sale and be always on the hunt for the best content.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] How is it when you deal with the people? Now you have a big team, 30, 35. I don't remember what the size of the team in Germany was. Is that similar managing the team dealing with your colleagues collaborating with them is that similar or is that something where you had to adapt as well.

[Alex Ketter] It's it's very similar so the size of the market larger but our core business is the same we also have standard operating procedures across all our countries so we do set them up in the same way we've got the same core teams and built in the same way so that is something that we do reuse with our know-how to be able to to use that in the different markets So yeah, that's very similar. If you want to scale further, of course, it's more people than that you bring in, but the roles remain the same. And when working with them directly, is it the same kind of like in Germany or in Europe, we always have quite close relationships, we hang together, we discuss things. It's kind of like it's always a bit of a blend between private and professional. You have a beer after work.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Is that kind of like the same culture here?

[Alex Ketter] It's similar. All being said, when I was back then in the DACH region, it was a pre-COVID time. So we were much more involved in the office. Now, of course, COVID has changed all of that. And I imagine today as well, if I look into our DACH region, it's similar to here as well, that we're not that connected as we used to be in the office terms. But we do have the same element of time together. We've got our days where we have breakfast together, days where we have happy hours together, days where we also blend the professional and the personal. The other day we had an event where we also brought in our families to the office to be part of that event. And my kids were running around happily talking with all our colleagues. So I was really excited about those moments as well.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Good, good. You brought your whole family over now, right?

[Alex Ketter] Correct, yes. It was an all-in decision. We discussed it very, very deeply, very thoroughly. And if I were to do this, it was going to be all-in. And we brought the entire family. My two daughters are now here in the US in school. My wife also there with us and all very happy in our new home environment it comes across like that yeah very good very nice.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Good. Let us go a little bit deeper into coupons and cashback as well is there real difference you mentioned the exclusivity obviously there was this discussion here at PI Live yesterday that was a little bit critical about coupons and i was surprised by that. Because that was discussions that we had a few years ago and now we have so much proof and case studies about the value that is driven by partners like you, like the incremental uplift, the stickiness, the loyalty that you create for users. Is there a difference in the perception of coupons and cashback between the US and in Europe?

[Alex Ketter] I think they're perceived in a very similar way. In both, you have the naysayers that would prefer to have cashback out of the ecosystem. Others who know how to use and know the value and actually see the data, which I think is the most important part. It is a channel that is very valuable. And specifically in the US, you see that it's so widespread. You see much more retailers that have in checkout a coupon code. Possibility, you see tools now be it Shopify and be it WooCommerce right they all have the the plugins to immediately use coupons so they make it very simple and and with this you also see the brands adopting it so much more penetrated in that regard and so it's a tool that I believe if you use correctly you can really leverage its value and and promote be it volume, increased AOV, you know, there are so many things that you can push through a coupon code that we'd love to see brands adopted in a much more strategical way. And I think, because I believe it does have the potential to be that.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] How is it about the consumer behavior itself? Because like from my perception, the US is like the country that kind of like invented that.

[Alex Ketter] It's like free for two and buy this, get one free and discounts, but loyalty as well, cashback. And when I look around here, there is basically nothing where you can't use it.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] So it's very ingrained in the shopping behavior of consumers, isn't it?

[Alex Ketter] Absolutely, we have instances from we know from user interviews that people, even with our domain saved as their default when they open their browser, right? So, and to see what what kind of coupon is is live today, um, we've got the the a big part of our brand on Coupons.com is also our print-at-home coupons, which is, there are even TV shows about this, right? Where people print them and go to their local supermarket and even spend, I mean, in an extreme case, 50 cents on a $300 purchase, right? So, yeah, you do see that on a data basis, I think a very interesting learning for me was to see on our pages the click-through rate is above 100% which in Europe I wasn't used to that. So, in Europe, you would a user might look for a specific coupon and if they don't find it on the site, they don't click. Here, having a CTR above 100 would mean that everyone clicks and more than once, right? If they maybe don't find the coupon they want, they still click it to try it works, maybe the terms that say only for jeans are is, isn't as such, and maybe it will work for my sneakers, right? It's much more direct here, right; business-focused, direct, and in kind of like every aspect of life, yeah, yeah. You do see that transferred, yes.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] This kind of like going back to this discussion I mentioned before: how do you tackle that when you speak with Brands or maybe when you speak with networks as well, do you share like these cases? Do you have cases? Because you have so much data, right? Cashback providers, loyalty or coupon partners sit on so much data. And I know that you have a lot of case studies. Is that why educating brands, educating the market? Is that the main way how you tackle this?

[Alex Ketter] We always try to back up our claims with data. And so case studies is an integral part of it. We've got a team that's developed, developing these case studies and provide our sales teams with the actual backup to be able to defend their arguments and to educate further. One limitation, I believe, is the connections that we have are much more difficult to establish with the enormous size of the US. Visiting a certain city and then trying to meet all the advertisers in that city is challenging. You can only meet two or three in a day. It's not like if you do an event in Munich; if you do an event in Madrid, you've got 90% of the Spanish advertisers and agencies are in Madrid. So it's very easy to bring them into your office and share a case study face-to-face. This is more difficult in the US. But we try it. We do our best also through calls and through.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] I guess it's very best to get it across when you speak one-to-one to the brands, right? And you speak about certain campaigns and the value that you can drive. Do you do something like webinars, for example, as well, where you explain?

[Alex Ketter] Yeah, and that's another really good point. I think another learning that we brought from other countries that if we do get invited to a network and we're allowed to present to the different affiliate managers in or the different Partner Managers in the in the network. We're allowed to present our cases, our arguments, and with that also have them support us in certain claims with different advertisers that are looking for an objective, and then we can filter that. We could think about having a webinar together. We do publisher partner webinars for the brands and the network where the partner then explains how they work exactly, what they drive, how they drive that, that maybe that could be really valuable.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] I'm always impressed when you run campaigns like companies like Atolls about the power that is behind these campaigns where you can target certain audiences and where you have such a massive buying power in your user base and in the data that you have it's a real, it's a proper selling channel, right?

[Alex Ketter] It is, it is. And we've got yeah, the KPIs are extremely interesting; we're very happy to share them, always to to educate people to understand how this works, right? And one of the biggest differences to any other website is when you when we have a user on a coupon site for example. When you have a normal domain somewhere, you want to keep the user on your site. And that's a KPI that people wanted: Time on site, pages seen, pages clicked through. And for us, we want the user to be on our site and to be very fast to leave because that would mean we filled their need. In providing them the best possible saving opportunity right if they're on the site 27 seconds, it means they found exactly what they needed in a perfect time time frame and were able to to provide them with value uh in their shopping experience. If they're on site for four minutes and click through four different coupons, we probably did not meet that the need that they had.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] How is generally the quality of the input you get from brands and from networks, right? So you usually get all the coupons through APIs from the different networks or from brands directly. How do you set up a campaign then with this? I think from some of my learnings as well, it's often the raw input that you get. So there's a lot of editorial stuff, a lot of editorial work needed on your side as well, right? Isn't it?

[Alex Ketter] It is, it is. And that's a caveat of the business that despite all the fields being required or often presented to a brand to fill in for the coupon, we get the coupon with just simply a little title and no other information. And that's one of the reasons we decided to go for a human, real human team on the editorial side to really be able to make those to fill in that information to clean it to a degree that we are confident that it works that we've tried it that someone has checked I think that's really worth mentioning.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] I understood that from previous conversations that we had, how much work is there. It's almost like a science, how you articulate something on the coupon, where to place this coupon, that the context fits as well, right? So there is real work behind that, that you're adding, with adding value then, obviously, right?

[Alex Ketter] Absolutely, absolutely. It matters where a voucher is presented on the site. If it's in the second position or the third position, will differ in how many people really find what they're looking for, what kind of content you have on the site matters. So there's a lot of work on editorial side and we're really, really happy that we went in this direction to promote that human aspect also towards our users and not fully automate everything.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Very good. Thank you for sharing these insights. Super, super interesting for me. Now we're here at PI Live. And you mentioned in the beginning when we spoke about the launch of atolls in the US, how important these events are. What is your experience here now at PI Live? How do you find the show?

[Alex Ketter] I love PI Live. So I have a history back in university. I studied in Miami. So coming back to Miami is always a great, great experience for me. It's always some sort of nostalgia. Overcomes me right um but essentially these conferences for us are also strategically very, very important as I said right and it's All of them, and this one I feel is specifically very well organized. One of the only ones that has food and beverages available. That's something that is excellent because you do walk a lot. You need those drinks, that bottle of water, that Coca-Cola, that coffee, or just a little cookie in the meantime as a snack. But the meetings are valuable; that we want to meet is there and we can really exchange on some strategic topics. I think the date is important. The date that this is held is after the first quarter passed and now we can use the next few months to follow up on topics to be prepared for the post-summer increase of the season, right?

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Yeah, we all have the same seasonality, almost the same. I guess you have a lot of meetings. Do you go into the presentations and the panels, discussions and this stuff as well?

[Alex Ketter] I try to. I think some are very, very relevant that I really want to go. I do have it as a plan B in case. So in case I don't have a meeting, I will go. And because it's all about networking, I'm going to focus on networking and this specific to me, but we do bring the team to many of these conferences and then um we do have always someone look um present listening in and and taking notes for the rest of the team.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Did you see any trends now? Did you see anything new in partner marketing that you think we should pay close attention to?

[Alex Kettler] Well, I think the big disruptor from last year was the AI growth, right? And I think this is starting to be present and to be taken on by some players in the affiliate space. I'm looking into, I think it's very, very important to see where this is going. There are some very valuable players that are building solutions that are amazing that we're looking into. But also from the big browsers, from Google's side, they're building solutions that are tapping into the space. And that's also something that we want to keep an eye on, specifically because they could disrupt what we know today as the affiliate space for all the players involved.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] And especially for vouchers that could be the same, right? Because a lot of business that you do is through Google and search engines. Do you see AI rather as something positive or are you kind of like you see this disruption as a, like it will be a disruption in any way, or you see it rather as a challenge?

[Alex Ketter] I think when we talk about different solutions, we could see some of them as a very strong value add, right? Others, and to be very specific, for example, we see the AI overviews on Chrome that show open codes that might or mostly are actually expired codes or not working. They're an attempt to do a no-click journey. Is not value-adding for the user and they actually then need to go back to the publisher to find the real working code.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] So I feel that is still not well executed. Other queries into understanding when is a good time to buy a certain product? Is the current, you know, which players, which brands offer this product at a better price?

[Alex Ketter] I think all those type of queries can be really value-adding for the user. You can do a lot of automation obviously, but then as you said like the time spent on the website by the user as short or the shorter the better for you because it means that the user, the consumer got what they were looking for. With AI that should be even better, right? Shouldn't it? Because there will be as many sales as before. There will be as many coupons used as before, but the user experience will be better.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] So it should be a rather good thing then, shouldn't it?

[Alex Ketter] In that regard, yes, if we can use AI to optimize our processes to um to improve uh our value on site absolutely and we are we are definitely um looking into that and already deployed um some optimizations in the in the various processes to be able to provide that service faster better and so yes that is a a definite value adding element to it yeah very good very good thank you for sharing all these insights there's some exciting times ahead right. It's never boring in the years that I've been here. I haven't had one year where everything is completely smooth sailing. So there's always challenges, but always opportunities. And we're really happy to sail through all of these.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] But that's a bit the characteristic of our industry anyway, right? So I can say the same. On the other hand, it keeps you on your toes, right? And it keeps you young, kind of.

[Alex Ketter] Yeah, absolutely. I have a round of rapid-fire questions, I call them, so quick questions that you, as you like, can maybe answer quickly. Bratwurst or burger? I'm going to go with burger. I had a burger yesterday and I had a burger the day before, right? I had my good share since I'm here, yes.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] What's the best city you've worked in so far?

[Alex Ketter] I think My time in Madrid. I look back at it with great memories. Okay, that's a lovely city.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Not Munich anymore?

[Alex Ketter] Munich is always home, but I need something a bit more exotic as my favorite city.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Is there a tool or a tactic that you think is super, super important in partner marketing?

[Alex Ketter] You know, one thing that I've noticed, and it might be very old school from my part, but all innovation tools. I try to use them, and I'm actively always reinventing and flexible to use them, but I always fall back to my Google Sheets and my spreadsheets. So exporting from one tool and importing into my Excel to do my tables. So I'd go with that. It's the same with me. Some people crack jokes about me using Excel all the time for anything, but it's just the best tool, right? Isn't it? Coming from back in time when we learned all the shortcuts. I can do it with my eyes closed.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Exactly. It's working. Good. What's the dream partner brand you want to win for at Holtz?

[Alex Ketter] I think I wouldn't pinpoint a specific brand, but a brand that understands the data and the value and drives and wants to drive with us clear objectives that we want to achieve together. I think that for us is a perfect scenario where we can really ideate, brainstorm, support and and hopefully achieve and overachieve those goals.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Thank you so much Alex; thank you for all these insights here. If people want to get connected to you, want to speak with you or learn more about Atolls, how do they do that in the best way?

[Alex Ketter] You know I think the the easiest and most accessible is LinkedIn; um, connect with me. I'm happy to answer any messages, any pins coming my way - Alexander Ketter. And you can find me there.

[Matthias Stadelmeyer] Perfect thank you so much for this talk. I want to thank you personally as well like we spoke before and you shared so much insights with me about how to get started in the US that it's very super useful for me so thank you for that like just like from me as well, thank you Alex.

[Alex Ketter] Yes, thank you. Thank you for having me, pleasure good.