Redefining Affiliate Marketing: Brand + Performance for Maximum Revenue Impact

Redefining Affiliate Marketing: Brand + Performance for Maximum Revenue Impact

“Affiliate marketing intersects with every part of your marketing stack—PR, influencer, paid search, content—but too often, it operates in a silo. The real opportunity lies in integrating it into your brand and performance strategy from day one. When you align affiliate with your broader media mix and apply smarter measurement, it stops being just a channel and becomes a strategic growth lever.” That's a quote from Lacie Thompson, an executive at New Engen and founder of LT Partners and a sneak peek at today’s episode. 

Welcome to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Kerry Curran—Fractional Chief Growth Officer, industry analyst, and relentless advocate for turning marketing into a revenue engine. Each episode, I bring you the strategies, insights, and conversations that will fuel your revenue growth. So search for Revenue Boost in your favorite podcast directory, and hit subscribe to stay ahead of the game.

In this episode, we're pulling back the curtain on one of the most misunderstood and under-leveraged growth drivers in your marketing stack: affiliate marketing. 

In Redefining Affiliate Marketing Brand Performance for Maximum Revenue Impact, I'm joined by Lacie Thompson—founder of LT Partners and now an executive at New Engen, a top-tier performance marketing agency. We'll talk about why affiliate deserves a seat at your media planning table, how to integrate it with your broader marketing strategy, and how smart brands are using data and measurement to unlock serious revenue impact. So stay tuned through the ad, where Lacie shares how you can get smarter about measuring affiliate and truly integrating it into your broader strategy.

Let’s go.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:01.23):
So welcome, Lacie. Please introduce yourself and share a bit about your background and expertise.

Lacie Thompson (00:06.617):
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm Lacie Thompson. My background, before I started LT Partners—an affiliate marketing agency—was in affiliate and digital marketing on the brand side.

I was very lucky in the early days to have some really great mentors and leaders. After spending about six years on the brand side and then three years at another startup agency, I started LT Partners in September of 2018. We grew very quickly—very organically, I should add—

and were acquired by New Engen, which is a digital marketing agency, in June of 2023.

Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:53.998):
Excellent. Well, we're so glad to have you here. I've always been very impressed with your success—and congratulations on building your own successful company and getting acquired.

I know you've been in the industry a long time and have lots of expertise to share with us. So, to start: when you're talking to other senior executives, marketing leaders, CMOs, what's the buzz you're hearing? What are people talking about today—especially when it comes to affiliate and digital marketing?

Lacie Thompson (01:27.459):
Yeah, thinking of the big picture—what I found really interesting about New Engen is the way they have grown and adapted over the course of their history. New Engen is about eight or nine years old at this point, but initially started as a tech company. They built a hyper-granular bidding model on top of Google and Meta, primarily.

Over time, as those platforms introduced their own algorithms, that technology beca