SalesTech Interview with Craig McGlynn, VP of Revenue at PartnerCentric

Tell us about your role at PartnerCentric. What attracted you to the company?

I am fortunate these days to be picky about the roles I take. A member of my team at my last company went to PartnerCentric and raved about the great employees and satisfied clients, along with a 100% remote workforce, I was sold! I began running the client services team, and moved over to a role leading all our revenue creation activities. The beauty of that progression is I have great insight into the entire client journey from the sales process to the managed services process. Because of that, we take great care during the sales process to understand client expectations and goals, and we meet as a company on every prospect in the pipeline to make sure we are aligned internally that we can deliver the best results on the proposed engagement.

My goal for our team is to build upon our reputation in the industry as a leading performance marketing agency and expose more brands to the power of partnership-focused performance marketing. As the VP of Revenue, I’m focused on leveraging the economic benefits of our programs to bring customers continuous revenue and ensure that we are working with companies that share our values and core purpose of building meaningful relationships beyond borders. I am proud to lead this ROI-focused approach.

Who are your customers and how are these industries benefiting from their partnership with PartnerCentric?

At PartnerCentric, we’re committed to breaking through industry, business and technological limitations to drive the highest ROI for clients. We partner with some of the world’s most respected brands to help them achieve success however they may define it. We give them the control, power and freedom to create the relationships that will help their businesses succeed most, namely the best partners, the most effective implementations and faster ROI.

From Cost Plus World Market to Yelp, and industry leaders in between, our customers span a wide range of industries including retail, fintech and travel. Regardless of their industry, we work hard to connect our customers with the best publishers that will help them reach their goals, and support their products and mission. Ultimately, we give our customers the resources and support they need to tap into new audiences and reach new customers, leading to faster and larger ROI.

Our clients benefit from working with us in a few ways – most notably, they gain access to audiences of potential customers through a new constituency of affiliate partners that drive brand awareness, educational content, and ultimately sales. These relationships are the core of what we do, and we help our customers by leveraging these relationships strategically to help them reach their goals, whatever they may be. Additionally, because we are a fully remote agency, we can hire talent anywhere in the US and employ the most tenured account managers in the space who can dive in from day one. They never learn on the client’s dime and are able to provide strategic support at all stages.

What is the current and future state of the performance marketing industry?

Right now, technology and social media are huge drivers in the industry and more and more retailers are getting into the space, relying on affiliate marketing to generate leads and boost sales. The rise of digital and mobile marketing has made customers more accessible and created the expectation of accurate and accessible data analytics for campaigns.

There is more growth required in terms of attribution, to meet the immense advancement of digital marketing. With the continued rise of digital marketing came a desire to understand and measure investment with performance tracking, but this has not yet been fully realized in the industry. It can still be challenging in certain scenarios to offer customers hard numbers and data relevant to their campaigns. Harnessing this level of accurate insight and control can and will be a game changer for the industry.

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As available data continues to grow throughout the industry, how can brands manage marketing analytics to make the most of their campaigns?

As with any industry, knowing the outcome of your initiatives is key to making informed, successful business decisions and putting your money into the most profitable channels. Thus, data offers marketers that knowledge which helps business leaders support their decisions and make better choices on behalf of their company. Data, when leveraged properly, has the potential to fill those knowledge gaps and make marketing a more informed, quantitative industry in time. As 58% of brands say that their current data habits could use improvement, now is as great a time as ever to begin implementing new data collection and analytics practices in all businesses across the industry. Not only will this use of data help business decision makers increase ROI and reduce wasteful investing, it can lead to overall business growth when clients and customers see the science behind the art and feel supported and as if their money is being used in the most effective way possible.

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How do you believe PartnerCentric’s unique approach to work/life balance affects the level of service and ROI you provide for clients?

As the world’s largest entirely remote performance marketing agency, we pride ourselves on working “beyond borders.” I personally work from an island in the Carribbean, which has given me the ability to build a career I’m proud of while supporting my family in the best way I possibly can. But what really matters are the benefits that our beyond borders approach offers our clients. It enables us to connect clients with impactful partners beyond the traditional limitations of the industry. Working remotely helps us focus on the most important tasks, relationships, and needs in life while giving our clients and partners the support and innovative solutions they deserve. Our clients can be sure that because we don’t have a centralized office, each of our team members were hired for their expertise and not our location. For that reason, we each bring different skills to the table and provide our clients with a complete, innovative solution.

Because we have perfected working closely as a team remotely, we already have the expertise to develop and grow new partnerships with publishers and clients all over the country. It’s innate for us to be intentional and purposeful in our effort to nurture what are essentially virtual relationships because this is what we do all day every day within the organization. Our core value of Professional Intimacy means that we are approachable, open, and honest with our clients and colleagues. We share knowledge and information with genuine rapport, honesty, and transparency, and communicate proactively and effectively. The goal is to always seek to truly understand so you feel truly understood.

We also cover multiple time zones. When one of us is wrapping up our day at 6pm on the East Coast, we have plenty of team members who are just starting their afternoons on the West Coast, and later someone coming online in Asia, etc. We cover all business hours and there is always someone available to assist when help is needed. We also have employees in Europe and Asia who manage, recruit, and assist with clients and partnerships abroad. If there’s a conference, a partnership meeting, or if there’s a desire to have your day-to-day close by, we cover coast to coast and country to country.

We do the leg work for our clients so they don’t have to start from scratch when forging these relationships for their businesses.

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How can brands prepare for a potential upcoming recession?

During economic downturn, marketing spend is generally one of the first departments to experience cutbacks. And while brands are always preparing and anticipating a potential recession, especially now, it’s important to first consider what has revamped the marketing industry since 2008 – technology.

Technology has provided the transparency needed to measure and control campaigns in order to keep a strong hold on ROI. When a company is focused on meaningful growth, it is less susceptible to the losses attributed to a potential recession. Empty growth is what sets businesses up for failure in a period of economic downturn, so focusing on data-supported campaigns can only strengthen a company’s defense. Concentrating marketing dollars on proven campaigns and initiatives like investment in a strong performance marketing channel, rather than loose growth, offers companies the strength and stability to survive – and even thrive – in these hard times. By realizing the power of performance marketing tools, marketers can maximize the effectiveness of their marketing resources, ultimately protecting themselves from the threats of another recession.

Thank You, Craig, for answering all our questions. We hope to see you again, soon.