Episode #40 – The Performance Marketing Spotlight with Tricia Meyer

Marshall Nyman [00:00:02]:
Hello and welcome to the Performance Marketing Spotlight. I’m your host, Marshall Nyman, founder and CEO of Naimon Co. Each episode I will be bringing you someone with deep experience in the performance marketing space where they highlight their experiences within the industry. Today I have Trisha Meyer, executive director of the Performance Marketing association and founder at Sunshine Rewards. Welcome to the podcast, Trisha.

Tricia Meyer [00:00:26]:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited about this.

Marshall Nyman [00:00:29]:
Of course. Excited to have you on today. Let’s get right into it. Can you briefly introduce yourself to the audience?

Tricia Meyer [00:00:36]:
Sure thing. I’m Tricia Meyer. I’m based in Indianapolis, Indiana, which confuses people. Since I own Sunshine Rewards, everyone assumes I must live in Florida. Also, because I’m a total Disney addict and I do spend like three or four months of the year, it feels like, in Florida. So I love Disney. I love the Pittsburgh State Steelers. I have two adult daughters, one in college and one in grad school.

Tricia Meyer [00:00:59]:
And I love to travel so well.

Marshall Nyman [00:01:02]:
We’Re big Disney people here in Los Angeles. A couple days with my daughters. Well, before you got started in marketing, you were originally in the legal world. Tell us about that.

Tricia Meyer [00:01:15]:
Yeah, so I started off by, I went to law school, graduated from law school, started working for LexisNexis after I passed the bar. So I was actually working in their at home division doing legal content. And it definitely dates me, but when I started there, it was a time where there wasn’t alexis.com yet. Like, you couldn’t just go on the Internet and look up cases. It was brand new that it was just starting. So the division that I was in was actually kind of the start of LexisNexis using the Internet for case law and news and things like that.

Marshall Nyman [00:01:47]:
So.

Tricia Meyer [00:01:47]:
So I was in the group that was going back and we were reviewing the cases, every case in the history of the United States, like back to the, you know, very earliest cases, and then trying to summarize those for people so that they wouldn’t have to read the whole case themselves. So basically we were like creating cheat sheets for attorneys.

Marshall Nyman [00:02:06]:
Genius. How did you end up getting into affiliate marketing after starting out in the world of law?

Tricia Meyer [00:02:12]:
Yeah, my mom was not a fan. When I told her that I was thinking of quitting being a lawyer to do affiliate marketing, she was, was like, you know, I immediately get the phone call, what are you thinking? You passed the bar exam, blah, blah, blah. Like, but it was just this weird transition from doing all that online case law work into starting to use the Internet more and seeing all of this content that was out there, seeing other moms that were starting to post stories about parenting and asking each other for advice and things like that. So I just started as a hobby first. My first site, helping moms connect, it was before WordPress, I think even. It was just like a Microsoft front page hand coded custom HTML website where I was just posting content about being a mom. And then I started seeing other moms that were advertising on their sites with banners like Target and Walmart and things like that. And I thought, well, how the heck are they getting these huge companies to sponsor them on their site? And so I downloaded a, like a link tracer.

Tricia Meyer [00:03:12]:
And by tracing the link, I found Be Free. And when I went looked at Be Free, it said they were affiliate marketing. So I went out and bought this like Affiliate Marketing for Dummies or something like that book that was around back in like the early 2000s or something. And I just kind of fell into it. And at first it was just going to be a hobby, but then I went to Affiliate Summit. And after going to Affiliate Summit, within about, let’s say two months, I was making more as an affiliate than I was as a lawyer. And that was kind of it. It was like, you know, if I can make this living and I can be at home.

Tricia Meyer [00:03:44]:
And my kids were oh, like 2 and 4 maybe at the time. So it was just a terrific opportunity to be at home with them, but also be doing something that was really exciting and new.

Marshall Nyman [00:03:56]:
And then you started Sunshine Rewards. What is that? And what led you to start it?

Tricia Meyer [00:04:00]:
Sunshine Rewards was started out of guilt, which is the weirdest reason to start a cashback site. But it was because I was running Healthy Moms Connect and all my friends were going there and I was putting these affiliate links, you know, oh, go buy this and go buy this and I’ll make money off of it. But I felt incredibly guilty for making money off, off of my friends. So I was trying to think of a way that I could have a site where I could split what I was making with my friends. And so my husband is in it and he and I went and found a script that we, you know, just launched this like $39 script on a website. And the intent was just to be able to send my friends there instead of to helping moms connect and say, hey, if you want to buy something from Target, buy it from Sunshine Rewards instead, and then I’ll give you half of what I get. And so, you know, I didn’t even understand what cash back and incentives and rewards and all that even meant, I just knew that I wanted to share what I was making with my friends.

Marshall Nyman [00:04:56]:
And then you ended up at the pma. What is the PMA and what led it to start?

Tricia Meyer [00:05:01]:
So the Performance Marketing Association I did. I was there kind of from the beginning of the focus groups. Obviously, I was not as far in my career, so I wasn’t instrumental or anything at the beginning of the pma. I was just kind of a worker bee that was there trying to, you know, help give my opinion and things like that. In the beginning, it was, you know, people in our industry who were realizing that affiliate marketing was really going to be a thing. It went from this kind of people doing it as hobbies, a few people doing it here and there, to, wait a minute, this is an actual industry. This is. This is going to be a profession for a lot of us.

Tricia Meyer [00:05:33]:
So we need to get together. We need to kind of try to create some standards, create some best practices, and then also some. Some legislation that was happening then really, I think, is what really sparked a lot of companies to want to join the pma. Because there were all these laws that were passing that were being passed, and it’s weird to think about now, but there was a time, you know, 20 years ago where you didn’t pay sales tax if you bought things online. It didn’t matter where the company was based. It doesn’t matter where you were based. You didn’t buy sales tax. You didn’t pay sales tax if you bought things online.

Tricia Meyer [00:06:07]:
Because Congress didn’t understand the Internet. They didn’t understand how much money there was going to be in the Internet. But once states started figuring out how much money was going to be spent on these websites, they decided that they wanted their cut. And so in doing that, the first thing that they did was they tried to use affiliate marketing as their justification for why they should be able to collect this tax revenue. And so we were kind of pulled into something that wasn’t really ever about us, and it’s not about us anymore. But at the time, it was just the way that these state legislatures were trying to justify. Justify being able to tax people. So that was really, you know, a big catalyst for the PMA for people to come together.

Tricia Meyer [00:06:46]:
There were a lot of lobbying efforts in different states. We had Facebook groups for like, 15 or 20 different states that were looking at passing legislation. So at that point, that’s when it really became like everybody trying to work together toward common goals.

Marshall Nyman [00:06:59]:
What do you do in your role as executive director for the PMA So.

Tricia Meyer [00:07:04]:
Now I kind of take, My mom’s happy about this. I kind of take the legal background that I have and then also the affiliate marketing stuff that I’ve been doing, you know, through Learning, through Sunshine for so long, I kind of pull those two things together. So part of what I do is just the content side of affiliate marketing. It’s helping write posts about attribution and how to work with coupon sites and all of those things that like educational pieces. But then part of it is also the legalities of affiliate marketing. It’s understanding what FTC disclosure actually means. It’s about understanding AI, you know, copyright infringement for content generated by AI that affiliate marketers are using. So it’s kind of both sides.

Tricia Meyer [00:07:43]:
It’s that more legal compliance side of affiliate marketing, but then it’s also the educational resources.

Marshall Nyman [00:07:51]:
Why should someone get involved with the pma? What are the benefits?

Tricia Meyer [00:07:55]:
So depending on who asks me the question, the answer is always kind of two parts. For the marketing people that are trying to figure out how do they justify the. The PMA with the benefits? The there’s financial roi. I mean, there’s just flat out you’re getting free tickets and discounted tickets for Affiliate Summit, you’re getting ticket discounts for other conferences, you’re getting discounts for different tools, software things for your business, sometimes working with agencies, those kind of things. So there really are money, dollar savings for your company is when you join the pma. Then on the flip side, there’s the stuff that I enjoy a lot more, which is kind of the networking, the working across other businesses. We have so many opportunities in the where it’s not just about finding people to work with, you know, customers to work with. It’s not just finding other people to build your business, but it’s working with competitors and figuring out, you know, how do we all do this together? How do we make the industry better together? And so I find in, you know, some of the best conversations that we have within the PMA committees and the PMA councils are when competitors get together and say, hey, have you seen this happening? Have you had experience with this? And then people do openly share and they say, yeah, we’ve been fighting the same thing.

Tricia Meyer [00:09:07]:
You know, this has been happening and we’re not sure how to deal with it. And then it’s nice kind of brainstorming across different companies. So you’re getting different perspectives to grow your own business too.

Marshall Nyman [00:09:17]:
Anything exciting in store for the PMA in 2025?

Tricia Meyer [00:09:21]:
Oh, my goodness. We have something really big that we’re gonna be doing, that’s our industry survey. And that’s something that we only do every three years, but this will be the year that we’re doing it. So I hope I’m not getting ahead of myself because the board is like right in the middle of voting on it. But I anticipate any day now we’ll be coming out with more information. But this industry study survey, it’s a way for us to get actual data from the networks, which is really hard to do because, you know, getting these big companies to share financial numbers, when these are not public companies that have to share their numbers with anyone, we do get them to share their numbers with the pma. And so we’re able to compile actual data of how much spend there is, where that spend is going, what the verticals are. So these are, you know, these are legit numbers.

Tricia Meyer [00:10:05]:
This isn’t just estimates, this isn’t just guessing. This is actual data coming from the networks that we then work with analysts to compile all of that. So it gives us a really good idea, you know, looking back, that this will be the third time we’ve done it. So we’re looking at, you know, seven years now to be able to measure and say, where’s affiliate marketing changing? And we can see that from report to report before the data even comes out. We know that they’re going to be changes because we’re having to add things we didn’t have before. We’re having to add, you know, last time we added buy now, pay later, which wasn’t even a thing the first time we did the survey. We’re adding card linked offers, retail media networks now. So even just the beginning stages of this work of having to look and see what was not in the report three years ago, that needs to be in this report that’s showing how much we’re changing.

Marshall Nyman [00:10:51]:
What has been your favorite part of being involved with the pma?

Tricia Meyer [00:10:55]:
I get to work with people in the industry all day, every day. I have my slack open all day, every day, all evening, just constantly talking to everyone in the industry. So even only kind of seeing people a couple times a year at the conferences, it’s still, you know, working from home and being an extrovert. I crave that connection with other people. And being in the PMA when my basic job is to answer questions and help people in the industry all day long, it’s pretty much as perfect as it could be for me.

Marshall Nyman [00:11:27]:
Well, speaking of conferences, we have a quick message from our sponsor, Affiliate Summit West 2025. And I’m here to let you know that tickets are on sale for ASW 25, which is taking place at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, February 3rd through 5th. Don’t miss out on the biggest and best affiliate conference of the year and you can save 20% off with code NINEMO20. The three day event brings together all the key players in the affiliate marketing space with plenty of opportunities to network. Head to affiliatesummit.com west to get your ticket and join us at the world’s largest affiliate marketing event. Use code 9020 to save 20% off. We look forward to seeing you there. And I assume we’ll see you there.

Tricia Meyer [00:12:12]:
Absolutely. I don’t think that I’ve missed an affiliate summit in, gosh, almost 20 years now. I can’t even count how many I’ve been to.

Marshall Nyman [00:12:21]:
And you’re going to be a speaker.

Tricia Meyer [00:12:23]:
Yes. So I’m moderating a panel with a couple of our members of the PMA exec team, Kelly Ground and Jade Mayberry. That is Google friend or foe to affiliate marketing. So we Affiliate Summit gives us a really great opportunity at every conference that the PMA is able to do an old school debate. So we take a really controversial topic, we take two of our board members and then we assign what side they have to debate. So in these cases it’s not somebody going up and representing their own views, saying the politically correct thing, saying the thing that their company wants them to say. This is them being assigned a side of the debate and having to argue that side. So it gives us a great opportunity to put things out there that people might not be willing to say or to take, you know, to take the side that they might not normally take.

Tricia Meyer [00:13:10]:
And that opens up just such a good conversation.

Marshall Nyman [00:13:14]:
And the PMA will be exhibiting at the event, plus having a member brunch.

Tricia Meyer [00:13:19]:
Yes. We have a meat market booth so people can stop by and we’ll be there for the entire meat market. And one of the great things about our meat market booth is that we have PMA members that volunteer every hour. So you could come by every hour, the entire meat market and meet different people that are there. So it’s a good chance for you to actually hear from somebody who’s not paid to talk about the PMA like I am, to hear from actual members, you know, why they joined, why they stay members, what they get out of it. And then it’s also just good networking because, you know, our members are fantastic. They all do great things in the industry. So every hour that you come by, there’s different people that you might want to do business with.

Tricia Meyer [00:13:54]:
Oh, yes. And then we have our brunch. I forgot the brunch. We have a members only brunch too. So that’s always fun because it’s kind of like, like a high school reunion. You know, you walk in and you see all kinds of people that you haven’t seen for a while. And it just has that nice kind of comfortable feeling of like, these are my people.

Marshall Nyman [00:14:11]:
Awesome. Well, always looking forward to those meetups. Switching topics. Any predictions that you see on the future of performance marketing?

Tricia Meyer [00:14:23]:
We’re going to continue to, to diversify because we have to, you know, every time that something comes up where affiliate marketing is dead or this business model is dead or, you know, Google killed this particular business model, it doesn’t matter. We continue to diversify. And like, you know, as I mentioned about the study, that we keep adding different publisher types. I think we’re not just adding different publisher types. I think we’re adding different merchant types too. We’re seeing that other types of companies, we’re seeing more B2B companies are figuring out that affiliate marketing can work for them.

Marshall Nyman [00:14:53]:
So.

Tricia Meyer [00:14:53]:
So I think we’re going to continue to see a lot more diversification over this year.

Marshall Nyman [00:14:58]:
Yeah, you can’t kill affiliate marketing. No matter how hard they try, it’ll always evolve into something different. But that’s why it continues to stay is because it’s not the same thing that it was, you know, when you got started 15, 20 years ago. You know, so I think that’s what makes the channel so strong, is it just continues to evolve as marketing does. What are some of the major challenges the industry is currently facing?

Tricia Meyer [00:15:26]:
So conversely, I think that diversification is now our biggest challenge. I think in the beginning it was easy to say what performance marketing was, what affiliate marketing was. And honestly, right now I don’t even know what to call it. Are we affiliate marketing? Are we performance marketing? Are we partner marketing? We’re calling ourselves all different kinds of things and we’re doing all different kinds of things. And I think, you know, and I’ve been thinking a lot this last couple of weeks that we’re almost reaching kind of an identity crisis. We want to expand affiliate marketing more. We want more CMOs to take us seriously. We want them to fit us into their media mixes.

Tricia Meyer [00:16:01]:
But in order to do that, we have to be able to articulate our identity. What is affiliate marketing? What do we include? So when we’re talking about all these different publisher types and influencer and all these things that kind of. We think that we fall under our umbrel. I think we have to do a better job of articulating what exactly it is that we do and what does that include? Because you know, you can’t. You’re not going to be given an hour in front of a CMO to explain all of affiliate marketing and how it works and all the different players and how it’s tracked and all those kind of things. You’re given 10 minutes to explain this to them. And right now we are so broad and far reaching that we just as an organization, as an industry, we need to kind of figure out a way to kind of pull it in and succinctly be able to describe what it is, how we do it and why people should be a part of it.

Marshall Nyman [00:16:51]:
Affiliate marketing could really be any marketing. So I guess that’s part of the challenge is that it’s. It’s all encompassing. You can really run any.

Tricia Meyer [00:16:59]:
Exactly.

Marshall Nyman [00:17:00]:
Marketing on affiliate basis.

Tricia Meyer [00:17:02]:
Right.

Marshall Nyman [00:17:05]:
What has been your favorite part of working in the performance marketing industry?

Tricia Meyer [00:17:10]:
I think my favorite part of it is the lifestyle that it’s given me. It’s given me the opportunity. You know, my kids are a lot older now, but I was here for everything for them. I was here to volunteer at the school stuff. I was able to be here in the summers and over the breaks and all those kind of things, but at the same time have a career. So, you know, being a mom with two adult professional daughters, it’s important to me that they saw me also having this career and having something that was my own. So to be able to say, you know, here I am on the other kind of end of my parenting journey that I have this career and I’ve established myself in this industry, but at the same time that I didn’t miss a break, I didn’t miss a play, I didn’t miss anything like that. I think being able to have all of those things I think is probably why I appreciate affiliate marketing so much.

Marshall Nyman [00:18:00]:
I couldn’t agree with you anymore. That’s one of the most important things for me as well. I’m on the other end of the journey still on the early side and changing diapers still. But it’s fun. And yeah, you have to have a company that supports you and lets you do all those important things. Otherwise you’re missing out.

Tricia Meyer [00:18:16]:
Absolutely.

Marshall Nyman [00:18:19]:
Well, a big thank you to Tricia for joining the podcast this week. Some great insights into her background and how you can take advantage of being a member with the pma. What is the best way for listeners to connect with you?

Tricia Meyer [00:18:31]:
They can email me trishathepma.org or I am always on LinkedIn. So if they want to to connect with me on LinkedIn and message me over there, that’s probably the fastest way.

Marshall Nyman [00:18:43]:
Awesome. Well, make sure to check out the PMA again. Thank you to our guests, Tricia Meyer, our sponsor affiliate Summit West 2025, and to our producer Leon Sonkin. If you’ve enjoyed this content, please give us a like and a follow. Thank you for listening in. I’m Marshall Nyman, host of the Performance Marketing Spotlight and founder and CEO of Naimon Co Signing off. Thank you and have a great day.