Episode #66 – The Performance Marketing Spotlight with Lena Grotticelli

Marshall Nyman: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the performance marketing spotlight. I’m your host, Marshall Niamen, founder and CEO of Niamon Co. Each episode, I will be bringing you some with deep experience in the performance marketing space where they share their career journey and insights about the industry. Today I have Lena of Tag 24. Welcome to the podcast.

Lena Grotticelli: 0:20

Hey everyone, Lena here. Happy to be here. I’m excited.

Marshall Nyman: 0:24

Pumped. Awesome. We’re excited to have you on. Let’s just jump right on in. Can you briefly

Lena Grotticelli: 0:28

introduce yourself to the audience? Sure. Hey everyone. I am Lena Grata-Selly of Tag 24 news. Tag 24, if you haven’t heard of us, is an international news publisher. Our US affiliate is at tag24.com where we focus on lots of fun news like politics, pop culture and pets, the three P’s and the people of those P’s. And then we have a large e-commerce arm. So we do tons of affiliate content, tons of brand partnerships where we’re really telling our readers about the products that they need to know about.

Marshall Nyman: 0:59

And how did you get your start in marketing? So I had a really fun and different, I guess,

Lena Grotticelli: 1:04

journey to marketing to the publishing space even. I, in college, had done a bit of theater and English, always loving writing and loving performing and afterwards sort of pursued both. I had for the last, for about 10 years before the pandemic was doing a lot of performing, singing, musical theater. I always have loved the aspect of getting people together, collaborating in person with people and just creating a great space, which I think, you know, the performance marketing industry definitely boasters. So I was able to do that first in performing. So speaking to people on stage, in different shows, and I ended up on cruise ships, but then in 2020, the industry closed down. And I was stuck in Germany. I had been working for a German cruise line. And all along, you know, in this time, I had done, leaned a lot on my English background on, I had always done some reporting, some editorial work, some freelance writing. And then, during the pandemic, I met Tag 24 News, which in Germany is one of the largest news publishers in terms of reach and the household name in Germany. Tag, Führens, Fonse, Joyce, Deutschland is what it’s known as there, but extremely popular. They have offices in 13 different cities across Germany. And I had always heard of the news brand, but then during the pandemic, they very, you know, as it’s fate would have it, they decided to open up a US branch of their news outlet. So US news that was reported in English. And I happen to be in Germany. So the rest was fate and was history. I started with them in Germany during the pandemic when the portals opened back up, was able to come back to the US. And finally, open a US headquarters in New York. I’m a native New Yorker. So it was perfect. We opened up our headquarters at one world trade about four years ago. And since then, we’ve been rolling with editorial content and a large new new site for US

Marshall Nyman: 3:05

readers. So how did you work your way from staff writer to VP? Yeah, it’s funny. So I’ve been

Lena Grotticelli: 3:12

with Tag 24 for about five years, almost six years now, which is wild. And I just love the company. I love the people that I work with. And what I really love is that, you know, there’s been an aspect of a bit functioning and feeling like a startup, but also having the support and the notoriety of a large trusted news brand. So it’s been awesome to build something new within that framework and have it be new and introduce it to US audiences. So at first, I was on the editorial side and really helping with just translations of content in the beginning from German to English, then became an editor. We all realized we needed more writers building out that team, you know, with the help of our German side to really get, you know, knowledgeable US based writers. So now we have a large editorial team that are mostly based in New York City, some scattered around the US, but they focus on US news. And then about two years ago, two and a half years ago, you know, we decided to dive headfirst into partnerships. There were brands that were wanting content. We were starting to write more and more just organic affiliate and decided we really need to build this out and figure out how to best serve brands with our editorial. And so then we really leaned on what our bread and butter is in Europe, which is native ads. So native, editorial that feel just like editorial that the brands can have a hand in really getting their message across. And so I’ve been at the helm of this for yeah, two and a half years now and really just focus on partnership, focus on genuine quality pieces of content that’s valuable for a brand. And that also our readers want to read about they dive headfirst into the commerce content. And you know, we’re really proud of it. And I just, I love it. I’m happy to still be there. And I think we push forward more and more every year, more and more people know about us, more and more brands are excited about working with us. And it’s just, it’s been a journey. And, and what I’m really excited about to lead the helm now. So as VP, I’m doing a lot of partnerships, but also I have a hand in operations too. So I haven’t completely stepped out of the editorial world, you know, now we have a full editorial team that does the news, but still have a hand in a lot of our branding. So a lot of social media strategy, which goes hand in hand with our e-commerce content, we do social media add-ons for all of our brands. And so I think it’s really important to sort of still have hands in all the buckets and make sure like operationally the team is working together. Branding lies, the team is working together and making sure that translates from our editorial to our editorial and they are seamlessly together in one and all feel like the same fresh tone

Marshall Nyman: 5:48

that we’re known for. How big is the team in the US? The team in the US, well you have about 10 staff

Lena Grotticelli: 5:55

writers that are just writing US news. And then on the e-commerce side, we’re about five. So pretty small. And yeah, we basically, you know, as most news publications, there’s a split in the middle, editorial and editorial, but we have a lot of communication between the two. And again, really trying to make sure our content is more long form that the brands are really getting a message across its storytelling that’s representative of what we can do and what we can feed to our readers. So I would say the US seems about 15 strong, you know, give or take. And yeah, we work together, you know, a lot. And sometimes across time zones too. There’s one or two stragglers in Germany as well.

Marshall Nyman: 6:37

So we mentioned the three P’s as far as the content you create. Tell us a little bit more about the content you’re creating and what really resonates with your audience. Yeah. So our audience loves politics.

Lena Grotticelli: 6:47

Of course, politics is the hot topic in one of the top traffic drivers. But along with that, a lot of our e-commerce content does just as well because we always give it top homepage placement amongst our news topics. So the news topics rotate during the day. And then our advertorial always stays on the top of the homepage. So we really make sure that we’re drawing readers into trending topics, topics that are on top of mind, you know, and it’s it’s brought in along with our e-commerce topics. So the e-commerce topics that do the best are really direct to consumer brands. Our native advertorial that performs the best I’d have to say is in the home space, fitness space does really well. Health is really popular now. Anything with supplements, GLP ones, different drinks and drink mixes. These do really well. Also, fashion and beauty, skincare is one of our top performers. And you know, I have to say the the audience loves a deal too. So anything that is really discount heavy or timely focused around a holiday, you know, best sales for Labor Day. We just had Labor Day. Any of this type of content really does well really drives results. And then, you know, the last category that’s been doing really well, especially in e-commerce is tech. So really AI apps or we’ve worked with a lot of brands that are online coaches, you know, trackers, whether it’s finance, fitness, spending, these type of apps, you know, even AI, you know, apps that are incorporating AI now, these do really well also with our audience. They’re clicked on a lot. And yeah, along with home, home I’d say and, you know, fitness. And then again, the last category to is pets. So we because we do a lot of pet editorial and a lot of pet guides. So roundups and, you know, what’s the best leash things like this for my pet, pet content and pet retailers that we work with to have a home with us and a space with us that I think really has made it done. So a little bit of everything. Yeah, a little bit of everything. A lot of direct to consumer. I would say, you know, we’re not really in the hardcore finance sector like many other, you know, or B2B publications. But a little bit of everything that I think consumers are interested in who are also interested in

Marshall Nyman: 9:08

trending news. So what is the monetization strategy of the site? Do you work on a CPA or a flat fee

Lena Grotticelli: 9:14

model? What does that look like? We’re really flexible. We try to work on what’s best for brands because as you know, budgets are small in the affiliate marketing space. We normally work on a hybrid basis. So we create a piece of content that’s valuable. That’s evergreen also. So we are hosting that piece of content long term. We never take it offline so that I can build value. We can talk a little bit more about this later, but it can build value in discoverability in SEO and geo, really making sure that it’s a quality piece of content that’s going to give brand lasting impact in search and surfacing those results when people are looking to make a purchase or get inspired. So we usually work on a hybrid model, which is, you know, a small investment. But what we do is we always reinvest that fee back into the content into additional distribution. So we usually put it back into paid social. So with us, you’re getting a piece of content. The brand always has full approval for the green light. And then we’re putting that budget back into more ads that link to that content on Instagram, on Facebook. So a brand is not just getting a piece of content that sits there and doesn’t do anything, but also getting more advertising that draws to it. So kind of multiple bangs for your book, drawing to that piece of content. And then also we distribute that through our news aggregators apps, which pick up a lot of our e-commerce content because it is so native because we do carry it, you know, up on our homepage with our editorial content. But we’ve worked before as well and had tons of success in the past year on a CPC model. I think it’s a little bit easier for brands to dive in and kind of make the investment when they’re getting quote unquote proof that they have a click out is directly relating to someone who’s reading. And then that’s translating to a click out that they’re paying out on. So CPCs have been really popular amongst the brands that we work with lately. And I think it just can feel come fear for a brand to set a budget and then know we’re not going to exceed that budget and that that budget is definitely going to take a fire from the content to the homepage of

Marshall Nyman: 11:17

the brand. I love that you give brands multiple ways to work together. And I think one of the things that you said that’s very important is it’s not just a piece of content. You’re doing other things to help prop up that piece of content. I think that was a problem for a while. A lot of publishers just wrote something and if it got traffic grade, if not no big deal, but to actually support it on social and drive traffic through other means, I think really helps prop up that piece of content.

Lena Grotticelli: 11:44

Definitely. Well, I think with especially AI visibility now and discoverability, it’s so important to create like a holistic picture for brands and for publishers as their own brand too, right? For us, if we’re creating multi point touch of places where people can see the content, that improves our authority as a brand. It improves the authority of the URL that we’re hosting it on and it improves the authority of the brand that we’re working with as well. So it’s to everybody’s benefit. I think to have multiple touch points in a campaign that doesn’t just sit there as a text article, which is valuable for search, but also having that social push behind it. That’s why we do a hybrid investment. That’s why at least us as a publisher, we’re working to put the resources directly behind it. And of course, if there’s more budget, the more boost it can have or the longer, you know, we host it and give it that boosting, not the longer we host it, the longer we give it that boosting. And then it drives more and more people to the brand and then it gets that organic reach as well. Follow, always follows behind it, or we’ll see some organic reach and then if it needs it, but boosting, we’re always optimizing the campaign in real time, making edits, changing things out. I think it’s really important to be flexible and especially us as a growing publisher, you know, we don’t have the legacy name brand recognition in the US that many much, much larger publishing houses have in Germany we do in the US, you know, we’re a smaller fish and a much bigger pond. So we want to grow with people that are, you know, people in brands that want to grow as well and kind of grow that visibility with a more long term campaign that has many touch points, you know, somebody, what I think it’s really hard for brands to kind of get behind is that they want return on ad spend for a piece of content immediately, especially with a newer publisher, but we want to foster something more long term where that people are seeing results, you know, over time and seeing those results grow too. How often do you read a news article from a publisher that’s newer and then make a purchase immediately? Maybe not, but that’s that first touch point is that educational piece, that spark of inspiration that we really want to provide with a quality piece of content and one that’s going to live on and gain traction and keep, you know, rising in results.

Marshall Nyman: 14:00

Why should a brand work with tag 24? What types of brands do you success?

Lena Grotticelli: 14:05

Well, a lot of the types of brands I mentioned before, the categories direct to consumers do really well, but I think a brand should work with us if they want to test out a new audience, work with a publisher that’s really hands on and really flexible and going to give you a lot of control over your messaging. I am personally sometimes pretty much work as a team of one in the US partnership sphere, so I’m always you get to work with me, which is a benefit. No, but I always am, you know, sending making sure that the brand gets as many, you know, rounds of approvals that they want, any edits, they’re very hands on and the angle that they want, the assets they want used and then, you know, during the process of we see things aren’t performing, we’ll always make edits throughout. I think we’re just a very flexible publisher and willing to do the hard work, do the journey work to make sure that that campaign is successful and then to see success over time. What is your strategy for

Marshall Nyman: 15:02

strengthening content for AI distribution? We’ve done tons of this and we actually brands ask us

Lena Grotticelli: 15:07

all the time, so we have one cheater now that I’m always sending out. So we’re doing a lot to make to strengthen content, our content marketing team and our editorial team is doing a lot. First of all, it’s a lot of trial and error testing. It’s a lot of when our editors are writing these articles, they are querying and working in real time with AI chatbots, right? So they’re asking, you know, what’s the best protein shake if I want to stay lean? Something like this, I think the more specific that our editors get with chatbots and the more familiar they are with using them, they put that into the writing of the article. So I think that’s been really important for our team and for teens in general, I think, you know, you can tell when an editor has really used, you know, kind of an AI platform and knows like what shoppers are asking and querying for. We’re also very intentional about the structure of the page, the metadata behind that page, making sure it’s very secure, making sure, you know, our authority is there, making sure that we’re surfacing. We’re also using, you know, leaning on the principles of SEO. I was on a panel earlier at the beginning of the year that was SEO to Geo, how publishers can strengthen this. It’s still not throwing out the principles of SEO, but really leaning on those. What keywords are really important. We’re very intentional about the formatting of headline two’s, headline three’s, incorporating bullet points, because Google still loves a bullet point. So making sure that these, you know, principles that we’ve leaned on before aren’t completely being thrown out, but that our team is able to use them. And then also experimenting with AI visibility trackers ourselves. Many brands are asking about AI visibility all the time. I think publishers are just starting to incorporate them. The results in their reporting. So we are, you know, working with a bunch of different ones to see like where are we coming up? What is the metric that is important to the brand? And then where, you know, can we make a difference in tweak our content? So I think it’s a lot of testing, a lot of writing to strengthen. And then, again, making sure the distribution is very holistic that it’s hitting multiple points on the internet. We’re also really, you know, leaning heavily on Reddit, just for our own brand as a publisher. So really trying to share our news content, not our, you know, e-commerce content, all the time, but our editorial content, adding real value to Reddit as a publisher and people are sharing our content and making sure that we’re building our authority and our visibility, you know, just as much

Marshall Nyman: 17:42

as we’re building all the partners that we work with. AI visibility is definitely one of the hottest topics among our clients today. So not surprised that that’s a big focus of yours. One thing that’s a challenge is last-click attribution, especially for high-final publishers,

Lena Grotticelli: 17:59

what’s your approach to bridge the gap? So it’s definitely a huge focus of mine and something that’s kept me up at night so much so that at the beginning of the year, I did a program with CUNY grad school of journalism, the Craig Newmark grad school of journalism in New York. They had a program for AI journalism leaders and they did a lab. It was four months at the beginning of the year. I submitted a capstone project and worked on it throughout my time there, which was, ended up being the publisher playbook, how to strengthen commerce content in the age of AI. So literally what we’re talking about and I guess the challenge that we all tackle every day. And one of the top challenges that I heard, I spoke to many publishers, I spoke to affiliate agencies and that they’re all screaming from the rooftops is last-click attribution isn’t working, hasn’t been working, but how can we pay out on impact, right? How can we pay out a bit higher up the funnel? And I think that it is counterintuitive to what affiliate is really, which is really tough, you know, affiliate is a commissionable industry. And so I think it’s something that now with AI and now that you know, you don’t have those guaranteed clicks owned and operated channels, you know, for publishers really have to build those up as much as we can, you know, with products like subscriptions, with products like newsletters. And if you don’t have that, if you know, you’ve relied only on Google, you’ve seen traffic decimated and so it’s affecting last-click attribution. I think we all as an industry are trying to piece together the way to solve for this. I think there are affiliate networks. I’ve heard, you know, whispering from affiliate networks that they are trying to figure out a payment model that pays out on, click higher up in the funnel rather than last-click. I think most good publishers and pieces of content are working towards goals of both, right? They’re working. Content publishers just as they are sit a little bit higher in the funnel, you know, again, talking about that, inspiring in purchase in 10. And then, you know, clicking, if you’re lucky, if maybe you aren’t, not if you’re lucky, but if you aren’t one of the very first times, you know, reader has ever heard of that brand. I think, you know, a piece of content can really work towards both and it’s calls to action and specific placement of the affiliate links. You know, something our team dives really deeply into depending on the brand’s goals. I think the affiliate model is going to change eventually. I think when brands have the budget to be able to kind of change what affiliate is and what the metrics that they’re beholden to, you know, within their companies. And, you know, I think it is moving in that direction as brands realize how valuable content is for visibility and for informing AI. You need a very trusted third party to be speaking about your brand. And the only way for that kind of influence is to work with a publisher who specializes in content, who’s thinking about a lot of these things. So again, it’s a tough question to snap your fingers. I think there are also really interesting models in the industry. Now, you know, large publishers are striking deals with big tech to be paid out on their content to syndicate their content in AI. I eventually think the industry is moving towards that. I think it’s moving toward that for e-commerce content. And I do think that there’ll be, you know, other modules and products as well that help publishers and brands make money in the affiliate industry that aren’t pure content-based. I think there’ll be widgets inside content already many big publishers have AI search on their pages that are surfacing affiliate and CPA deals. And so I think that these will start to be used more and more. And I think then publishers also within AI chatbots, this is a little bit far leaning, but AI chatbots that are publisher hosted and brand hosted, you know, widgets within these chatbots will be built, will be more normalized and will exist. And that’s kind of the next iteration of affiliate is not just purely link, purely last click, but it’s diversifying, you know, the models in which affiliate

Marshall Nyman: 22:08

exists. Yeah, I started saying this about three or four years ago that the performance model in affiliate marketing is going away. And there was about 100 people with pitchforks chasing after me. I definitely see it moving towards more of a paid media model. I definitely think affiliate marketing is changing very drastically right in front of our eyes. AI is absolutely reshaped everything. And so the last click works for some types of publishers, but I think for the publishers that a lot of brands want to work with last click attribution just doesn’t work anymore. And when you look at how many touch points there are within a buyer’s journey, it’s hard to really say is a first click more important than the last click or is the last click more important than the first? I think figuring out how we can give credit to multiple partners across the journey and make sure that everybody benefits from creating content is really what’s important. So I think getting the smart people in the room that maintain the platforms and getting some publisher input on how to best move forward is important because I think whatever the model was for the last two decades or so is not going to work going forward. And so we really need to figure out how we can revisit. And I think you actually have an interesting standpoint on this as well because you were just on a panel with Michelle, our director, our senior director at NIMO. You both share the stage at affiliate summit East. And the panel was titled, Follow the Audience, How Publishers Are Monetizing Traffic and a Fragmented World, which is literally what we’re talking about right now. So just love

Lena Grotticelli: 23:50

for you to share a little bit about the panel or any insights that you have. Yeah, I love being on the panel. Michelle is an expert host. I have to say she was really on her game and an awesome moderator and really, you know, hold this accountable. So a lot of the conversations that we had had separately, she really tied it all together with the bow. I think the main point that I got from that panel, you know, and listening to others in the panel were with me is that, you know, again, a publisher’s piece of content can’t live on its own. You want to work with a publisher that’s thinking about distribution all the way around. That’s really got a presence on their own and operated channel really has a presence on social and is really looking to invest heavily there so that they can get their brands that way pushed forward and that way too. Some things that we talked about on the panel was TikTok shop is, you know, there are places that publishers are diving into and trying to tie in the affiliate world into that type of content creation. So again, not purely advertorial, but, you know, a campaign that has multiple touches to reach a reader where they are. I think, you know, a lot of the panel was about last click, attribution and the ways in which publishers are hoping brands can follow, you know, in realizing the impact of a publisher and realizing the quality that a publisher brings. I think really working with somebody that’s going to be flexible, that, you know, is going to make sure you’re getting the results that you want that aren’t just, again, return on ads-pen, but sort of longer term impact. That’s always been my goal in working with partners is making sure they have a piece of content that they can reuse as well, you know, hopefully you’re getting a genuine piece of content that, you know, if it’s great, you guys can repurpose your PR, a brand’s PR team can repurpose, you know, a piece of content should have multiple uses and that was

Marshall Nyman: 25:41

a large part of the panel too. Well, I know we’re both excited to be at CJU next week, some nice weather and Santa Barbara always an excellent conference. Besides CJU, any other conferences that you plan on

Lena Grotticelli: 25:56

attending this year or even next year? I’m so excited about CJU. I’m actually a CJU first timer, so I’m very excited. I’ve never been to Santa Barbara, so I’m excited for last bits of good weather before the Northeast plunges into a cold winter. This year, I think CJU is going to be my last event of the year. At Black Friday and the holiday season is already shaping up to be crazy busy, so, of course, when you go to conference, sometimes it sets you back a few days and just keeping up my communication with our partners. So I want to make sure that we really have, you know, our good editorial calendar booked out. All of our content is secured and in place and planned, you know, within October and November. So I think I won’t be doing much traveling during those months to just make sure that our holiday campaigns are in place, but I always love affiliate summit west, which is like right after New Year’s now in January, so I will most likely be there again, hopefully speaking on another panel. And those are the biggest ones. I know my team is going to de Mexico is looking at P.I. live in London. My team will be there, you know, also we are very large in the U.U. market, so those are more for EU partners and the EU performance marketing space. But as far as the U.S.

Marshall Nyman: 27:12

conferences, I think that CJU is the last big one on my radar. Are you going any more this year? Are there any others that people are chatting about in the U.S.? I have a few things on my radar. The week after CJU, I’m going to be in Chicago for an event Martex hosting and then might be at the Rakentin dealmaker in Toronto. And then we have our company off site in October, so doing a little small thing. And then at the very end of the year, our team will be in New York City, so maybe you want to drop by. They have an event for Martex record as well.

Lena Grotticelli: 27:48

Yes, I’ll be at that. Okay, yes. I will never forget about that. It’s so funny when you say industry events, I always think of the ones outside of New York, which is so silly, because I’m faced in New York and we’re a lot of them are. So I will definitely be at Martex event in December. I went last year. I really enjoyed that. And INMA is having a great conference as well on an advertising summit in New York. I believe the week of December 7th. And that’s, you know, I think going to be a great event that really leans heavily into content and e-commerce and ways that publishers are working with brands, the different metrics now to measure them. Well, last question. What’s been your favorite part of working in the performance marketing

Marshall Nyman: 28:27

industry? I think the people, I love the events. I love, you know, how often this industry has

Lena Grotticelli: 28:34

events and I love making connections in person. I think, you know, it’s so much better than just on the screen or over a video call. So I think the people have been awesome and very receptive to a newcomer on the scene, you know, Tag 24 is a much newer player in e-commerce. So I’ve been, you know, so heartened by the, you know, amount that brands are willing to dive in with us and test out a new audience. And I think like that’s what we bring is a new energy. And I’ve been excited. I think that we’ve been embraced. And I just, I think it’s a very warm industry. I think many people have been working in the industry for years. So for me to be a relative newcomer onto this commerce side

Marshall Nyman: 29:14

has been like, it’s been cake and it’s been, it’s been awesome. I love it. We love nothing more than one of new publisher shows up. It gives us new opportunities and a new partner to work with. So always happy to see that. A big thank you to Lena for joining the podcast this week. Some great insights into her background and how you can work with her at Tag 24 News. What’s the best way for listeners to connect with you? You can connect with me. I’m all over. I’m all over the interwebs. But LinkedIn,

Lena Grotticelli: 29:45

I’m always there. Lena, brought a cell. Or my email is Lena dot brought a cell at tag 24 dot com. So my last name is two T’s and two L’s. So GR O TTI C E L L I and first name is Lena L E N A. So yeah, feel free. Retail anytime or I always love a virtual coffee to just chat about things in the industry. As I’m strengthening my publisher playbook, I’m happy to send that around the playbook that I worked on for CUNY grad school of journalism. It’s still being updated in real time. So happy to share it with anybody in the industry or also just to connect us all. I think you know, it’s very cool time to be in the industry. It’s almost like an industrial revolution or the next stage of innovation. And I’m really happy to be a part of that and just chat with more people who know a lot

Marshall Nyman: 30:36

about it. Again, thank you to Lena for joining the podcast and to our producer Leon Sankin. If you’ve enjoyed this content, please give us a like and follow. Thank you for listening in. I’m Marshall Niamen, post of the performance marketing spotlight and founder and CEO of Niamh Moneco signing off. Thank you and have a great day.[Music][Music]