#118 Why Most Marketing Teams Miss 95% of Real Buyers | Doug Bell

Kyle White is the CEO & Founder of Refinery, an AI-powered affiliate technology solution. He brings a rare blend of experience across affiliate management (Overstock, Uber), product development, and data-driven experimentation. He previously built tools at Impact, led global affiliate/ambassador programs at Uber, and now focuses on making affiliate programs smarter, more automated, and more profitable using AI.In this conversation, Kyle breaks down how AI is transforming affiliate marketing, how brands can adopt product‑led growth principles, and why relevancy—not payouts—is the strongest signal in partner matchmaking. He shares lessons from scaling Uber’s Ambassador Program from a 7% to an 80% activation rate, what most brands get wrong about affiliate recruitment, and how to design tests that actually produce meaningful insights.The episode also covers trends shaping the future: the threat of AI search bypassing the affiliate channel, the rise of pay‑per‑performance TV & audio partners, and why the next era will require filtering through more noise to find true value. Kyle also shares personal stories—building a company with a newborn, being featured in South Park, speaking Russian from missionary service in the Baltics, and his love of film photography.

In this episode, I sit down with Doug Bell — Fractional CMO, former leader at Automation Anywhere, LeanData, and Searchmetrics, top‑40 Substack writer, and co-host of Cannonball GTM — to unpack why modern go‑to‑market playbooks are breaking… and what the next generation of GTM looks like in an AI‑driven world.We go deep into the new patterns shaping high‑growth companies — and the uncomfortable truths most teams don’t want to face.

This episode explores the future of search and digital discoverability with an experienced SEO executive and growth advisor who has worked with high-growth marketplaces and SaaS companies. The conversation unpacks how the mechanics of online discovery are being reshaped by AI, shifting user behavior, and the declining reliability of traditional traffic channels. Together, we examine why visibility is no longer just a marketing function but a product and experience challenge — where trust, intent, and usefulness determine whether users discover and choose a product. The discussion also covers how teams should rethink SEO from a tactical ranking exercise into a strategic growth capability, what durable acquisition looks like today, and how organizations can adapt their playbooks to stay relevant as search continues to evolve.

Wade Tonkin is the Director of Global Affiliate Marketing at Fanatics, Inc., where he oversees one of the largest and most complex affiliate programs in the world. With over 20 years of experience in performance marketing, he has played a key role in shaping Fanatics’ global partner ecosystem, driving growth through content creators, media publishers, loyalty partners, and innovative performance channels.This episode dives deep into the evolution of affiliate marketing at massive scale. The conversation spans growth levers beyond the traditional affiliate playbook—ranging from content partnerships, media integrations, sports‑driven real‑time demand, coupon ecosystem shifts, loyalty dynamics, influencer performance trends, incrementality measurement, BNPL behavioral changes, AI’s emerging role in affiliate operations, transparency challenges with subnetworks, and experiments in compensation modeling. It also includes personal touches: international travel, hiking adventures, and the guest’s surprising hobby as a certified bourbon steward.

In this episode of Always Be Testing, host Tye DeGrange is joined by Cormac Jonas, CEO and Founder of The Jonas Agency, for a deep dive into what’s actually broken in modern performance marketing. With years of experience across affiliate, paid media, and creator-led growth, Cormac brings a sharp perspective on why so many brands are optimizing campaigns while ignoring the bigger problem: flawed measurement.The conversation unpacks how misattribution, last-click bias, and platform incentives distort ROI, using the recent Honey browser extension controversy as a real-world example of how value gets misassigned across channels. They explore why TikTok and YouTube reshaped high-intent demand, how AI, CTV, and programmatic traffic are inflating “performance” metrics, and why owning an audience now matters more than owning traffic. This episode is a candid look at where affiliate and performance marketing are heading — and what brands need to fix before scaling spend.

In this episode of Always Be Testing, host Tye DeGrange sits down with Guillaume Cabane, Founder of HyperGrowth Partners and one of the earliest leaders to shape modern B2B SaaS growth.Guillaume breaks down why most companies struggle to scale—not because they lack tools or talent, but because they’re unwilling to embrace the speed, risk, and failure real growth requires. The conversation unpacks what actually defines a growth team, why experimentation must move faster than polish, and how founders often sabotage growth by demanding results without accepting uncertainty.They also explore where AI is genuinely creating leverage in B2B today, why SDRs haven’t been fully replaced, and how trust, culture, and incentives shape whether growth teams succeed or stall.This episode is a practical, no-fluff look at what it really takes to build growth systems that scale in B2B SaaS.

In this episode of Always Be Testing, Tye DeGrange sits down with Ziggy Kopetti, a veteran affiliate marketing operator and platform founder who has spent years working inside the mechanics of performance marketing—from attribution and partner incentives to how networks and platforms actually make money.The conversation explores how affiliate programs really scale, where brands commonly misjudge incentives, and why many performance issues are self-inflicted by poor structure rather than bad partners. Ziggy breaks down the economic realities behind affiliate platforms, how creators and publishers think about risk and reward, and why transparency and alignment matter more than tooling alone. The episode also touches on where affiliate marketing is headed, what brands misunderstand about creator partnerships, and how short-term optimization often creates long-term trust problems.

In this emergency episode of Always Be Testing, I’m joined by Ben Edelman—an economist, lawyer, and one of the most respected affiliate fraud investigators in the industry. Ben has spent over two decades uncovering adware abuse, browser extension misconduct, and attribution fraud, working with merchants, networks, and publishers to protect the integrity of affiliate marketing.We break down what actually happened with the Honey browser extension, why multiple affiliate networks removed it, and why this case is fundamentally different from past controversies. Ben explains how affiliate attribution is supposed to work, how “stand down” rules came to exist, and how Honey allegedly bypassed those rules by intentionally concealing violations from testers and networks. We also discuss the real impact on content publishers, review sites, and the broader ecosystem—and why concealment, not just rule-breaking, changes the legal and ethical stakes. This episode is a deep, technical, but essential conversation for anyone who cares about transparency, trust, and accountability in partner marketing.

In this episode, I get the chance to sit down with Jen Goodwin, a powerhouse with 17 years of experience driving growth across e-commerce and affiliate marketing. Jen has helped scale some of the biggest brands in the space and played a major role in two successful exits — the acquisition of Coupons.com (Quotient) and Honey’s $4B sale to PayPal.She’s worked at every level of an organization, mentoring new talent, partnering with the C-suite, and leading teams through transformation and growth. Today, she co-leads Hi Energy Agency, where she helps publishers scale faster through smarter affiliate partnerships and more efficient monetization strategies across major networks.Our conversation digs into what real leadership looks like inside high-growth environments — the tough decisions, the clarity required, the importance of operational discipline, and the mindset shifts that separate good teams from great ones. Jen brings a level of honesty and practical insight that operators will immediately recognize and appreciate.

In this episode of Always Be Testing, I sit down with Howard Schaffer — a 25-year performance marketing leader, former CMO and VP across major wellness, fitness, and tech brands, and now the founder of HOS Performance — for a deep dive into what really holds companies back from scaling. Howard and I unpack why so many teams are still operating on shaky data foundations, from broken UTM structures to inaccurate attribution and reporting gaps, and he shares the exact diagnostic framework he uses when he steps into an organization. We talk about what every new CMO should evaluate in their first 30–60 days, how to assess channel performance without bias, and why disciplined tracking and clean measurement matter far more than adding another fancy analytics tool. We also get into AI’s growing role in competitive research and creative iteration, how SEO is evolving, and why creator-led partnerships are becoming more valuable than traditional influencer deals. This conversation is full of practical insights for CMOs, performance marketers, analysts, and founders who want to understand what’s slowing down their growth — and how to fix it.