Always Be Testing

Эпизоды

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  #129 Building Enterprise-Grade AI Tools Safely | Danielle Sakher & Tye DeGrange 28.07.2026 41мин

  Remy's Danielle Sakher explains how her team balances speed with observability and security as AI coding tools move from novelty to enterprise infrastructure. She shares what it's really like selling an AI builder to security-conscious industries like financial services, plus a wild stat: alpha users have already spent $300K in AI compute.
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  #128: Why Partner Quality Beats Partner Count | Darryl Yearwood & Tye DeGrange 21.07.2026 38мин

  Darryl Yearwood, who leads partnerships at Apollo, makes the case that a smaller, higher-quality partner roster beats chasing volume every time. He and Tye get into what "not plug-and-play" really means in affiliate marketing and how to build partnerships that actually move revenue.
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  EPS 127: From IDF Cyber Ops to B2B Marketing: Building GTM from Scratch | Avishag Daniely 15.07.2026 37мин

  Avishag Daniely built One Layer's entire marketing and partnerships function from scratch — coming from a background in IDF cyber intelligence. She shares how her military analytical training shaped her approach to B2B GTM, what it takes to build pipeline when no one's heard of your company yet, and why she treats every marketing decision like an intelligence problem.
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  EPS 126: EMERGENCY POD: Affiliate Fraud Unpacked - The Phia Fiasco 15.07.2026 36мин

  Affiliate fraud investigator Ben Edelman joins Tye for an emergency episode breaking down the "Phia fiasco" that's rattling the affiliate marketing industry. Edelman, who's spent over 20 years catching affiliate fraud and has collaborated with Tye on forensic cases throughout his career, walks through what makes this case different from the usual stand-down violations that have hit shopping plugins like Honey and Microsoft Edge in the past.
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  EP 125: Less Traffic, More Sales: Wyze's Counterintuitive Paid Media Playbook | Logan Dunn 01.07.2026 40мин

  Logan Dunn, Head of E-commerce at Wyze, ran 100 ads at once, cut traffic, and watched conversions go up. In this episode, he breaks down the counterintuitive paid media playbook behind Wyze's D2C growth — including why narrow targeting beats broad reach, how in-house creative unlocks faster iteration, and what most brands get wrong about scaling paid spend.
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  SaaS Clas EP2: From Single Digits to 25% of Pipeline: The SaaS Partner Playbook | Nancy Harnett, Guy Yalif,  and Tye DeGrange 24.06.2026 46мин

  Nancy Harnett (Instantly) and Guy Yalif (Webflow) break down exactly how SaaS companies can grow their partner programs from single-digit contributions to 25% of pipeline and revenue. They cover partner ICP alignment, building a best-in-class partner experience, and why most programs stall before they ever scale.
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  #124 Why Authentic Content Beats the Algorithm | Yoray Halevy 16.06.2026 28мин

  Yoray Halevy joins Tye DeGrange to dig into why brands can't rely on Vogue-style coverage to build credibility — and what they should be doing instead. Yoray shares how his company creates authentic content that speaks to specific audiences, why last-click attribution misses the full picture, and how a paid media distribution mindset unlocks the true value of content. They also explore how AI is changing the content-to-distribution relationship, and why experimentation is the key to knowing what actually works.
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  CTV Measurement Unpacked: Incrementality, Attribution & Holdout Testing | Tom Rathbone 19.05.2026 37мин

  Tom Rathbone joins Tye DeGrange to break down the real challenges of measuring CTV — from probabilistic Nielsen-era methods to where the industry stands today. Tom shares how TVScientific approaches measurement, why holdout testing is still underutilized by most brands, and how to build a test media plan that actually generates signal. Plus: why single-touch attribution fails in a multi-channel world and what it takes to move from vanity metrics to a long-term growth strategy.
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  Horse Lessons from Mom | Ginger DeGrange 12.05.2026 39мин

  For Mother's Day, Tye DeGrange hands the mic to his mom — Ginger DeGrange. Rodeo queen. Horse trainer. Summer camp founder. 36-year instructor who's taught 10,000+ students the art of horsemanship at Santa Rosa Junior College. This one's full of great stories: the OJ Simpson trail ride, a student who went on to dine with the Queen of England, competing at the Grand National, and the old reinsman who taught Ginger that quiet confidence beats loud energy every time. Plus real lessons on building confidence, earning trust, and leading with feel — on and off the horse.
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  #121 Zero Platform: 10 Great Partners Beat 100 — The Future of Local Marketing | Adam Dewer, Soci.ai 29.04.2026 28мин

  Adam Dewer leads partnerships at Soci.ai — an AI-powered platform helping 800+ multi-location brands manage their local presence across social, listings, and reviews.In this episode, Tye and Adam get into the "zero platform" future of local marketing, where AI agents replace dashboards entirely — handling updates, review responses, and social posts through a simple SMS conversation with the business owner. They also dig into Adam's approach to building and measuring partnerships (he tracks just two numbers: net new revenue and expansion revenue) and why he'd take 10 incredible partners over 100 mediocre ones any day.What you'll learn:• Why "automagically" is the most dangerous word in AI marketing• How to identify your AI strength areas before trying to scale• Why agency partners are Adam's #1 channel play right now• The early signals that tell you a partner is going to scale• How to tee up a partner for success without making it transactional• What the "zero platform" future looks like for a local business ownerConnect with Adam: linkedin.com/in/adamdewer | soci.ai
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  SaaS Class EP 1: AEO is the New SEO — How HubSpot & Webflow Are Winning AI-First Discovery | Nancy Harnett & Guy Yalif 21.04.2026 34мин

  The first episode of SaaS Class tackles one of the most pressing questions in B2B marketing: how do you win when your buyers are finding answers on ChatGPT and Perplexity instead of Google?Tye sits down with Nancy Harnett (Head of Affiliate & Offsite AEO at HubSpot) and Guy Yalif (Webflow, formerly CEO of Intellimize) to break down what's actually working in the race to become the most visible brand in AI search. Nancy reveals how HubSpot generated 200K+ AI citations in 6 months and became the #1 most visible CRM across AI search. Guy shares how Webflow appears in 67% of the AI answers they care about — more than any other CMS including WordPress.What you'll learn:Why AEO is a natural evolution of great SEO, not a replacementThe 4 pillars of AEO: Content, Technical, Authority & MeasurementWhy affiliate marketing is now the "new backlinks" — driving top and bottom-funnel AI impactHow HubSpot used Reddit to go from ~100 to 146K AI citations in 7 monthsContent depth and localization: what actually moves the needleHow to build a closed-loop measurement system to iterate fast
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  90% of Media Buying Workflows Are Still Manual—Here’s What’s Broken | Lacie Thompson 24.03.2026 30мин

  In this episode of Always Be Testing, host Tye DeGrange sits down with Lacie Thompson, an experienced agency leader, affiliate and partner marketing expert, and former operator at brands like Expedia and Blue Nile. After successfully scaling and exiting her agency, Lacie is now building Media Pack—an AI-powered platform designed to modernize and streamline how brands buy media.The conversation explores Lacie’s journey across brand-side, agency, and startup environments, highlighting how real-world frustrations led her to build solutions rooted in efficiency and transparency. From the broken workflows of flat-fee media buying to the lack of standardization across the industry, she unpacks the core problems that still slow teams down—and how AI is now making it possible to rethink the entire system.Beyond product and tech, the episode dives into the mindset behind building and scaling—from making decisions beyond data, to taking risks before feeling “ready,” to focusing on what truly creates differentiation. It’s a grounded and insightful look at what it takes to build in today’s AI-driven landscape while staying anchored in real customer needs.
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  #119 Why 70% of Affiliate Programs Fail Before They Launch — and How AI Can Fix That | Kyle White 10.03.2026 32мин

  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.
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  #118 Why Most Marketing Teams Miss 95% of Real Buyers | Doug Bell 03.03.2026 41мин

  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.
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  #117 3 Structural Shifts Are Breaking Traditional SEO | Jordan Koene 24.02.2026 38мин

  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.
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  #116 Scaling from $175M to $5B: Enterprise Affiliate Lessons from Fanatics | Wade Tonkin 17.02.2026 41мин

  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.
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  #115 The Measurement Mistakes Costing Brands Millions | Cormac Jonas 10.02.2026 37мин

  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.
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  #114 Why Most Growth Teams Fail Before They Start | Guillaume Cabane 03.02.2026 43мин

  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.
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  #113 How Bad Incentives Quietly Break Affiliate Programs | Ziggy Kopetti 27.01.2026 34мин

  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.
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  #112 Affiliate Networks Drop Honey: What Really Happened | Ben Edelman & Tye DeGrange 23.01.2026 28мин

  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.