Interviews — 02 Sep 2026
First Interview with the CMO of Affise
This summer, Affise introduced a new Chief Marketing Officer – Sam O’Brien. Sam joined Affise after working with RingCentral as their Digital and Growth EMEA Director. During his time at RingCentral, he supported the company in their growth to $1bn ARR, maintaining the expansion into Europe and APAC. With a passion for branding and design, Sam has proven himself to be a leading growth marketer.
Now it’s time to get to know Sam O’Brien, CMO at Affise, a little bit closer and perhaps learn some of his secrets for professional success. Check our small interview with Sam.
Have fun, be yourself, and don’t take things too seriously. I think those three things are as important to a person as they are to a brand. I’m a strong believer that everyone should be themselves. Diversity and differences in opinions all add to innovations. So be you, don’t act like you think you’re meant to.
Always keep some budget back for testing. Companies often plan their budgets so they know exactly where they are spending and what on, but during a quarter, that leaves no room for innovation. I recommend leaving a pot of cash to test, try a new channel, launch a campaign you haven’t done before. As its test budget, we’ll assign a very low expected ROI quite often. The freedom creates new ways of spending the budget, and in return, you see far greater results compared to what’s expected.
Well, clearly, I’m here because I believe Partner Marketing is fast becoming the backbone of every marketing strategy.
You can see over time, we’ve had a shift in marketing, channels have become more popular, and marketers need to be experts in everything. As this happens, the world of marketing has become more labour-intensive. You now need one person managing each of your social media channels and someone managing forums, oh and don’t forget you need someone managing paid channels as well, and content… The list goes on.
So I believe companies will “outsource” this work. If we are honest with ourselves, that all Partner Marketing is: let someone else create the content on the channel they have a following, leaving marketing to focus on the customer journey.
I believe, for SaaS providers, it’s still early days. We’ve got some great releases coming up that will really change the marketing landscape.
I expect to see a lot of innovation within the SaaS partner management space; our tools will be part of every MarTech stack.
With the growth of TikTok and more people making money as Influencers, we’ll see a change in how brands interact with their audiences once again. Today, you expect to be sold via a trusted source, less reliance on a brand’s marketing, and more on influencers. Buying behaviour has shifted, successful companies will follow that shift.
E-commerce and retail are highly disrupted industries at the moment. Amazon has ruled for a long time, but I feel tools like BigCommerce and Shopify combined with Affise will give small vendors not only a chance to compete but a chance to win in their niches.
Overall the future of Partner Platforms and Affiliates is very bright; it’s on a great upwards trajectory, partnerships are a crucial element of growth.
The top of the list has to be the community. In the last several months, I’ve had some incredible conversations with people who are “famous” affiliate marketers. Everyone has been so welcoming, open, and willing to talk.
From a Marketer’s perspective, I think it’s the reach, speed, and low costs you can get with Affiliates. Actually, the ability to start new campaigns in hours or days, not weeks, is incredible when you’re trying to be agile. Especially if you have gaps in sales to fill, leveraging affiliates at that point can be a quick solution to get your business back on track. You’re also moving a lot of the pressure to the affiliate, leaving them responsible for all optimisation.
Last but not least, I’d have to say the relevancy of traffic Affiliates can provide. It’s like no other, being able to reach your target audience exactly is a very powerful tool. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re just paying for traffic, you might not see the results you expect, but, if you’re paying for Leads or Downloads, then it’s in the interest of the affiliate to find the right traffic for you.
The Stereotype that everyone is just here to make a quick buck is pretty annoying. I know some people are, but it’s clear to me that there are a lot of people passionate about Affiliate marketing. As mentioned above, I’ve had some brilliant conversations with some very influential people who clearly love being an affiliate marketer.
Hmmm, I’d have to say Fish Tacos but good ones! I love spicy food, so for me, it’s always going to be a toss-up between Mexican and Thai, but at the moment, the Tacos are winning. Plus, I’m a bit of Barbucing nut, so I love to cook fresh fish on the BBQ mexican style. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it!
Well, we guess it’s time to have a food break now! After all, we all need the energy to reach new horizons!
According to Affise CMO Sam O’Brien, marketing leaders should always reserve a portion of their total marketing budget specifically for testing and experimentation. Many organizations allocate their entire budget to known channels, leaving zero flexibility during the quarter to try new campaigns or unproven channels. By setting aside a dedicated test budget with low initial ROI expectations, teams gain the creative freedom to explore innovative strategies that ultimately yield higher returns than traditional spending. To see how leaders across the organization contribute to this growth-minded culture, you can read our profile on Chief Human Resources Officer Leila Hadzhyieva.
As digital channels proliferate, traditional marketing has become increasingly labor-intensive, requiring dedicated specialists for every social platform, forum, and paid advertising channel. Partner marketing solves this resource burden by allowing brands to leverage external content creators and influencers who already maintain established, highly engaged audiences. This model shifts the responsibility of content creation and optimization to partners, allowing internal marketing teams to focus primarily on optimizing the customer journey. To learn more about how engineering teams build technology to power these publisher relationships, check out our interview with Affise Reach Development Lead Vladimir Pokidko.
Affiliate marketing offers exceptional agility, rapid reach, and cost efficiency, enabling brands to launch campaigns in hours rather than weeks to address sales gaps. Furthermore, because affiliates are typically compensated based on performance metrics like leads or downloads, they are naturally incentivized to deliver highly relevant traffic directly to target audiences. Beyond these performance benefits, the industry fosters a remarkably welcoming community that drives continuous collaboration and shared innovation. To discover how our talent acquisition team brings passionate digital marketing professionals into our organization, explore the career insights from Recruitment Team Lead Anastasiya Zabolotina.
Written by
Affise Academy
Affise is a partner marketing platform for brands, advertisers and agencies to scale via all possible performance marketing channels. Synergy of technology and our long standing experience lets you expand your partnerships, automate every step of the campaign lifecycle and make data-driven decisions.
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