Brands and Brews Marketing Podcast · Brands and Brews

S3E18 - B2B Affiliate Marketing with Dustin Howes

·34 min·2 clips

Dustin calls the Bud Light backlash “the biggest marketing disaster in the history of the world.”

Jesse opens with beer and brings Dustin on to talk affiliate marketing. Dustin is introduced as a coaching affiliate marketer and consultant. The first stretch stays on the beer side, where Jesse talks through a Breckenridge Brewery Hazy IPA and the dent he put in the can while walking down the stairs to his basement. He links that to tallboys, saying they have been around forever and that craft beer has made them feel newly relevant. From there the conversation moves into how affiliate marketing works. Dustin frames it as partnership marketing. He says true affiliate marketing uses a link and works as a hands-off solution for both the publisher and the merchant getting the sale. He also draws a line between that and referral marketing, which he describes as warm handoffs to a sales team for bigger accounts. Jesse connects that explanation to the podcast ads and coupon codes he hears on other shows. Dustin agrees that coupon codes are a smart way to track where a sale came from. He talks about paying influencers up front for a little sponsorship money and then shifting the relationship into an affiliate setup so they have skin in the game to close those sales. That detail gives the discussion a practical edge. The conversation then widens to the kinds of publishers that show up in affiliate programs. Dustin says coupon and loyalty sites are probably the most predominant and productive in the industry. He is plain about not loving that side of the space, even while acknowledging how large it is. He says content marketers, big publications, and websites that talk about products and brands are a better fit in many cases. Those publishers, he says, help bring a brand into the life of the end user. The back half of the talk keeps the same working-marketer tone, with Jesse asking questions, agreeing along the way, and steering back toward how the model actually gets used. At the close, the two drift into a light beer sendoff, including a Bud Light joke and a Giants fan aside, before Jesse says he will post Dustin's information on the blog. The episode ends as a straightforward shop talk session with beer, tracking, publishers, and a clear sense of where affiliate marketing sits inside the larger partnership world.

As heard by us

Affiliate mechanics, coupon codes, and publisher types get a clear walkthrough.

This episode keeps Brands and Brews centered on affiliate marketing, with Dustin Howes framed as a coaching affiliate marketer and consultant while Jesse keeps the beer banter in view.

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Why you'd press play

If affiliate links, coupon codes, and beer banter sound useful, this one's your pour.

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