A group known for scamming is trying to steal your name.

We believe this is severely limiting our collective ability to grow as an industry.

As you may have noticed, many “black-hat” affiliate marketers have begun calling themselves performance marketers. But most of them are not performance marketers. Many are not even marketers.

Despite the tricks they use to blend in, we can spot them easily. It is literally black and white. They are the only ones willing to use black-hat marketing techniques to earn a living. They break rules. They only focus on easy money. They lie and deceive consumers to sell products that are often worthless. They shamelessly steal from each other. They call what we do “white-hat” - a term that shouldn’t be necessary in the first place.

Their flagrant advertisements often run in the same environments as ours, making it very difficult for anyone without insider knowledge to tell us apart. The result is that we are all stained by their bad reputation. That is a shame.

Not all black-hat affiliate marketing is the same, and the environment in which it thrives is often the result of circumstance, not bad intentions. The viability of white-hat performance marketing was simply unproven. Now we have proof.

As more and more affiliates ditch black-hat tactics and products in favor of true performance marketing, our industry’s potential to disrupt global advertising will become clearer.

We believe performance marketers are the best in the world at profitably scaling customer acquisition. Wouldn’t you agree? You provide value to brands, platforms, and consumers. You build trust in your relationships. You pioneer new territory. And you deserve to be recognized for this.

While we are all incentivized to drive revenue for brands, unlike black-hat affiliates, performance marketers always honor the rules of the land, the brand, and the platform.

We respect the millions of people who buy products from our advertisements every day, and we use our influence responsibly. We provide value to consumers through the products we sell and the messages we put out into the world. We embrace our entrepreneurial duty to drive innovation and economic growth. We don't create problems, we solve them. And even though we work independently, we act as one.

Above all, we confidently invest our own capital in our strategies, creative, and media. This is changing the way brands fund customer acquisition - it removes their need for advertising budgets, financing, or giving away equity for growth. Performance marketing decentralizes and democratizes advertising by giving brands access to the best marketers in the world who are aligned to deliver the best results possible.

Performance marketing is an incredible force!

This force is not just powerful, it builds enterprise value for brands and platforms. We leverage consumer feedback to consistently optimize and improve user experiences, advertisements, technology, and products.

This force is already laying the foundation for a new era in advertising.

In this new era, the world's top marketers will have the opportunity to acquire customers for any brand they choose. Brands will have dozens of performance marketers figuring out how to profitably acquire customers across every advertising platform and international market. Relationships will be based on value, scaled with trust, and measured solely by results.

What a beautiful day it will be.

This new era is already underway, but we’re not there yet. Global advertising is on the cusp of being a trillion-dollar industry, yet performance marketing makes up less than 1%.

Doesn't that piss you off?! We're capable of so much more!

As more brands and marketers embrace the long-term benefits that performance marketing offers, our industry will expand faster.

This won’t happen overnight, and it won’t be easy. Not all black-hat affiliates will make the transition. Not all agencies will adapt - and many will die. The ad platforms that understand and trust our value will continue to thrive.

There are plenty of opportunities for those who are willing to put in the work, and the early adopters are set to reap the largest rewards. Although traditional advertising, black-hat marketing, and venture capital will never disappear, they are no match for the power of performance marketing.

That is why we believe the future of advertising belongs to you, performance marketer.

And that leads to a question:

If performance marketing is the future of advertising, then what is the future of performance marketing?

We’ve given you our thoughts. What are yours?

Best,

Topher, Eric, Todd and Justin
GiddyUp Founders