From Affiliate Manager to Entrepreneur: What Ten Years in the Industry Taught Me About Growth

Finding My Footing in a Male-Dominated Industry

When I first entered affiliate marketing fresh out of grad school in 2011, I had no idea what I was walking into. I joined a growing affiliate network as an Affiliate Manager, prospecting and managing potential new partners while still trying to understand what the heck an EPC, CRM or post-back even meant.

The landscape back then was still dominated by men and the conference floors reflected it. Booth babes were in abundance.

As a young woman, I often felt I had to prove my credibility twice before being heard once, which was challenging considering I had no mentors, no formal training, and certainly no roadmap.

The environment was competitive and cutthroat, made harder by a barely livable base salary and commission-based structure. It was a sink-or-swim reality, and I actually sank and was let go. I was devastated. The layoff was the first “failure” I ever experienced in my young adult life up until that point. Little did I know it wouldn’t be my last.

But, instead of staying stuck on the bottom of the ocean floor, I reached the bottom and pushed off with all my might and started to lean into the skills I had established and relationships I had built. From there I started my first bit of consulting on SEO.

My Takeaways:

• Find your footing even when the ground feels uneven. Learning without guidance builds self-reliance, resilience and confidence.

  
  

• Turn setbacks into strategy. Getting let go wasn’t the end of my story. It was an opportunity. Each professional detour is data; use it to refine your direction, not define your worth. Fine tune your skills, or learn new ones that can take you to the next level.

  
  

• Failure is a redirect, not a verdict. When I was eventually let go, it became one of the best career pivots I could have asked for. As they say, when one door closes another one, or two or three will open. Use this as a chance to take risk and say yes to other opportunities, people and places you might have said no to otherwise. This is especially poignant advice for women in their 20's, but applicable at all stages and ages.

  
  

Learning the Business Side: Partnerships, Politics, and Purpose

My next big chapter took me to the advertiser side, in a hybrid role between business development and affiliate partnerships. It was here that I truly began to understand how business operates behind the metrics.

I managed partners, negotiated deals, planed trade shows, and learned to navigate corporate dynamics.

I learned how communication drives everything, how the tone of an email could shape a partnership, how follow-through built trust, and how cross-department collaboration was often the difference between a good quarter and a great one. I learned what I like to call executive “speak” and started to think beyond my simple role to understand the impacts and dynamics on the business and larger organization as a whole.

It was here that I also learned how to leverage work for travel and personal enrichment. Those conferences I was planning, executing and attending became a form of professional education.

Each event expanded my understanding of business, cultures, and how global relationships are built.

My Takeaways:

• Relationships compound faster than revenue. Every connection you nurture eventually opens a door.

  
  

• Corporate politics can be navigated with intention. Observing how power and communication flow inside companies teaches strategic empathy.

  
  

• Let results build your reputation. When you’re underestimated, don’t argue for credibility—earn it through performance, reliability, and follow-through. Over time, consistency turns invisibility into influence.

  
  

• Leverage your work to expand your world. Business travel became not just a perk but a portal to new opportunities and perspectives.

Becoming the Business: Risk, Resilience, and Reinvention

After years of helping others grow their affiliate programs and campaigns, I venture out on my own. My now-husband and I became affiliates, ourselves, and along with other good friends and relationships built along the way, we became entrepreneurs specializing in online media buying.

I went from managing partnerships for someone else to managing relationships for myself, deep-diving into profit and loss, scaling campaigns, and operating entirely on performance.

It was a leap that forced me to evolve daily. Suddenly, I was the strategist, negotiator, creative, analyst, and accountant. Every decision had consequences. There was no salary cushion or safety net—just opportunity, effort, and execution.

I am still on this wild ride of entrepreneurship and navigating it’s ups, downs and everything in between, but will continue to share my learnings to hopefully help you navigate your own path with a little more grace and ease than I did.

My Takeaways:

• Start before you feel ready. When there’s no guidebook, take imperfect action anyway. The confidence comes later, but the courage has to come first.

  
  

• Lean into what feels unfamiliar. Discomfort isn’t necessarily a red flag. Sometimes it’s a compass. The skills that once intimidated me like P&Ls, public speaking, and financial literacy have become the same ones that expanded my confidence and capacity. Growth begins the moment curiosity outweighs fear.

  
  

• Freedom comes from structure. Building systems allowed us to scale while keeping autonomy intact. *This is still a work in progress.

My Atelier Perspective

Affiliate marketing was the serendipitous career path that also became my framework for life. It taught me that relationships are assets, discomfort signals growth, and that clarity comes from doing.

For women navigating fast-moving, male-dominated industries, my experience is proof that you don’t need to be shown the path to build one. The affiliate world mirrored entrepreneurship in its purest form—performance-driven, opportunity-rich, and deeply human.

A few of the most valuable things I gained from over a decade in affiliate marketing was the confidence to design a career, and a life, on my own terms.