Kyle Laskowski and Jason Ziernicki of Monetize Media On Five Ways For Influencers To Monetize Their Brand

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Advertising. This is the most obvious but the least reliable and often the one you are in the least control of. It’s one thing if you sell your own premium sponsorship, but if you rely on an ad network or easy influencer money, they are the first things to go in economic downturns, and you have little control of how to offset it.

As part of my series about “How Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jason Ziernicki and Kyle Laskowski.

Jason has a deep background in tactical digital marketing and overseeing major online brands. Individually, he was one of the top affiliates for DraftKings and FanDuel in daily fantasy sports, building and running multiple SEO-focused websites and ranking #1 for some of the most competitive terms in affiliate marketing. He is a thought leader in extremely high converting content as an SEO and conversion funnel expert. He turned an audience of tens of thousands into a multi-million-dollar revenue stream. His business, Warwick Gaming, was part of the pair’s $25 million acquisition.

Prior to the founding of Warwick Gaming, Jason ran a leading local web design and SEO service.

Kyle founded the popular Philly sports blog CrossingBroad.com, which became the city’s largest independent website. He was nominated by the local press club for “sportswriter of the year” and made countless appearances on local radio and TV. In 2013, he broke the national story of a NFL player who was caught on camera using a racial slur. Before becoming a multimillion-dollar affiliate site, Crossing Broad was a six-figure ad business… before becoming a seven-figure ecommerce shop selling local sports apparel. The site featured only one other full-time employee.

Prior to founding Crossing Broad, Kyle worked at an affiliate marketing agency, sold advertising in the Philadelphia Inquirer, and worked on the MLB.com shop at GSI Commerce (now Fanatics).

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit more. What is your “backstory”? What brought you to this point in your career?

We came together in 2018 at the request of a mutual business client who recognized that our respective skills in content and conversion were complementary and could form one of the largest online sports betting affiliates. [Kyle] founded a Philly sports blog, CrossingBroad.com, in 2009 and built it to become one of the largest independent media sites in a competitive market. [Jason] had a network of daily fantasy sports sites, which saw him become one of the biggest partners of DraftKings and FanDuel during the daily fantasy boom in 2015 and 2016.

We happened to live near each other, share a birthday, and were looking for an office. So we partnered up and attacked one of the biggest business opportunities in the country — the legalization of online sports betting — together.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

One of the upsides of the business we built, which was ultimately acquired by XLMedia, a European performance publisher in 2020 for $25 million, was an agency model where we work with content-based websites and major newspaper publishers to create betting affiliate content for them. This has generated significant revenue for media companies — orders of magnitude more than most any ad stream on a per audience basis — and they have been able to use that money to hire journalists to do important work.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?

There is a fine line between doing something that doesn’t work and will never work and sticking with something through the ups and downs. If you believe strongly in a business or creative pursuit, then you have to accept the fact that you will experiences ups and downs. Setbacks are inevitable. From talking to content creators on our podcast, Monetize Media, one of the themes we’ve uncovered is capping the downside. You may have to go months without income or losing money. If you find yourself in that situation, make sure to set a period (a number of months) that you can try to correct it. This often compels action and limits the downside.

None of us can achieve success without a bit of help along the way. Is there a particular person who made a profound difference in your life to whom you are grateful? Can you share a story?

Each other! Kyle is really good at content, and detail, but often lacks the willingness or instinct to pivot quickly. Jason operates by his gut, which has been great for identifying opportunities before others, but can also gloss over important implementation details to make it all work. This is where we balance each other out.

So what are the most exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?

We’ve gotten really good at content and monetization, but we wanted to get better. So we started a podcast to interview and learn from other content creators on how they are growing and scaling their businesses. The aim is to identify trends for listeners so they can learn from what others are doing.

What are your “Top Five Ways That Influencers Can Monetize Their Brand” . (Please share a story or example for each.)

1) Recurring revenue. This is probably the hardest to get, but getting your audience to pay you, automatically, every month (subscription or supporter) is probably the best way to build a consistent and stable business. If you own your audience, you are not at the whim of major platforms or ad networks.

2) Affiliate. If you have the right audience, and the right know-how, affiliate advertising money can be worth many multiples of direct ad spends. Because brands only pay you for performance, you have to put your money where your mouth is, but it also largely uncaps the upside if you’re good at– you’re bringing value to a customer at a predetermined rate.

3) Products. We think the world is about to flip. Previously, PRODUCT companies had to create CONTENT to stay relevant. Soon, we think the preferred way to go will be for CONTENT companies to create their own PRODUCTS. The marketing is built in.

4) Events. Easily the hardest on this list because of the logistics, but hosting events for your audience can be beneficial from many standpoints, including profitability!

5) Advertising. This is the most obvious but the least reliable and often the one you are in the least control of. It’s one thing if you sell your own premium sponsorship, but if you rely on an ad network or easy influencer money, they are the first things to go in economic downturns, and you have little control of how to offset it.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Absorb ideas you disagree with. You may still disagree with them, but if you try to understand the other person’s viewpoint, you’ll probably at least respect WHY they hold that view. Less hate, you know?

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. :-)

Kyle: Jimmy Buffett. Full stop.

Jason: Michael Rubin.

What is the best way our readers can follow your work online?

Visit https://www.monetize.media to listen to our podcast, and follow us on Twitter @KyleScottL and @jziernick and @ @monetizemediahq

Thank you for these fantastic insights! We wish you continued success and good health.