How Best Buy adapts partnerships for AI-led discovery, with Seth Hagerty

AI answer engines are pulling their sources from affiliates and creators, which gives partner programs a new role. Seth Hagerty, senior director of performance marketing at Best Buy, explains how the retailer runs affiliate and creator programs together on The Partnership Economy Podcast.

In this episode

• The host frames the big trend: what LLMs rely on as sources is largely affiliate and partner style content, such as reviews and comparisons (13:45, 13:52).

• Hagerty calls these "third-party citations" from creators, review sites and content sites, and says taking part in partner ecosystems is even more critical than 2 to 4 years ago (14:19, 14:42).

• He notes that with zero-click searches, the content still influences whether customers buy at a specific retailer, and says brands will probably have to evolve how they think about it (15:00, 15:16).

• He sees the affiliate model as inherently more conversion-oriented and creators as better for influence and discovery earlier in the funnel, working in tandem (21:32, 21:39, 21:55).

• Best Buy stood up its creator storefront program last year, with creators paid from within its retail media model (23:26, 23:28).

• His advice to hesitant brands: partnerships will be a foundational part of the marketing mix, not a bolt-on channel; lean in, and "you're going to make mistakes" (27:38, 28:00).

Episode from The Partnership Economy Podcast by impact.com, published on YouTube.