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Our Partner Spotlight series interviews experts from our killer network of agency partners and highlights their impact in the field of partner marketing.
This month, we caught up with Matthew Linder, co-founder of Strand Marketing.
Matt is one of the founding partners of Strand Marketing and brings a deep-rooted passion for data-driven growth. With a background in performance marketing and years of experience helping brands scale, Matt has a unique ability to see opportunity where others see limits.
He’s a builder at heart—of relationships, strategies, and systems—and is known for his ability to connect the dots between brand goals and channel potential. His calm leadership and sharp instincts have helped shape Strand’s culture of innovation and transparency.
How did you get started in the world of affiliate/partner marketing?
Our founding team was working on customer acquisition for a large national brand and stumbled across a powerful insight: some of the most scalable, cost-effective growth was coming from channels outside the big three—Google, Amazon, and Meta.
We leaned in and realized there was a largely untapped world of affiliate and partner marketing that was full of potential—but often lacked the strategy and transparency brands needed to fully leverage it. So we built Strand to change that—to be the expert, agile, full-service team that could unlock these channels for enterprise brands.
Why should a brand consider working with an Affiliate marketing agency?
Because partner marketing is one of the most cost-efficient, low-risk ways to acquire high-value customers—if it’s done right. The landscape is fragmented and constantly evolving. The right agency doesn’t just manage partnerships; they act as an extension of your team, helping you navigate complexity, find strategic fits, and measure real performance.
Working with an affiliate marketing agency like Strand means faster access to results, smarter spend, and fewer wasted opportunities. We take on the complexity so our clients can focus on growth.
What is Strand?
Strand is a digital marketing agency that specializes in performance and partnership marketing outside of Google, Amazon, and Meta. We help enterprise brands grow by acquiring net-new customers through affiliate, influencer, and content partnerships. Our model is designed to be predictable, profitable, and scalable—with a focus on transparency, strategic alignment, and white-glove execution.
What makes Strand so innovative? What sets you apart from the competition?
We’re innovative because we bring structure and strategy to a space that’s often messy and reactive. Partner marketing can feel like the Wild West, but we bring order to the chaos—creating clear frameworks, repeatable processes, and consistent communication that help our clients move faster and smarter.
Our edge is our ability to operate like an internal team while staying ruthlessly focused on performance. We roll up our sleeves, immerse ourselves in the client’s world, and uncover pockets of opportunity others overlook. Our clients trust us not just to drive results, but to help them see around corners.
We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel—we just run it better than anyone else.
What types of brands do you work with?
We primarily work with enterprise and high-growth brands in subscription services, lead generation, insurance, health and wellness, and financial services. Most of our clients are looking to scale efficiently, reach the 50+ demographic, or diversify their marketing mix beyond paid search and social. If a brand has clear goals and strong unit economics, we can help them grow faster than they thought possible.
How does Strand typically work with clients?
We operate as an extension of our clients’ teams. That means we’re in the weeds with them—helping with everything from strategic planning to execution, measurement, and optimization.
Our model is performance-based, with fixed-cost services and flexible partner payouts. We manage the entire ecosystem: partner discovery and onboarding, compliance, tracking, creative consultation, and ongoing optimization. And we do it all with the polish and responsiveness of an internal team.
What is one unexpected opportunity for brands to scale up their partner marketing efforts?
One surprisingly powerful lever is leveraging internal data to fuel external partnerships. Many brands sit on valuable first-party data—like geographic hotspots, conversion triggers, or post-purchase behaviors—but rarely use it to shape their partner strategy.
We help brands turn that internal insight into a competitive edge: finding partners who over-index in high-performing regions, tailoring messaging to match known motivators, or building dynamic campaigns that respond to real-time user behavior. This level of alignment increases both volume and efficiency—turning good partners into great ones, and overlooked audiences into top performers.
Partner marketing doesn’t need to be generic. When brands bring their own data to the table, it opens the door to highly personalized, high-return opportunities that competitors simply can’t replicate.
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