The Affiliate Industry Was Built for Networks. HiEnergy Is Rebuilding It for Publishers.
There are founders who chase opportunity. And then there are founders who respond to friction they’ve lived inside for years.
Sometimes I feel like a broken record when I announce that “publishers are business models too!” Having spent a majority of my affiliate career on that side of the business, there is so much more that goes into finding a deal and then posting it to your website/app/socials.
Which is why I’m so excited to share my recent conversation with HiEnergy co-founders, Jennifer Goodwin and Dexter Dethmers, and their vision to advocate on behalf of all publishers, no matter their shape or size.
This Substack Q&A dives into the origin, philosophy, and long-term vision behind HiEnergy. The company operating at the intersection of AI, data intelligence, and affiliate partnerships.
But more importantly, this is a conversation about power, visibility, and what happens when publishers finally get a platform built for them.
What was the “moment” that made you say, “The affiliate industry needs a different solution,” and ultimately led to the creation of HiEnergy?
There was not just one moment.
It was the accumulation of years of seeing the same pain points over and over again while working on the publisher side.
As veteran affiliate marketers, we kept hearing the same frustrations from publishers:
Disjointed data across networks
Manual processes that consumed time
Real performance buried beneath spreadsheets and network dashboards
The affiliate space is incredibly fragmented. Everything lives on different platforms, different logins, different conversations. No one is stitching it together in a way that truly serves publishers.
We both saw that gap clearly.
Publishers often felt like second-class citizens in an ecosystem built primarily for advertisers and networks.
Many players across the space were operating inside a system that was not designed for how modern partnerships and performance actually work.
HiEnergy sits at the intersection of AI, data, and relationships. Why was it important to you that technology support partnerships rather than replace human connection?
We believe technology should amplify, not replace, meaningful human connections.
The affiliate ecosystem runs on relationships. The best partnerships are driven by trust, understanding, and real dialogue. Data and tools should make those conversations richer and more strategic, not transactional.
AI and data help remove busywork and surface insights that humans can act on. Creative thinking and relationship building still come from people.
That is why HiEnergy combines proprietary technology like Rocket with deep industry relationships. Publishers can move faster without sacrificing the personal touch that drives long-term partnerships.
Brands have historically relied on the same publisher playbooks. What convinced you that new revenue wouldn’t come from optimizing the same partners, but from bringing entirely new publishers onboard?
Affiliate has long been optimized for status quo revenue. The same partners mine the same categories with incremental tweaks.
Real revenue growth happens where diversity and innovation intersect:
New audiences
New content formats
New business models
We saw countless publishers with unique audiences struggle to connect with advertisers that truly appreciated their value because the systems were geared toward older models.
By helping publishers discover new advertiser opportunities, backed by real data intelligence, we unlock fresh revenue streams that are not bound by traditional playbooks.
This expands the ecosystem for everyone.
How does building a platform for publishers change the power dynamics in the affiliate ecosystem?
For too long, affiliate data and tooling power has sat with advertisers, networks, and agencies.
Publishers were left stitching together dashboards and spreadsheets just to understand their own performance.
A dedicated platform shifts that dynamic.
It provides:
Real-time insights
Clear visibility
The ability to discover and activate the right partners with confidence
Instead of reacting to network reports, publishers can proactively drive their own revenue growth.
That’s a fundamental power shift.
From a founder’s perspective, what do you believe is the most misunderstood part of the affiliate industry today?
The biggest misunderstanding is that affiliate success is simple.
That you just need good rates or a strong website.
The reality is that affiliate marketing is a data-driven ecosystem where revenue leaks, tracking errors, silent commission drops, and partnership friction cost real money.
Most publishers still rely on outdated methods. Spreadsheets, manual checks, and dashboards designed for advertisers make optimization reactive instead of strategic.
True success comes from visibility, intelligence, and strategic partnership execution.
What are some of the newest publisher models you’ve worked with that excite you for the future?
What excites us most right now is how much the definition of a “publisher” has evolved.
It’s no longer just content sites or coupon partners. It’s:
Commerce tools
Fintech platforms
Loyalty technology
Premium editorial
Sustainability-driven marketplaces
We work with partners like Dupe, PayPal, Western Union, Share-a-Cart, ShopBack, Kudos, Forbes Vetted, Daily Mail, and Trashie. All have very different models.
They are influencing how people shop, pay, save, and discover products.
These partners are not just sending traffic. They are embedded into the shopping journey itself.
That is where real growth is coming from. That is where we are focused.
What’s the number one reason publishers want to work with you?
Publishers partner with us because we give them clarity, confidence, and catalytic growth.
We eliminate the guesswork:
Consolidating affiliate networks
Surfacing real performance data
Enabling direct connections with advertisers that matter
With decades of industry experience and proprietary intelligence tools, we help publishers move faster and smarter than they ever could manually.
When you look five years ahead, what would success for HiEnergy actually mean, not in metrics, but in how the industry operates differently because of what you built?
Success five years from now would not be about growth metrics.
It would be about how the industry operates differently.
It would mean publishers, agencies, advertisers, and networks are no longer operating in silos, each looking at different dashboards and debating different versions of the truth.
It would mean shared visibility.
One reliable source of truth.
Aligned, transparent, actionable data.
Success would look like:
Smarter partnerships
Faster decision-making
Fewer revenue leaks
Less friction across the board
Publishers of any size could compete.
Agencies could operate strategically instead of manually.
Advertisers could see real performance clearly.
Networks could integrate into a more connected system.
If we have done our job right, affiliate will not feel fragmented or reactive anymore.
It will feel coordinated, transparent, and built for modern growth.
How can publishers contact you about opportunities?
Email at: jen@hienergyagency.com + dexter@hienergyagency.com
You can also sign up for a free rocket account for the platform and the HiEnergy team will follow up!
This was one of my most exciting Q&A’s to date as it shows holistically the scale of how publishers are intertwined within the ecosystem, rather than the silo we’ve lead to believe.
Want to share your affiliate story and the problem you are aiming to solve in the industry? I’d love to talk to you! Email me at pressforwardpartnerships@gmail.com.
Thanks for joining. Keep on learning. And see you soon!
-Laura