Marketing Over Milkshakes

How do you get fired from your own company after building a £200M IPO business… and then start again?
Chairman of Huddled PLC, Martin Higginson shares how he went from launching Britain’s biggest-selling BMX magazine at 20…to scaling a mobile business to a £200 million valuation…to pioneering surplus-led e-commerce with Huddled PLC to take on Amazon!
This episode of Marketing Over Milkshakes is a masterclass in entrepreneurship, marketing fundamentals, arbitrage thinking and founder resilience.
If you are looking to unlock the internet’s fastest growing marketing channel, connect with the team at RevWise https://revwise.com/
Martin shares lessons from four decades of building, scaling, exiting - and rebuilding. With businesses across publishing, telecoms, premium rate competitions, mobile content, gaming, student accommodation and e-commerce it is clear how Martin has created the level of success that has resulted with his appearance on The Sunday Times Rich List.
You’ll hear how Monster Mob reached a £200m valuation, what really happened when he was fired from his own company, why most founders “self-harm” successful businesses, and how Huddled PLC is now tackling surplus retail, logistics arbitrage and the cost of living crisis.
In this episode you will hear:
Building and selling Britain’s biggest BMX magazine before age 21
Why strict business plans can kill startups
The power of arbitrage in telecoms and digital businesses
Scaling Monster Mob to a £200m valuation
Getting fired from your own company and rebuilding
Premium rate competitions and early internet monetisation
The Scottish Telecom IPO and the dot-com era
Founder psychology: loneliness, pressure and resilience
Why entrepreneurs struggle to let go
Surplus retail and the Huddled PLC model
E-commerce logistics, Amazon conditioning and next-day delivery
How small brands can survive against Amazon
Reducing retail waste while protecting margin partnering with the likes of Temu
Building cooperative-style scale in modern e-commerce
Key Moments:
00:00 Vegas, affiliate marketing and early premium rate competition stories
06:52 From photojournalist to launching Britain’s biggest BMX magazine
15:41 Selling his first business at 20 and lessons from early exit
18:30 The men’s magazine idea that came before its time
22:30 Premium rate competitions: the breakthrough revenue model
28:30 Outmanoeuvring competitors and scaling nationally
30:27 From weekend revenue to telecom acquisition talks
35:27 Demon Internet, arbitrage and early ISP economics
40:02 Why timing beats ideas: Malcolm Gladwell & infrastructure lessons
42:53 Avatars, online casinos and being too early to market
45:15 Launching Monster Mob and scaling to £200m valuation
48:45 Getting removed from his own company
52:23 Super Casino: live interactive TV before its time
01:02:11 Huddled PLC: surplus retail and the cost of living opportunity
01:12:57 TikTok, deal communities and performance marketing engine
01:18:33 Logistics arbitrage and competing with Amazon
01:24:10 Founder psychology: the loneliness of leadership
01:27:25 Why most entrepreneurs self-sabotage successful businesses
01:32:54 The biggest marketing opportunity brands are missing

The UK leisure travel and holiday rental market has transformed dramatically over the last decade - driven by digital demand, staycation trends, and portfolio-level brand strategy.
In this episode of Marketing Over Milkshakes, Group CCO James Shaw shares insight from within Sykes Holiday Cottages, one of the UK’s most recognised holiday rental brands, and its parent organisation, Forge Holiday Group; which manages 30,000 units, serving 3,000,000 customers annually, generating £200 million in revenue.

You will hear about building modern travel brands for sustainable growth in the leisure and tourism space - combining performance marketing, DTC strategy and data modelling, as well as a detailed breakdown on how the adoption of AI in advertising campaigns has driven CPA’s down by 40%!

In this episode, you will hear:
Scaling established travel brands in competitive domestic tourism markets
Portfolio growth across multiple travel businesses
Performance marketing in high-ticket leisure sectors
Balancing brand equity with digital acquisition
Using AI across advertising and marketing to drive CPAs down
Protecting margin while expanding reach
Leading growth at group level across multiple brands
The evolution of UK staycation demand
Long-term travel industry strategy vs short-term booking spikes

Key Moments:
0:00 – From Sykes Cottages to Forge Group: brands, scale and acquisitions
06:37 – The origin of Sykes Holidays: Clive Sykes, Yorkshire kitchen table and early growth
09:34 – Obsessing over “magic moments”: guest experience, reviews and NPS in travel
12:48 – TV ads and brand building: taking Sykes from 12% to 65% brand recall
16:24 – AI-powered TV campaigns: cutting production costs and smarter media buying
18:12 – Rational marketing: stacking highest-ROI channels and dropping what doesn’t work
21:34 – Vivid Stay: AI video walkthroughs for every holiday property at scale
25:05 – The AI journey: 70% staff adoption, AI Guardians Guild and legal framework
29:39 – Proving ROI: sprint times, chatbot deflection and AI efficiency targets
32:46 – Clickless checkout and agentic commerce: preparing for ChatGPT / Gemini bookings
36:41 – Developing conversational search for UK holiday cottages
41:51 – Competing in LLM search
46:03 – TikTok strategy: micro-influencers, viral Sykes content and social commerce
52:03 – Gavin & Stacey cottage and VIP stays: turning properties into viral moments
55:13 – Private equity, PPC and scaling Sykes: from 5,000 to 30,000 properties
01:00:50 – Skin in the game: betting life savings on Sykes
1:08:52 – Cranfield “SAS for the mind”: leadership, EQ and brutal 360 feedback
01:14:08 – Hiring for culture: curiosity, competitiveness and mindset
1:20:29 – How James structures his week: 5:30am routine, family time and energy management
01:34:57 – Best leadership book: Good to Great and the 4 Disciplines of Execution
01:39:51 – Defining leadership: creating an environment where success is inevitable

Scaling a subscription business with perishable products, tight margins, and zero room for forecasting errors is one of the hardest challenges in modern performance marketing.
In this episode of Marketing Over Milkshakes, we’re joined by James Newman, Head of Performance Marketing at Freddie’s Flowers, one of the UK’s most successful subscription-first DTC brands, to break down how they’ve built a highly disciplined, data-driven growth engine across performance, affiliates, influencers, and brand partnerships.
Freddie’s Flowers pioneered a subscription-only model in a category dominated by gifting, using predictable demand to reduce flower waste from an industry average of ~40% to under 5%. But behind the brand is a sophisticated growth machine built around LTV modelling, blended CPA targets, creative testing, and forecasting accuracy.
If you are looking to unlock the internet’s fastest-growing marketing channel, connect with the team at RevWise https://revwise.com/

In this episode, you will hear:
Why Freddie’s Flowers committed to a subscription-only model (and why it worked)

How to scale customer acquisition with perishable products and next-day delivery

The role of LTV modelling in setting CPA targets by channel and partner

Why blended CPA beats single-channel attribution

How Freddie’s evaluates affiliate marketing, gift-with-purchase, and brand partnerships

The real economics behind influencer marketing in subscription businesses

How coupon attribution works in a cookieless world

Why forecasting accuracy is critical to profitable growth

How upper-funnel Meta ads stabilised CPAs and unlocked scale

The difference between volume growth and profitable growth

Lessons retail brands can learn from subscription businesses

Why creative strategy is becoming the most important growth lever in performance marketing

Key Moments: 
0:00 – How Freddie’s Flowers cuts flower waste with a low‑wastage subscription model
1:55 – Freddie’s Flowers cargo bikes and how the street sales rep model works
3:23 – Origin story: door‑to‑door sales to a flower subscription business
6:15 – Why Freddie’s went subscription‑only and refused one‑off orders for years
8:35 – Introducing James Newman, Head of Performance Marketing at Freddie’s Flowers
11:39 – Dangers of artificial growth, brand contraction and over‑reliance on one Meta creative
13:48 – Building a diversified channel mix: affiliates, influencers, Meta and partnerships
17:23 – Managing a perishable subscription: forecasting, SKUs and holiday sell‑out strategy
23:13 – How Freddie’s measures influencer performance with coupon codes and blended CPA
26:42 – Multi‑touch attribution: blended CPA, GA4, platform data and post‑purchase surveys
28:08 – CAC, LTV and the ‘trip’ model that underpins Freddie’s subscription economics
31:56 – Predictive LTV by channel and partner using early retention and customer signals
36:53 – Why subscription brands must avoid chasing volume at the expense of LTV
39:19 – Blended CPA and upper‑funnel Meta ads to expand reach without spiking costs
44:20 – Creative strategy on Meta: hooks, concepts and avoiding ad fatigue
46:47 – What retail brands can learn from subscription businesses about LTV and discounting
49:41 – Using influencers and UGC as a creative engine for paid social at Freddie’s
54:12 – Gift with Purchase (GWP) partnerships as a major scalable acquisition channel
57:12 – Balancing CPA, offer value and host merchant requirements in GWP programs
1:01:19 – Why GWP favors subscription brands and how Freddie’s sets CPA caps
1:04:08 – James’s career journey from PPC and data to brand‑side growth leadership
1:10:26 – Brand tracking, awareness vs consideration and the case for gifting at Freddie’s
1:12:28 – Measuring out‑of‑home and TV with surveys, geo‑lift tests and blackout periods
1:20:21 – Events, networking and staying current in performance and affiliate marketing

In this episode of Marketing Over Milkshakes, we sit down with Adam Ross, CEO of Awin, one of the world’s largest affiliate marketing networks, powering partnerships for brands like Nike, Samsung, Etsy, Vodafone and thousands more.
Adam shares a rare, behind-the-scenes look at how affiliate marketing has evolved from early paid-search arbitrage into a multi-channel, AI-ready performance ecosystem - and what brands, agencies, and creators need to do to stay ahead.
If you are looking to unlock the internet’s fastest-growing marketing channel, connect with the team at RevWise https://revwise.com/
What you’ll learn in this episode:
How affiliate marketing really works (and why it’s a payment model, not a channel)

Why CPA-based incentives outperform CPC in AI-driven shopping

How influencers and creators fit into modern affiliate strategies

The hidden brand-building value of affiliate programs most brands ignore

How to scale a company from 15 to 1,400+ employees without losing culture

The leadership lessons learned from growing a global tech business

Why AI shopping assistants need affiliate monetisation models

How brands should measure upper-funnel influence vs last-click sales

The future of affiliate networks, retail media, and creator commerce

What most brands are getting wrong about performance marketing today

This episode is essential listening for anyone working in:

Affiliate marketing / Performance & growth marketing / Influencer & creator partnerships / eCommerce & DTC / Retail media / AI-powered commerce platforms
Key Topics Covered:
Affiliate marketing explained

CPA vs CPC advertising models

Influencer marketing through affiliates

AI shopping assistants & monetisation

Scaling SaaS and marketplace platforms

Leadership, hiring, and company culture

Performance marketing strategy

Attribution, measurement & incrementality

Brand vs performance balance

The future of digital commerce

Key Moments:
0:00 – CPA, AI & the Future of Affiliate Marketing
04:20 – Lighthearted Start: Milkshakes, Personal Preferences & Show Setup
05:35 – From Dentist to CEO of Awin
08:16 – Scaling Awin from 15 to 1,400 Employees & the 50-Person Tipping Point
11:18 – Landing Currys & Other Enterprise Brands: Big-Deal Bids That Changed the Company
14:08 – Acquisitions, Telco vs Retail & Entering the US Market
18:21 – Global Expansion Playbook: Organic vs Inorganic Growth in New Markets
19:20 – Hiring, Promotion & Spotting Leadership Potential in a High-Growth Company
23:49 – Should a CEO Be Hands-On With Product and Tech?
26:16 – What Is Affiliate Marketing Really? Payment Model, Publisher Types & Early Arbitrage
31:29 – Tracking Innovation: Awin’s MasterTag & the Evolution of Tech Partnerships
33:06 – Influencers, Retail Media & the Next Wave of Affiliate Growth
39:59 – Measuring Upper-Funnel Value & Paying Influencers Fairly
45:22 – AI Hype vs Reality: Awin’s AI Assistant “Ava” and Natural-Language Affiliate Campaigns
48:26 – Monetizing AI Shopping: Why CPA Beats CPC for AI Recommenders
50:41 – Company Culture, Remote Work & Building Trust at Scale
56:37 – Obsession, Continuous Learning & Using X/Twitter as a Learning Tool
58:28 – Parenting in the Age of Screens: Kids, YouTube, Money & Financial Literacy
1:05:43 – Dublin to London: Life, Family & Why London Still Feels Special
1:07:14 – Quickfire Round: Must-Have Apps, Imposter Syndrome, Leadership & Brand Opportunities

Marketing Over Milkshakes is the podcast that gets behind the job titles of some of the leading players in the affiliate and performance marketing space. This show explores the evolution of the affiliate sector, performance marketing, influencer partnerships and AI-driven commerce, helping ecommerce brands unlock one of the internet’s fastest-growing marketing channels. 
Bought to you by the team from award-winning specialist affiliate growth agency Revwise, each episode breaks down, in detail, how modern affiliate programs, publisher partnerships, TikTok Shop, creator commerce and data-driven e-comm strategies can drive scalable revenue and revolutionise brand growth. 
If you are looking to unlock the internet’s fastest growing marketing channel, connect with the team at RevWise https://revwise.com/