Chris Wirasinha explains how Linkby helps publishers redesign affiliate marketing

June 19, 2024

Welcome to an audio edition of Unmade. Today we speak to the creator of Australia’s longest-lasting youth media brand, Pedestrian TV co-founder Chris Wirasinha, as he begins to grow his new company Linkby. And this post also covers the fact that the Unmade Index’s slide, particularly in audio stocks, has extended into another week.

If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to an Unmade membership, now is the perfect time. Your membership includes:

Member prices for our Person And Made new (1 October) Conferences;
A free invitation to Unmade’s compass Event (November);
Members-only content and our paywalled archives;
Your own copy of Media Unmade

Wirasinha: Finding a place in the funnel

In today’s episode of The Unmakers, we talk to Chris Wirasinha about his latest venture into the publishing world, Linkby.

Like many other entrepreneurs coming from the media and marketing world, Wirasinha has discovered a more scalable technology opportunity as a supplier to his legacy ecosystem. Just as Matt Farrugia and Henry Innis left WPP to found media mix modelling system Mutinex, and Ben Gunn and Nathan Powell left Nine to found influencer platform Fabulate, Wirasinha is doing the same in the space between affiliate marketing and PR.

This week, Linkby announced its third round of venture capital – a $4 million Series A funding round to grow its teams in the US, UK and Australia.

Linkby offers publishers a new way to get paid by brands for links in editorial content.

Speaking to Unmade’s Tim Burrowes, Wirasinha reveals that Linkby spends $30 million on marketing, meaning the company generates nearly $10 million in annual revenue based on its 30 percent commission.

In addition to discussing the Linkby model, Wirasinha discusses why he teamed up with his Linkby co-founders and the factors behind the decision to go down a VC-backed route. He also reflects on how he and Oscar Martin pulled off a big exit at Pedestrian and what the media market looks like right now.

The Unmakers: Fabulate it – How an Australian technology platform helps brands manage large influencer campaigns

The Unmakers: Mutiny’s SaaS bet to reinvent marketing analytics and how the company plans to reshape the industry

An improved performance from Nine helped lift the overall Unmade Index on Wednesday, although it was another difficult day for some stocks.

Nine rose 1.8%, bringing its market capitalization back above $2.2 billion. The Unmade Index followed with a rise of 0.76% to 476.2 points.

It was a bad day for the big audio stocks. Southern Cross Austereo fell below a market capitalization of $150 million for the first time in its history after losing another 3.85 percent. ARN Media lost almost 1.5 percent. Both stocks have lost more than 20 percent of their value in the last month alone.

Meanwhile, Seven West Media lost 2.9%, reaching its lowest level since 2020.