Cari Hartman, Founder & CEO of TrustEngage & VP, Business Development @ PolicyJar
Contact Cari on LinkedIn or Telegram @trust_cari
Cari, I am elated to spotlight you as the next Female Power Player to know and work with! I knew the moment we met that you were my kind of person! Your smarts, sweetness, and humor are unmatched! As an OG in performance marketing, Cari is well-known and super respected!
As the Founder and CEO of TrustEngage LLC, can you tell us about the company and what inspired you to start it? What are your main goals for the business, and how do you envision its growth and impact in the future?
TrustEngage is essentially a closed, private ad network for my friends. I’ve been grinding it out in this industry for nearly 17 years, and I finally have the luxury to work only with people I trust and enjoy. If I don’t KNOW the traffic already, I don’t want it. Plus, I LOVE helping advertisers and showing them how profitable the affiliate channel can be long term.
Unlike the most successful people in affiliate marketing, I’m naturally risk averse. I have been in survival mode my whole career as a result. I was inspired to start TrustEngage because I wanted the stress I was already feeling every day to match the payoff. Turns out, with my own network, I somehow have less stress, and much more dignity and control. Job security is an illusion, so you might as well go for it if you’re going to be working 12-16 hour days regardless.
Cari, can you describe your current role at Policy Jar and how you approach customer acquisition for insurance leads? What strategies have proven most effective for you in this highly competitive market? How does Policy Jar differentiate itself in the insurance industry and who should reach out to you to work together?
My role at Policy Jar is a lifelong biz dev’s dream. I get to help buyers, who are mostly insurance FMOs, carriers, and call center floors full of hungry agents, spend their budgets more effectively. I look at their current operations, promise them a much lower CPA (cost per acquisition), and then *gasp* DELIVER. People buying insurance, financial and home services leads should reach out. We can also work with anyone who has owned and operated sites and is gathering compliant, vertical specific opt-in data.
I work with two of the best media buyers to ever do it, and a couple of legends on the systems and tech side of affiliate marketing, so it’s quite an easy sell. The traffic quality speaks for itself. It’s all internal paid media for inbounds, plus we generate qualified transfers by dialing our own opt-in data, and sending compliant SMS.
The best part about PolicyJar is I get to geek out with my leadership team and our friends about which ads, verticals, and business models are working. As the internet says, “Competition is a low vibe. At the top, we’re all collaborating.”
What are some of the biggest goals you have in your role at Policy Jar, and how will you work towards them? Could you share a specific example that highlights your problem-solving/goal getting approach or strategies you like to employ?
Some of my biggest goals this year are to scale Medicare traffic with compliant, carrier approved ads, scale the debt vertical, and optimize our data monetization services. The challenge with Medicare is not so much IF, but WHEN. It can take FOR-EV-ER to get ads approved due to new CMS regulations before the annual enrollment period starts, and there are no shortcuts.
Recently, I learned that if you read a thick book and pass a few tests, you can get licensed to sell insurance in your state. With a license and some additional paperwork, you can submit ads directly to CMS for approval. By the time this article is published, I can add health and life insurance agent to my resume. So, my main problem solving approach is “by any means necessary”. I learned from Carter York that one of the best ways to solve problems is to simply ask other successful people how they did it and replicate.
Reflecting on your time at Unik Media, what was it like working with Carlos Corona as the Vice President of Partnerships? Can you share a memorable project or experience that significantly impacted your professional growth?
Working with Carlos and the team at UNIK was a paradigm shift for me. I came in with an extensive background in paid search arbitrage and lead gen, but I learned so much about the ins and outs of pay-per-call. It was like learning a new language. I watched Carlos teach countless people the game, and it was pretty cool to show some of my longtime email and sms friends a new way to make money. He introduced me to Tina Dixon who started Queens of Digital Marketing, and I was able to get really involved in fundraising for our mentorship program to help human trafficking survivors. Carlos was the first person to tell me about the Blue Ocean Strategy, a concept I apply to this day. Carlos has this quality I seek in leaders and mentors now- people who focus on collaborating rather than hoarding information and looking at everything as a winner-take-all game.
During your tenure at Synergy Interactiv working with the incredible Kimberlee White as the Vice President of Distribution, what were some of the most impactful projects you worked on and how did they shape your expertise in performance marketing and customer acquisition?
We built a successful ad network almost entirely with email campaigns in under two years, bootstrapped with a very lean team. I was able to leverage my long standing relationships and trust with mailers. Kim taught me how CPM buys work, how to optimize email creatives, and the importance of cash flow management when running a network. She also taught me to be bold and never accept a first offer. At times it felt like David vs. Goliath when we were competing against big established networks, but we had a lot of wins! How did it shape me? I proved I could once again build a competitive ad network with nothing but my brain, decent wifi, and a good ad ops person.
Your recent appearance on the Let’s Fucking Go Show with David Stodolak was epic! Tell the readers a bit about your time you went to Circus Circus on Purpose Purpose and his wife 14X’ed her money! And feel free to put the link to the episode here.
Haha! Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPiLY6nT3x8. I have a blast every time I hang out with David, and his wife Alejandra is even more fun than he is! I’ve had a love affair with Circus Circus since I visited Vegas for the first time with my family at age 6. Back then, there was an actual circus with trapeze artists, animals, and tons of games kids could legally play. It was the 1990’s, and Vegas was marketing to families. Fast forward to soo many conferences in Vegas...my go-to SECRET dive spot for gambling and people watching is Slots-A-Fun, which is attached to Circus Circus. Secret’s out! I knew it would be perfect for the LFG Show, and David would lean into the old school energy of Slots-A-Fun. I had never LOST money at Circus Circus before this trip. We kept filming and filming, but we couldn’t win to save our lives. Thank goodness for Alejandra who started with a $1 and just kept on winning!
How did it feel winning the AFFY Award: The Heart Award in front of your industry peers and getting roasted by comedian Jeff Ross in front of them? Has it opened any doors for you since being nominated and winning? Is there a category you’d want to be nominated in for this years’ AFFY Awards Gala July 28th in NYC, being co-hosted by crowd-work phenom and long-time family friend Ben Gleib? Are you familiar with his work? And, will we see you at the legendary Affiliate Ball the night after?
Winning was surreal, like an out-of-body experience, and the Heart Award is one that you can’t win by screwing people over. It’s pure. I had all these lines prepared to roast Jeff and a few industry folks. I wanted to tell Jeff I was raised by Comedy Central and make a joke about his hair, but something came over me. For the first time, I felt the value in my career, despite working in a get-rich-quick industry for 15+ years for other people, and, well, never personally getting rich. It felt bigger than any amount of money. There have been multiple waves of successful people over the years. They come and go, and some stick around and reinvent themselves. Winning the award seemed to get me an audience with some of the rising stars in our space. I leveled up!
I absolutely adore your quirky sense of humor and unique perspectives. How do these personal traits shape your life and interactions at work? And, what is something that people may not realize about you?
It simply makes life and work worth doing. What are we even doing if we can’t have fun working in this traveling circus of an industry? Part of the reason I am drawn to our space is I can be myself with little to no filter. When I switched my college major from Nursing to Business Administration, I thought I was going to have to work at a bank or something.
I grew up in the midwest, middle class, and I think they beat it into you from a young age that you’ll work for a company for a set pay, have a boss, retire, and die. You’re born with an inferiority complex, and coastal people will sometimes smell this on your clothes and try to pay you less than you’re worth. It has taken me years to undo that psychological programming, to embrace risk taking, and to think like an entrepreneur. I’m more successful now than I’ve ever been because I’ve started to take more risks. However, I love working on a team where I am the dumbest. It’s the only way to grow. I’d rather have a small piece of something big than a big piece of something small. The geniuses I am surrounded by, Carter, Coy, Courtney, Ryan and Rob, make me better every day.
Though you’re often traveling to trade shows, what are some of your favorite activities or places to visit during your free time at home in St. Louis? How do these hobbies and interests help you maintain a work-life balance?
Ah, St. Louis, a drinking town with a baseball problem. “First in booze, shoes, and last in the American League.” Home of Vincent Price, Yogi Berra, Nelly, Jon Hamm, Sterling K Brown, John Goodman, Andy Cohen, and the best Italian food outside of New Jersey. We’re still very excited about everything that was invented at the 1904 World’s Fair.
Gardening and foraging in the woods for mushrooms both counterbalance my screen time nicely. As a foodie, there is no substitute for either home grown tomatoes or fresh picked morel mushrooms. I recently took up pilates, but I also do yoga in Forest Park, go to Joe’s Cafe for live music, and have season tickets to our MLS team, St. Louis CITY, and the Blues. Once the Cardinals decide to stop being terrible and the MLB does away with the pitch clock, I’ll be back.
As a founding member of women’s group LinkUnite, Director of Events for Queens of Digital Marketing and now featured Female Power Player, what motivates you to support women’s groups? Is there anything you have noticed in the early days of performance marketing and what you hope will continue to evolve for the better for women in the industry?
I am extremely passionate about supporting women’s groups because I am a feminist. Which, if you look up the definition of a feminist, it simply means advocating for the EQUALITY of the sexes. Recently, I was chatting with a successful male in our industry about the lack of female founders and company owners. I listed a few, but we couldn’t come up with more than maybe 4 total who had successfully exited their companies, or could currently exit for more than 7 figures. It’s not just our industry though. For S&P 500 companies, it took until 2023 for women CEOs to outnumber CEOs named JOHN. All you have to do is google “What percent of the 1% are women and why?” Any career woman reading this? You’ll get mad, then motivated. I strongly recommend it.
Not too much has changed since the early days other than some of us have grown up. Women are respected for their business development abilities, but the VP glass ceiling is real. Personally, no one ever told me how to start a company, how to raise money, or how to use credit lines to build a business. Maybe it’s because I am a woman, but it’s more likely that it felt so out of reach to me that I never bothered to ask. Key takeaway? ALWAYS ask questions and keep asking if you don’t like the first answer. There is still no “Good Ole Girls” network, so we have these groups to support and lift each other up. Thank you for being a friend.
What do you love most about working in performance marketing, and how do you find fulfillment in the fast-paced, ever-changing nature of this field?
I love that it’s logical, but never obvious. I love that if you study market patterns long enough, you’ll know which verticals to run, and which budgets are coming back around. We often know what the economy is doing before the economists do based on which ads are working. I am obsessed with performance marketing because it’s advertising in its most pure form. I was an incredibly stubborn and curious child, and my mom used to joke that I had oppositional defiant disorder. They called me “Cari Contrary”. At its heart, performance marketing is pathologically defiant. I love it. It’s having someone, or some publicly traded ad platform tell you you can’t do something and then going ahead and doing it anyway… and you actually get monetarily rewarded for this behavior. We might be male dominated, but we’re VERY diverse. The affiliate marketing industry has attracted the most random and incredible group of smart, degenerate, loveable misfits from all over the world. I don’t know who I’d talk to if I didn’t have all of you.
