An ROI Focused Affiliate Marketing Strategy

Affiliate marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your eCommerce business. However, without an ROI focused strategy, it can also be one of the most frustrating.

A well-known national fashion retail chain with stores in 45 states contacted JEBCommerce seeking a more effective affiliate marketing strategy.

Here’s how JEBCommerce developed an ROI focused affiliate marketing strategy that generated $44,000,000 in revenue for a top national fashion retailer.

The Problem

The JEBCommerce team provided quality service, knowledgeable recommendations and managed our business with great detail and care. They steered us in the right direction to continually grow our program, gain market share over competitors and drive strong sales and return on investment. As a result, the affiliate business has grown to be one of our largest and most productive digital marketing channels.

– Kate O., A Retail Company

When we met this retailer, it had just switched leadership and was ready to ramp up its affiliate strategy. Although rival brands offered deep online discounts, the company wanted to avoid this “race to the bottom.” Its top priorities were increasing ROI and maintaining a strong brand image.

An initial analysis of the client’s current campaigns showed two key areas for improvement:

performance was not up to par
last-minute placements were driving up costs
little ROI to justify the spend

Without an affiliate management partner it could trust, this brand was understandably skeptical about the results it would see from a revamped strategy. But at the same time, it recognized the need for some major changes.

JEBCommerce wrote a guide on affiliate marketing ROI, so you can fully understand the costs and set proper expectations to ensure max profitability for your affiliate program.

The Fix

Early research showed that competitors were often advertising holiday discounts of up to 70%, but in reality were attaching the biggest discount to the biggest ticket items.

With our client’s goals in mind, we carved out a different Black Friday strategy: a site-wide sale with everything priced at $20 or less.

Paired with further incentives — 10% off $70 and $15 off $90 in purchases — we were able to boost sales 72% on black Friday and ensure the client a profitable ROI.

Our team also worked with the client to gain access to budgets earlier in the campaign cycle. By scheduling promotions with key affiliates 3-5 months prior to launch, we were able to save as much as 50%. On one homepage placement alone, this dropped the cost from $30,000 to $12,000.

To build mutual trust, our team maintained regular communication with the client, and tailored our reporting to address its major areas of concern.

We conducted a thorough competitor offer analysis to keep the retailer up-to-date on its rivals’ strategies. To evaluate our strategy, we ran daily numbers for all top affiliates to show revenue comparisons for placement and non-placement days.

If a homepage placement didn’t sell a certain amount by mid-morning, our team was already asking the important questions: What’s working, and what needs to change? This agile approach allowed us to make the smartest marketing decisions.

This ROI focused affiliate marketing strategy generated $1.5M in revenue in the first month, and the results keep pouring in. Now, after 3 years this national retailer has achieved 46% sales lift without degrading its brand value.