An online health and fitness brand with 50M visitors each month had been successfully managing its affiliate program in-house. However, it recognized that in order to grow, it needed to do more than simply increase revenue from returning customers; it needed to boost its New-To-File (NTF) customers.
When the online retailer decided to shift its efforts toward new customer acquisition, it sought out an affiliate program management agency with a track record of success in new customer acquisition.
The Problem
JEBCommerce started with a deep analysis of their program to assist in developing the best affiliate strategy.
One problem that stuck out was that when the retailer switched affiliate networks, a significant amount of publishers did not migrate over to the current network. This accounted for approximately $4 Million in lost revenue.
We also identified the need to optimize current affiliates who were either underperforming, or not performing at all. In addition to revitalizing current publishers, JEBCommerce was able to compare the brand’s current affiliates against our database of over 80,000 publishers to find over 90 top vertical specific publishers who were not yet integrated into the brand’s program.
The Fix
Once the initial assessment was complete, JEBCommerce began incentivizing existing publishers and recruiting top affiliates in the health and fitness industry.
JEBCommerce focused on creating a robust customer acquisition strategy in order to find new customers and deliver them into our client’s loyal customer base.
This included incentivizing publishers to provide front-page placements on their high-traffic homepages by offering exclusive coupons, as well as a higher commission for new customer sales versus returning customer sales.
To develop a robust, well-rounded new to file affiliate strategy, we not only incentivized the publishers to drive more new customer sales, but also incentivized the network and promoted special offers for new consumers.
We coupled the new to file incentives for publishers with an incentive for new customers as well. This meant every first-time customer would receive a free gift or special discount as part of their order.
Through additional paid placement strategies, we were able to secure homepage placements for our client across major retail coupon sites.
This affiliate strategy increased brand exposure and new to file customer sales – delivering a steady YOY growth.
After implementing our NTF strategies, we turned our attention to loyalty publishers in the program. Knowing that these new customers are likely to become returning loyal customers, we executed a plan to recruit more loyalty publishers to entice customers to take advantage of loyalty incentives, such as points back.
JEBCommerce is constantly working on new and exciting opportunities to help our clients grow their affiliate programs. The strategy for this client included expanding the niche and content publisher space by thinking outside the box of traditional niche blogger sites.
With our Publisher Development team, we’re now breaking into the influencer marketing space which includes finding health and fitness influencers with a large following to promote our client’s products in their YouTube reviews, as well as Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest posts.
The Bottom Line
After the health and fitness online retailer began working with JEBCommerce, its NTF customer sales have seen a steady YOY growth of 20% or higher.
They now have a healthy mature affiliate program with a loyal returning customer base and new customers joining daily.
NTF is still the focus of the brand’s overall strategy, but now that strategy also includes publisher development of niche/content sites and influencer marketing.