In today’s fast-paced digital marketing landscape, businesses are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to expand their reach and grow their customer base. Partner marketing has emerged as a powerful marketing strategy that allows companies to collaborate with like-minded organizations to make marketing partnerships that achieve mutually beneficial goals.
In this article, we will delve into five compelling partner marketing examples and extract the valuable takeaways from each of marketing strategies.
Partner Marketing Strategy Examples We Can Learn From
Partner marketing, also known as partnership marketing or co-marketing, involves two or more brands collaborating to promote each other’s products or services. This strategy can lead to significant benefits for two brands, including expanded reach, increased brand visibility, and access to new customer segments. Let’s explore five partner marketing case studies to gain insights into how this approach can be leveraged effectively.
Lucky Brand Partnering With MERGE
While fashion retailer Lucky Brand was operating in the affiliate channel, they were lacking a holistic strategy to accelerate new customer acquisition through that channel. The fast-growing fashion brand knew that its target shoppers included free-thinking and optimistic women that are inspired by American-heritage styles. Up until this time, they had primarily partnered with coupon and deal sites and were looking for ways to expand their partnerships to include top-of-funnel partners including bloggers, influencers, mass media publications and loyalty partners that were aligned with their brand and could introduce them to new audiences. To turn their plans on paper into action, Lucky Brand partnered with MERGE to expand its partnership program on the Partnerize platform. MERGE is a full-service digital marketing agency, providing strategy, planning and execution for growing brands while Partnerize is a partnership management software solution. In partnership with MERGE, Lucky Brand aimed to build close relationships with affiliate partners to deliver high-converting traffic and high-quality revenue.
MERGE conducted a full audit of Lucky Brand’s affiliate program and created a new partnership plan and program design that identified high-value partners, focusing on influencers, bloggers, major fashion publishers and loyalty sites that could introduce the brand to new audiences and deliver net new customers. Discover, the Partnerize platform’s recruitment and activation engine, helped MERGE to cultivate relationships with targeted content and loyalty partners. These relationships resulted in high-value partnerships with publications that attracted an audience to Lucky Brand’s eclectic Americana style. MERGE leveraged Partnerize’s dynamic commissioning tool to track new customer orders and adjust commission rates to reward partners specifically for driving new customers. With Partnerize, MERGE could review the data and raise commissions for high-performing partners to further incentivize the results.
The Results of the Partnership
Affiliate marketing has become one of Lucky Brand’s most effective and efficient new customer conversion channels. In collaboration with MERGE and Partnerize, they developed new content partnerships and optimized existing partner strategies to increase new customer revenue.
As a result, they increased the number of active partners by 34% YOY and increased active content partners by 142%. This led to a 38% YOY increase in Lucky Brand’s affiliate channel new customer rate. They have achieved an ongoing new customer rate of 60%+ from the affiliate channel.
Mitchell Gold Partners With Bob Williams
Like many brands across varying verticals, artisans of comfort and luxury brand, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams (MG+BW) were looking to drive new, diversified revenue streams. New to the affiliate channel, MG+BW sought education and expertise when it came to working specifically with content partners inside a pay-for-outcome model. As a high-consideration purchase where quality matters and the relationship is long-term, MG+BW sought those attributes in a partner with channel expertise and know-how who can expedite results through advanced technology.
The Partnerize treatment: Delivering a thoughtful, bespoke affiliate experience through the combination of software and service.
Leveraging the platform’s partner discovery tools, the team was able to deliver on expanding the affiliate program through targeted recruitment and activation. They easily identified and targeted a diversified array of partners with the greatest potential to drive revenue through the platform’s discovery tools and rewarded specific content partners through dynamic commissioning and attribution functionality.
The Results of the Partnership
The affiliate channel remains MG+BW’s strongest channel for return on investment (ROAS). In fact, their success in the affiliate channel has prompted an exodus from their other channels to increase their affiliate channel investment. They’re now strategically working with diversified affiliate partner types including content, and influencers in conjunction with lower-funnel partners.
- 56% Content partners
- 74% Traffic growth driven by partners
- 32% Total revenue growth from partners
- 12:1 Return on ad spend (ROAs)
- 150% Increase in AOV from content partners overall
Pizza Hut Partners With Navigate Digital
The COVID-19 pandemic brought tremendous disruption to the retail and restaurant industries. For Pizza Hut, this meant the temporary closure of its dine-in outlets. However, given the nature of their business, its delivery arm was fortunate to continue trading during lockdowns. To counteract the business effects of restaurant closures, Pizza Hut Delivery needed to establish new ways to drive awareness of its delivery sector.
As they looked to identify effective methods to promote delivery, Pizza Hut and their agency, Navigate Digital, evaluated the strong growth potential of the partnerships channel. They recognized that partnership is highly scalable, provides a diversified revenue stream and its pay-for-performance compensation model meant that they could field programs with minimal risk.
The Adapted and Targeted Approach
The newly enhanced, user-friendly Partnerize interface empowers clients to automate previously manual tasks and speed execution. This allowed Navigate Digital to quickly make changes and optimisations to programs, adapting creatives across multiple partners to align brand messaging for Pizza Hut Delivery during these unprecedented times. Partnerize’s unique API-based platform equipped Navigate to pivot in response to unpredictable market changes in realtime, resulting in a 45% increase in partner website clicks (March-July 2020 versus March-July 2019).
The creation of closed-user groups in the platform further accelerated this growth. Pizza Hut Delivery sought to “give back” to emergency workers in the form of discounts, driving incremental sales and consumer value. Working with partners such as ‘Blue Light Card’ allowed Pizza Hut Delivery to thank key workers for their service while advancing brand perception and ultimately sales. During March and August 2020, the closed-user groups accounted for 15% of partner sales and Pizza Hut Delivery is now looking to create new closed-user groups with other audiences, such as students.
The Results of the Partnership
For Navigate Digital, Partnerize’s exemplary levels of service from both Support and Customer Success Teams have helped drive speed to market and optimisation. Navigate has also increased partner onboarding by 28% thanks to their use of Partnerize’s innovative AI-powered Partner Discovery marketplace.
- 28% Increase in onboarded partners
- 15% Total partner sales from targeted audiences
Otrium Partners With AMPC
Online Fashion Outlet leader, Otrium, is no stranger to success, however, they understood well that the affiliate channel was a necessary lever they needed to engage yet was the missing vehicle in their marketing strategy that could catapult them even further. They began their affiliate program on the Partnerize platform set-up and managed by the consultants from AMPC. Right out of the gate there were some major and distinct components that needed to be satisfied to signal channel success.
To begin, Otrium built a channel Incrementality Score to identify the most valuable markets, segments, partners, even promotions, forcing the channel to be first-interaction driven by being the introducer/creator of customer journeys as well as the ability to reach new customers with both being generated exclusively from affiliate partnerships. They also stipulated that the click to conversion period needed to be a certain amount of minutes to differentiate quantity from quality traffic and finally, they needed to eliminate duplicate data to rely on clean, accurate insights and revenue streams.
Being new to the affiliate category, Otrium defined clear objectives to achieve success on their terms. The primary focus from the start was to identify and drive incremental business while relying on the traditional last-click tracking model but instead, applying “attribution thinking”. Sounds simple, but there is a notable difference between employing “attribution thinking” compared to widely available yet limited attribution commission technologies.
Models where brands face cross-channel insight limitations, have no guarantee that ‘incremental partners’ will run the extra mile and often have limited insights on when/which placements are being executed by which partners. AMPC helped Otrium to identify their incremental partners and placements with its uniquely built Incrementality Score and accelerated the performance with tailored fixed-fee investments based on a market-winning, cost-of-sale (COS) strategy
The Results of the Partnership
From plans on paper to a multi-million dollar revenue generating business just four months later, Otrium now has 250+ key partnerships in 9 different markets across the globe–with most launched in just 45 days.
The success and milestones achieved during that 4-month time was the result of a combined commitment, strategy, and execution of individuals working on one account across both Europe and North America. The market-winning strategies deployed resulted in four times 100% month-over-month (MoM) channel performance growth. Furthermore, the Incrementality Score built by the AMPC consultants integrating and combining data from three different sources showed a 75% channel incrementality in the first months with the affiliate channel now being one of the most efficient marketing channels in Otrium’s digital mix where its cost of sale (COS) is concerned. Affiliate is also a key channel accelerating local market growth through highly incremental platforms, as identified by the Incrementality Score. Finally, the affiliate marketing model and its technology are a crucial asset in optimizing other digital activities within the organization such as influencer campaigns and B2B partnerships. Lowering fixed fees and leveraging from hybrid reward models enables more focus on performance.
M.J. Bale Partners With Silverbean
M.J. Bale is a premium male fashion brand, and a renowned Australian brand, producing clothes with integrity for men with character. While M.J. Bale understood the value affiliate partners could drive for the business, their existing channel performance was not hitting target and channel revenue was concentrated on a small group of last-click publisher partners. They selected the Partnerize technology alongside the support of specialist agency Silverbean to help them unlock the true potential from their partnership program.
Pandemic aside, M.J. Bale knew it needed to diversify its partner portfolio, and execute on its strategy more effectively to achieve revenue and growth targets. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, M.J. Bale had to quickly adapt business objectives, and for logistical reasons, had to prioritise particular products and SKUs, and needed partnership technology to be able to support that strategy.
The Partner Marketing Strategy
- Implement more flexible commissioning to incentivize partners towards target SKUs and product categories.
- Diversify its partner mix utilizing Partnerize’s Partner Discovery Tool ensuring an even mix of partners across the customer journey – Silverbean was able to implement its tiered publisher approach and find partners to fit each tier through the Partner Discovery Tool.
- Leverage the channel to support wider business objectives, such as incentivizing sales of overstock items, without discounting. This was particularly important during COVID-19 when stock levels were lower.
- Put profitability at the center of its partnerships, by optimizing individual affiliates to maximize the performance from each.
The Results of the Partnership
- 185% Increase in partner revenue
- YoY 384% increase in transaction YoY
- 743% Increase in target SKU sales YoY
The Key Takeaways
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Partner marketing can be a potent strategy for expanding reach and increasing brand visibility.
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Shared goals and a commitment to customer satisfaction are crucial for successful partnerships.
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Integrations and added value for customers can create mutually beneficial outcomes.
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Partnerships can extend beyond external collaborations to include partners within your own ecosystem.
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Consistency and trust are essential for maintaining long-term partnerships.
FAQs
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What is partner marketing? Partner marketing involves two or more brands collaborating to promote each other’s products or services for mutual benefit.
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How can I find the right partner for my business? Look for partners with complementary products or services and a similar target audience.
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Is partner marketing only for big businesses? Partner marketing can benefit businesses of all sizes, as long as the partnership aligns with their goals.
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What are some common challenges in partner marketing? Challenges may include alignment of goals, resource allocation, and measuring the success of the partnership.
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Can partner marketing help with brand awareness? Yes, partner marketing can significantly enhance brand visibility by tapping into the partner’s customer base.
Conclusion
Partner marketing is a dynamic marketing strategy that can yield remarkable results when executed effectively. The case studies discussed in this article demonstrate the potential of collaboration in partnership marketing strategy for achieving common goals and driving business growth. As you consider incorporating partner marketing into your strategy, remember the key takeaways and lessons from these successful partnerships. By doing so, you can unlock new opportunities and expand your brand’s reach in the ever-evolving digital landscape.