Case Study: Scale Your Affiliate Program with Targeted Incentives

JJ TysonAffiliate Marketing

Case Study: Scale Your Affiliate Program with Targeted Incentives

Effective strategic partnerships are key for driving scalable growth and exceeding KPI targets within an affiliate program. The partnership between UpSellit and Advertise Purple, a leading Affiliate Marketing Agency, has helped numerous clients achieve greater success and thrive, even in uncertain times. To highlight the success of our partnership and demonstrate the efficacy of UpSellit’s solutions, our agencies came together to create a new case study. 

This new case study examines the effectiveness of targeted incentives vs. reiteration in the context of an affiliate program. To read the full case study, click here. Or, continue reading for a high level overview of its findings. 

Targeted Tactics as Part of an Affiliate Program

Targeted Tactics are UpSellit’s most popular technology. These engagements leverage hundreds of individual behavioral triggers to launch exclusively on users who show a 90%+ chance of abandoning. 

Each Targeted Tactic is purpose-built to suit the needs of the client – there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. The messaging, graphics, images, triggers, and incentive, if any, are designed specifically to meet the needs of the client and achieve optimal results. 

Unique Incentives & Reiteration

It’s not always possible for retailers to offer users an additional incentive to purchase. In such cases, Targeted Tactics can be designed to reiterate pre-existing offers available on-site and present them as a new offer, in case they were initially missed or forgotten by the consumer. 

For the purposes of this case study, retailers were divided into two groups: those using unique incentives, and those using reiteration. In the reiteration group, shoppers were shown a free or expedited shipping offer that already existed on the site. For the incentive group, small discounts were offered, either 10% or 15%. At the end of the study, the results of these two were compared. 

Finding 1: Unique Incentives Outperformed Free Shipping

When presented with a unique incentive, a full 18% of abandoning shoppers changed course, continued down the funnel, and went on to convert. UpSellit’s behavioral parsing engine ensured that users with a high probability of converting were not offered an additional incentive, maximizing cost effectiveness and return on investment. 

While previous case studies have noted that very small incentives, (5% off or less) are rarely effective, a discount of 10 – 15% off was large enough for users to reconsider their abandonment and convert. 

Finding 2: Reiteration Offers Were Still Highly Effective

Many studies have noted that online shoppers harbor particular resentment towards shipping costs. For that reason, many ecommerce businesses make a point to prioritize shipping incentives as a way of winning over customers. While unique incentives did outperform reiteration, non-unique free shipping offers still convinced 9.4% of shoppers to continue with their order and convert.

Given that the free shipping incentive was not a new offer, rather a reiteration of an offer that already existed on-site, these engagements were an extremely cost effective way to increase conversions and win back customers that showed a high probability of abandoning their session.  

Finding 3: UpSellit Yielded 25% Of All Affiliate Program Revenue Across Clients 

While UpSellit made up just 5% of affiliate clicks, it accounted for 25% of all affiliate revenue across all clients within the case study. In addition, UpSellit was directly responsible for a 5.6% incremental lift in conversions. This indicates that UpSellit’s Targeted Tactics create maximum impact while maintaining the smallest possible footprint. 

The Value of Partnership to An Affiliate Program

An effective performance partner spurs growth within an affiliate program and creates opportunities to grow a business’s customer base, increase revenue, and build customer lifetime value.

UpSellit’s partnership with Advertise Purple ensures that more merchants have access to effective, managed conversion optimization. By targeting abandoning shoppers with perfectly timed offers and messaging, retailers can optimize their consumer journey and exceed KPI goals. Click here to read the full case study.