How Missguided used affiliate marketing to break North America

The Awin Report provides a definitive assessment of the global affiliate industry. It is a comprehensive manual on how to use affiliate marketing to develop your brand in every possible region around the world.

Leading fashion retailer Missguided is just one of several cutting-edge brands that feature in The Awin Report, showcasing how it has used affiliates to grow its business.

In 2017, US and Canadian expansion was a core focus for Missguided and it sought to use its affiliates to help cultivate both shoppers and brand awareness in this region. Working alongside its team at Awin, it established three primary objectives for this affiliate campaign:

1. Increase brand awareness through non-traditional affiliate models

2. Utilize an integrated account management approach instilling best practice guidelines

3. Achieve a revenue target with a high proportion of new customers

1. Non-traditional affiliate models

Utilizing social and video content was considered the right approach in creating brand awareness in a new market. Vloggers who suited the demographics of the Missguided US customer were targeted using surveys to understand their consumer profiles.

Campaigns were then planned with these partners centered on unique content, hybrid payment models that reflected contributions beyond the last-click conversion, as well as gifted products. By combining this upper funnel activity with middle and lower funnel conversion activity, Missguided was able to achieve triple-digit traffic, revenue and sales growth.

In addition, key vloggers identified as brand advocates were offered vanity codes to further improve conversion rates.

2. Integrated account management approach

Missguided outlined KPIs and targets for the upcoming quarter. Awin briefed publishers, submitting the opportunities to Missguided for sign-off.

Planning calendars, split by publisher type, campaign and device, were shared with Missguided’s trading team to further aid scheduling. A test-and-learn approach was aided by a competitor benchmarking matrix to assess which tactics were optimal in winning market share while monitoring ROI targets.

Given the geographic size of the US and Canada, and the location of the Missguided team in the UK, traveling to meet important partners was critical. Missguided attended global affiliate summits and, while there, the team organized two days of publisher meetings as well as headlining Awin’s own fashion show in New York.

For every new partner Missguided worked with, introductory calls and an overview of the brand, upcoming campaigns, trends and collaborations were shared. Each publisher also received a brand pack.

3. Hitting targets with new customers

By targeting seasonal peaks, promotional opportunities and tapping into new audiences, Missguided was able to achieve hugely impressive revenue, sales and click uplifts. A ‘Back to School’ promotion in August alone saw a further 20% increase in performance. New customer numbers were also tracked for each affiliate, with priority given to those driving high volumes of shoppers new to the brand.

Click-active publishers increased by 67% and sale-active publishers by 68%. New customer acquisition hit 78% from these targeted publishers.

All in all, the affiliate strategy was deemed a huge success and demonstrated the potency of affiliate partnerships in helping a brand break into a new market.

The Awin Report provides countless examples of this kind of success from across the globe. Using data from across Awin’s network of 100,000+ sale active publishers and its 13,000 advertiser programs, the report offers unparalleled insight on how this powerful marketing tool is connecting consumers with the goods and services they desire online.

Download your copy of The Awin Report 2017/2018 for free today here.

Rob Davinson, content analyst at Awin.