Publisher Spotlight: Pouch – the Free Shopping Tool That Saves You Time and Money

Posted on September 19, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

Pouch is a free shopping tool for saving time and money when buying online. They work with thousands of retailers to promote their best deals and discounts to their ideal customers. Currently, Pouch is available on desktop with a mobile app is due to be released early 2018.

Following their appearance on Dragon’s Den last month, we speak to Ben Corrigan, Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Pouch about their new platform and how they help advertisers increase sales and improve conversion rates.

Can you tell us a bit more about the concept of Pouch and why you developed the tool?

The core concept of Pouch is that it saves users time and money as they shop online. We developed Pouch because we noticed a clear gap in the market. As shoppers, it became increasingly frustrating that there were so many invalid or expired voucher codes on the various voucher code websites. We discovered that 75% of shopping carts are abandoned at the final stage of checkout due to user frustration with invalid or expired promo codes. Pouch helps keep users on site and buying.

2) How does the platform work and add value to a consumer’s shopping experience?

Pouch is a free browser extension that saves people time and money by displaying all the best valid voucher codes for the website they are on. This means that they never have to search for a voucher code again.

What kind of advertisers are you looking to partner with and what benefits can you offer them?

We are mainly looking to partner with advertisers who have voucher code capability. However, “Pouch Promotions” (our tool that allows Merchants to advertise on any website in the world including their direct competitors) can be integrated with sites that do not use voucher codes but still discount heavily online, either through deals or sales on site.

Can you share any recent success stories?

Pouch has a lot of success stories recently. We were featured on the season premiere of Dragons Den on Sunday, August 20th. We got offers from all five dragons and struck a deal with three of them. In total, we are expecting roughly four million + people to have viewed our episode if you include iPlayer estimates. This has been an unbelievable opportunity in terms of providing positive publicity on a massive scale which has to lead to an increase of 50,000 users and rapidly growing every day.

What opportunities can you offer retailers as we approach the Q4 key shopping period?

We can offer certain retailers the ability to advertise on any content site in the world and also on the websites of their direct competitors. This is part of our tool called “Pouch Promotions”.

Furthermore, we can display exclusive codes to our users via the extension. We have seem the most successful in campaigns where retailers have provided Pouch branded codes that are exclusive to Pouch user. Our Users were far more likely to use the voucher code in these situations.

Lastly, what can we expect to see from Pouch in the near future?

You can expect to see a lot more development in our core products. We are currently getting more and more exclusive and branded voucher codes from major retailers. You can expect our user base to hit 300,000 by the end of the year and our email base to be even larger. The data we are collecting on consumer spending habits and interests is another important feature of Pouch. Going forward, this will be extremely useful for retailers in terms of targeting their ideal customers.

Thanks, Ben!

If you’d like to find out more about partnering with Pouch, please contact Ben Corrigan at ben@joinpouch.com or use the SID 3347164 in the Publisher Dashboard.

Why UK Advertisers Should Take Advantage of Singles’ Day

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

Falling on the 11th November, Singles’ Day has fast become the biggest shopping day in the world. Last year, a record-breaking $17.8 billion of sales were made during Singles’ Day which was up from $14.3 billion last year. To put this in perspective, online sales in just one day in China exceeded Brazil’s total projected e-commerce sales for all of 2016.

The sheer scale of the market, combined with Chinese consumers’ increasing appetite for British goods, has opened up a significant new sales avenue for UK retailers who opt into this multi-million-pound shopping event. In light of this, we have put together this blog post to provide some insight into why British retailers should be taking advantage of this key shopping day:

What is Singles’ Day?

Singles’ Day originated from China and started as an ‘anti-valentine’s’ celebration for single people back in the 1990s. Every year, it’s celebrated on the 11th November (11/11) as the ones represent single people.

In 2009, Chinese ecommerce giant, Alibaba, started to capitalise on the event by launching its ‘Double 11’ deals. Since then, other retailers have followed suit and the event has evolved from a national celebration of single status to a global shopping event. The day is now promoted as an occasion to treat yourself to a gift, regardless of your single status.

What is the opportunity for UK advertisers?

The evolution of Singles’ Day from anti-valentine’s day to a shopping holiday has seen it turn into a high growth seasonal opportunity which is growing every year. In 2016, more than, 40,000 merchants globally participated in Singles’ Day, which drove more than $17.8bn (£14.2bn) in 24 hours with sales increasing almost 25% YoY.

Within our UK network, we have seen a significant appetite for high-end luxury products, apparel, and accessories and toys during Singles’ Day 2016 with department stores, travel and home improvements seeing an average AOV increase of 117% YoY.

The decreasing value of British pound means that Chinese shoppers are increasingly looking to shop from UK retailers – especially when it comes to luxury products which are priced higher in China. Across the Rakuten Marketing Affiliate Network, we have seen a correlation in the between lower GBP and UK growth in sales in China over the past 12 months as demonstrated by the graph below:

What are the benefits of taking part?

Build brand awareness and reaching new customers

Singles’ Day presents a unique opportunity for advertisers to engage and tap into an affluent consumer in Asia Pacific (APAC) and also within the UK. Running a unique discount code during this time can provide an incremental sales lift to a brand both during Singles’ Day and thereafter as you can continue to engage and market to these new audiences.

Take control of your brand and product

Brands that don’t offer any form of official distribution for online sales will continue to have their online presence and brand equity hijacked by third-party sellers. Recent research by L2 found that luxury brands can be easily found online in China whether they choose to be or not. We recommend you review what APAC exposure your products may have which you are not tracking. The benefit of selling through the affiliate channel means you have greater control over the content and merchandise available.

You don’t need to ship to China

An increasing appetite for UK products from Chinese consumers has meant they have developed innovative ways to shop with international merchants regardless of whether the brand has developed the technologies to ship to their region. These include shopping trips abroad, personal shopping and freight forwarding. You can read more about these methods in detail here.

Low Return Rates

As Chinese consumers know they will need to return items through freight-forwarders at their own expense, they are likely to have thoroughly researched and committed to their purchase.

Publishers do the hard work

Working through the affiliate channel means trailing an offer is risk-free as you only pay on the sales that you make. Publishers will do the leg work to engage consumers through a digital landscape differs greatly from ours. Within our network, we have found that the best performing publisher models during Singles’ Day are as follows:

Shopping & comparison which drove 31% of sales
Cashback & loyalty sites which drove 23% of sales
Sub-networks which drove 20% of sales

Activate the Chinese diaspora

As well as targeting consumers in the APAC region, you should also look to Asian consumers within the UK. The Asian ethnic group is second largest in the UK, including more than 300,000 non-EU international students. The devaluation of the British pound and a simpler Visa system has led to a record number of Chinese tourists coming to London in 2017 with the purpose to shop. Chinese tourism is worth nearly £500 million to the UK, with the average holiday lasting 10 days and each tourist spending an average of £2,688.

How to take advantage of Singles’ Day 2017

Plan well in advance

Advertisers looking to take advantage of Singles’ Day this year, need to start planning now to reap the results. You should communicate your plans for Singles’ Day to key publishers in good time, so promotions can be promoted via dedicated content such as a blog post, newsletter or throughout the event via social media.

Offer the best discount that you can afford

We recommend running an exclusive offer that’s the same caliber as a Black Friday level offer. Strong deals are what attract consumers to make a purchase on Singles’ Day – especially when there may be high shipping costs associated with a purchase.

Choose your discount carefully

When choosing a promotional discount – there are certain factors you should take into account. The number four signifies death so discounts such as 40% and 44% should be avoided. However, the number eight signifies good fortune so it could be beneficial to factor that into your promotions. You could also consider running a vanity offer such as 11%, 22% and so on, to coincide with the theme of the event. Colours such as gold and red also have positive connotations and are often used in promotional events in the APAC market.

Timing is key

Ideally, the offer should run for the duration of 11/11, taking into account the different shopping time zones. Across our network, in the four days leading up to Singles’ Day we have seen an increase in Chinese click volumes coming from Chinese IP addresses, but a relatively low conversion rate until the day itself. We believe that Chinese shoppers are making informed purchases and waiting to see which retailer will be stocking their favorite products during the event.

Site wide promotions

If exclusive offers are a bit trickier to run on the day, we still recommend a site wide promotion that could potentially be distributed to the wider affiliate channel. As a guideline, most Chinese retailers offer 50% off over this period. International advertisers can take advantage of this if they compete with these localised offers. In addition, offers such as ‘buy one, get one free’, gifts with purchase and free domestic shipping within the UK/Europe or US are always well received and can add additional value.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can benefit from a Singles’ Day promotion, please do get in touch with your Account Manager.

The mThink 2018 Survey Is Now Open!

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

The mThink 2018 Survey is now open and we’d be honoured to have your support to make it seven consecutive years as the #1 ranked affiliate network.

The mThink Best CPS Affiliate Network Survey is the largest research survey in the performance marketing industry. The result is drawn from the responses of more than 20,000 online advertisers, publishers and agencies in the affiliate industry, with input from the Blue Ribbon Panel of industry experts and mThink’s own research. The result is the Blue Book Top 20 Affiliate Networks, as chosen by the world-wide performance marketing community.

We would be delighted if you would cast an official vote for Rakuten Marketing in the 2018 Blue Book mThink survey. Voting is easy and will only take two minutes – simply click the link below to get started:

A big thank you to all of our advertisers, publishers and agencies for the continued support and the inspiration you continuously instil in us to be an industry leader.

Advertiser Spotlight: Lipstick Queen

Posted on September 7, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

We’ve recently welcomed cult Australian lipstick brand, Lipstick Queen, to the Rakuten Marketing Affiliate Network. The brand was born out of one woman’s quest to find the perfect lipstick and twenty years on, the range now contains a plethora of unique and beautiful hues.

In this month’s Advertiser Spotlight, we speak to Julia Deutsch, Digital Marketing Manager at Space NK US & Lipstick Queen to find out more about the brand and their offering to affiliates.

What is the story behind the Lipstick Queen brand?

Hailing from Australia, Poppy King the founder of Lipstick Queen, has been in the beauty business for more than 20 years. Her ethos? She truly believes in the power of lipstick – putting on lipstick gives anyone confidence.

What is your focus for the remainder of 2017? Are you coming out with any new products/lines?

We have many upcoming partnerships, that we are incredibly excited about, including partnerships with Refinery 29 and Nylon.

How does the affiliate channel fit into your overall marketing strategy and what are you looking to achieve from the channel?

As an advertiser, eager to build and maintain relationships with appropriate publishers, the affiliate channel will play a large role in our H2 2017 digital marketing strategy, and beyond. Our aim is to discover the right publishers who will allow us to broaden our audience and introduce Lipstick Queen to a new and engaged customer base. The initial goal is to drive traffic to the Lipstick Queen site.

What incentives and opportunities can publishers joining your programme expect?

We are happy to offer publishers incentives. Additionally, for those that become top traffic drivers, we are willing to discuss further ad hoc opportunities that will encourage more visits to the Lipstick Queen site. From ‘Free Delivery’ and exclusive previews to voucher codes, all potential opportunities will be considered.

With influencers playing a huge role in the beauty sector, are content publishers the main affiliate type you are looking to recruit? If not, are you looking to work with any other publisher types?

Content publishers are the most sought after affiliate type we hope to gain for Lipstick Queen. Discovering and working with publishers who are passionate about the beauty industry, and have an equally involved audience, are the ideal. As an advertiser, we want to introduce Lipstick Queen to new markets and broaden the brand awareness. Although content publishers are important to our forthcoming strategy, we are excited to work with all affiliate types deemed correct for the Lipstick Queen brand.

If you’d like to find out more about partnering with Lipstick Queen please contact Julia on Julia.deutsch@spacenk.com or use MID 42724 in the Advertiser Dashboard.

Publisher spotlight: Student Beans expands into European markets

Posted on August 24, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

Student Beans is an industry-leading, global marketing platform which has quickly become a breakthrough publisher to partner with since they launched on our network in 2007. Their award-winning technology enables our clients to connect with the youth market and drives hundreds of millions of pounds of student sales every year.

As a publisher, they are consistently growing and innovating to offer new solutions that drive ROI for the retailers and brands they work with. We caught up with Steve Astier, Business Development Manager, France to find out more about their exciting developments for the remainder of 2017 and their focus on expanding into European markets.

Since Student Beans was incorporated in 2005, the online space has changed drastically. How has Student beans evolved?

Student Beans has been enabling ambitious brands to securely run and promote their own student discount and loyalty programmes for more than 11 years. We work across 49 countries with 500 brands which we connect with more than 163 million students. We generate 1.5 billion $ every year in student sales and we’ve grown our database from 0 to 6.5 million verified members. Our next step is to reinforce our position in the UK but also to expand our activity in Europe and in the USA.

What makes the Student Beans platform unique?

Our scale and membership numbers as mentioned above and the fact that we focus our activity only on Students. Students are not rich, but they do spend a huge part of their income and are always looking to save money. Offering them a discount through our platform is the best way for brands to increase their sales among this segment of the market.

Student Beans has recently been expanding to European markets, can you tell us about your offering for brands looking to target students across Europe?

We provide French and European brands with a technology (iframe) which is linked to their homepage. This enables them to verify students in the aim of offering them a discount.

The reasons to run a student discount are numerous:

To capture CRM Data
Increase conversion
Generate loyalty
Beat the competition

We also display our brands’ discounts on our website and include these offers in our numerous newsletters and solus emails we sent to our extensive database.

What is in the pipeline for Student Beans for the remainder of 2017 and beyond?

Within my role, I’m in charge of Student Beans’ French market and we’re about to partner with some great French brands including Etam, Galeries Lafayette, Flixbus, Deliveroo, Chevignon or Yves Rocher. Watch this space!

If you’d like to find out more about partnering with Student Beans, please use the following SIDs in the publisher dashboard:

UK: 2019970

US: 2326786

EU: 3424410

How attributed data helps publishers understand their true value

Posted on August 23, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

Karl Wood is the Senior Network Development Manager at Rakuten Marketing. Within this role, he manages some of the UK’s largest revenue driving publishers to help them grow revenue on our network through partnerships, whilst helping our advertisers to achieve their goals.We recently caught up with Karl to find out how his team has been using attributed data to arm his publishers with competitive insights, moving beyond metrics such as order growth, in order to help them build strong case studies to win new business.

Every day, affiliate networks are gathering vast amounts of data and consumer information. More often than not, this data is not being used effectively and, after being used to calculate commissions, it’s relegated to the archives.

Through the Rakuten ecosystem, we have access to a huge amount of consumer data across the entire user journey which gives us substantially richer insight into how publisher verticals are performing. Viewing publisher value beyond the last click has helped us create new performance metrics, such as:

Cost of new user visits
Initiating revenue (the attributed revenue awarded to publishers who are the first or only touchpoint in the user journey)
Attributed value vs. last click

We have used these metrics to provide advertisers with data on which publishers best suit their campaign goals and benchmarking data to help them make the right decisions when onboarding new partners.

On the flip side, this data has armed publishers with the insight to form new partnerships and showcases the value of publishers who are often overlooked on a last-click model.

Below are a few more examples of how we have used our attributed data to provide value to our publishers across our network:

The value of cashback in the luxury sector

Luxury retailers can sometimes be hesitant to work with cashback publishers as they don’t always align with their brand positioning. However, using attributed data, we have found that cashback publishers can add value for luxury retailers and play a key part in the buying journey.
For one of our clients, a luxury retailer, our data revealed that the average order value (AOV) was 55% higher when a cashback publisher was part of the user journey. As well as this, for a high-end beauty brand, we discovered a 71% uplift in revenue attributable to the cashback publisher when compared with last click.

Driving new partnerships

We progressed conversations between one of our market-leading voucher publishers and a well-known high-street jewellery brand to put in place a partnership trial. Without our additional attribution insights, this would not have taken place due to common misconceptions associated with voucher publishers.
We were able to show the retailer that this specific voucher publisher was able to drive new customers and start a large number of customer journeys. This installed confidence in the client to run that trial and form a new partnership.

Attributed payment models

In order to take further advantage of attributed data, we’ve seen several of our clients move over to an attributed payment model. This has helped them to ensure marketing budgets are invested effectively with publisher partners to generate an increased ROI. In addition, this model has helped advertisers understand each of the individual touchpoints within a customer’s increasingly complex path to conversion.

For one of our clients, splitting the commission across all affiliates in the journey increased the number of publishers getting credit. Digging into the data, we also found that 34% of journeys involving affiliates contained more than one publisher and 17% of journeys involving just one affiliate publisher contain multiple interactions with that publisher. This data has given us considerably greater insight into the role publisher’s play in the customer journey and more publishers are receiving credit for their contribution to sales.

Every publisher model has its own USPs and within each publisher vertical there are key players and mid-tier contenders. Attributed data is essential to understand what has happened beyond the last click and to see the publishers that have been instrumental in driving valuable customers across the entire user journey.

Coach launches affiliate programmes on our French & German networks

Posted on August 18, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

We’re pleased to announce that our client, Coach has launched new affiliate programmes in our French and German networks in order to increase their online reach and brand awareness in Europe.

Started in 1941 as a family-run workshop in New York City, Coach were pioneers in the leather goods and accessories space, establishing themselves as the original American house of leather during the second half of the 20th Century. Today, Coach is available on five continents in over 1,000 directly-operated stores worldwide and have recently launched a unique collaboration with singer Selena Gomez as part of their 2017 Autumn/Winter collection.

If you’re interested in joining the Coach programmes, please use the following MIDs in the publisher dashboard.

DE: 42590

FR: 42587

UK: 40530

AUS: 41378

US: 37299

Rakuten Marketing shortlisted for Industry Choice of Network in the IPMAs

Posted on August 7, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

Following a global nomination process, the Rakuten Marketing Affiliate Network has been shortlisted for Industry Network of Choice in the International Performance Marketing Awards (IPMAs). The second stage of the process is a public vote to determine the winner, and we’d be honoured if you would vote for us to win the accolade.

The Performance Marketing Awards are the largest and leading ceremony for in the performance marketing sector. In order to recognise the great work across the key regions of USA, MENA, APAC, LATAM, Western and Eastern Europe, they have launched the International Performance Marketing Awards.

Why should you vote for us?

With 16 offices and eight networks globally, our global affiliate network can process payments to 202 countries in 25 currencies. Our team not only takes pride in the innovative technology, commitment to transparency, and the customer service we deliver to clients on a global scale, we also pride ourselves on being at the forefront of the affiliate marketing industry.

The voting for ‘Industry Choice of Network’ is open and we’d be honoured if you’d vote for us. Voting is easy, simply click the link below and fill in your details and your reason for nomination.

Thank you.

Rakuten Kobo rebrands their affiliate programmes

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

Our client, and sister company, Rakuten Kobo has rebranded its affiliate programmes as part of a global strategy to unify Rakuten’s global brands.

Rakuten Kobo Inc. is one of the world’s fastest-growing eReading services, offering more than 5 million eBooks and audio books to millions of users across the world. Rakuten Kobo delivers the best digital reading experience, offering one of the world’s largest catalogues with millions of titles, award-winning eReaders and top-ranking apps.

The name change from Kobo to Rakuten Kobo will help to provide a more consistent identity to each of the services within the Rakuten Group and will lay the groundwork for our 1 billion users across the globe to more easily recognise the benefits of using more than one service.

The rebranding coincides with Rakuten’s 20th anniversary and with the launch of a new global partnership with FC Barcelona, a club with one of the most recognised and respected global brands in football today.

In light of this change, our client Rakuten Kobo has rebranded the names of its affiliate programmes to the following:

Rakuten Kobo Australia: MID 38131

Rakuten Kobo Canada: MID 37219

Rakuten Kobo U.S: MID 37217

Rakuten Kobo UK: MID 37589

Rakuten Kobo Brazil: MID 40380

Rakuten Kobo France: MID 39331

Rakuten Kobo Germany: MID 39330

For more information on partnering with Rakuten Kobo, please visit their website here.

Cross-channel Campaign: Increasing Brand Awareness and Driving Repeat Business

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Rakuten Marketing

Boxfresh, the casual men’s footwear brand, was looking to increase brand awareness and drive repeat business and loyalty in its focus markets of Germany and the UK.

Overview

Brand Introduction

Established in 1989, Boxfresh (meaning new footwear that’s ‘fresh from the box’) set off to challenge mainstream apparel trends. Created at a time when fashion was a mixing pot of cultural tribes – e.g. goths, punks, mods, etc. – yet casual wear was middle-of-the-road and unevolved, Boxfresh played a part in igniting the rise of streetwear as we know it today.

Challenges

Boxfresh’s focus markets are Germany and the UK, where the brand’s existing relatively low awareness is driven mainly by its presence in brick-and-mortar stores. Despite the links between target consumers’ values and styles and the brand’s ethos, consumers struggle to associate Boxfresh with any particular personality or strong benefit.

Campaign Goals

A clear and compelling brand identity in the consumers’ minds was identified by Boxfresh as instrumental to driving the brand forward in both Germany and the UK. Consequently, Boxfresh partnered with Rakuten Marketing with the goal of attracting new customers by communicating Boxfresh’s brand identity boldly and effectively. Conveying the similarities between the brand’s values and the consumers’ personalities was described as essential to appearing relevant to consumers. Therefore, the role the marketing mix served was, in a nutshell, to (re)introduce Boxfresh to the appropriate target consumer so as to achieve the following goals:

Increase mental availability (brand awareness)
Drive brand preference (repeat business)
Establish emotional connections (loyalty)

Strategy

Crucial Considerations

Standing out from the crowd is extremely difficult for brands – as consumers are hit with thousands of advertising messages. Thus, Rakuten Marketing made creating full-funnel, cross-channel/screen, video-led, dual-country campaigns top priority when planning display strategies.

Storytelling Technique

Campaigns were not fixated with selling a product through its features but intent on communicating the brand’s story and mission. As such, creatives applied the storytelling technique and used mostly video assets to achieve higher engagement – boosting brand awareness (prospecting) and loyalty (retargeting).

Full-funnel Strategies

Prospecting

Premium Placements > Focus was placed on brand security with highly valuable, premium inventory – through native advertising and PMPs.
Audience-based Segmentation > Employing third-party behavioural data based on Boxfresh’s desired target segment.
Contextual Segmentation > Through identifying sites fitting of the brand’s values and vision.
Lookalike Modelling > Combining first-party (Boxfresh) data – on purchasers and cart abandoners – with psychometric data, lookalike audiences were built.
Keyword Search > Target groups were built off the back of identified relevant keyword-search audiences.
Social > Ads were served on Facebook according to both demographic and interest segmentation but also through first-party-based lookalike builds.

Retargeting

Top/Mid Funnel > Homepage, category and product visitors were targeted to make them reengage with the brand they had considered but abandoned before making a purchase.
Low/Bottom Funnel > As the retargeting pool grew, purchasers and cart abandoners were targeted, ensuring consumers stayed engaged, increasing brand loyalty.

Results

Creative Performance

CTR > 233% (UK) / 800% (Germany) higher than Google’s benchmarks
Engagement Rate > 72x higher than Google’s benchmarks in the UK
Facebook CTR > 62% (UK) / 40% (Germany) higher than platform avg.
Prospecting brought 85% of new users to the site

ROAS

Retargeting ROAS > £8.31 (UK) / £2.50 (Germany)
Display drove 11% of all new online orders
64% of revenue resulted from Facebook campaigns
Avg. length of the purchasing journey shortened by 80% (UK) / 35% (Germany)

Attributed Value

Other channels converted at a higher rate when display campaigns were run alongside:
Conversion rates for SEO grew by 169% (UK) / 116% (Germany)
Conversion rates for PPC grew by 50% (UK) / 37% (Germany)
AOV for PPC and SEO converting journeys grew by 20%

Video Story

Discover what the Rakuten Marketing team can do for your business at www.rakutenmarketing.com or call +44 (0) 207 427 8120