Promotion stream and publisher communication at Netto Digital

Netto Digital has been responsible for the affiliate program since 2018. After years of working with their old agency, they were generally satisfied, but wanted fresh ideas and an even more proactive approach. In the pitch, TRG was able to prevail against its competitors with an approach centered on structured promotion and communication work.

Problem

Over a period of more than ten years, the affiliate program at netto-online.de had become highly complex, with a multitude of exclusive conditions for individual affiliates, and a large number of generic and an even larger number of exclusive vouchers in circulation. This was confusing and strained the cost-revenue relationship.

At the same time, the affiliate program was and is characterised by a variety of promotions, partly because it includes a large product portfolio with rapidly changing prices. Its online marketing is still (quite successfully) driven by the branch business, which is strongly shaped by promotions on non-food products that change weekly. All in all, this posed a number of challenges for affiliate management.

“Increase in sales by 100% compared to the previous year”

Results

Promotions

After taking over and reviewing the affiliate program, we quickly structured the ongoing promotions together with Netto Digital.

The focus was on exclusive cooperation with a manageable number of top publishers. Promotions could include an exclusive coupon code, a temporary commission increase or even temporary permission to use Netto brand names in SEA. Every month, up to five such exclusive campaigns are planned and carried out with the publishers.

All other weekly and monthly promotions are made available to all publishers and are monitored and evaluated largely automatically.

Communication:

Complex promotions, above all else, involve complex communication with advertisers and affiliates.
 

Coordination with the contact persons at Netto Digital was particularly challenging, not only because of the sheer number of promotions, but also because of their short-term nature. We quickly provided a solution by implementing the customer logbook. It allowed our account manager and the affiliate manager at Netto Digital to plan and work together interactively, quickly and clearly. This eased operational issues and made it possible to focus even more intensively on the planning and implementation of performance-enhancing measures.

As a result, the revenue generated by affiliates in the first half of 2019 was more than double that of the same period of the previous year. It’s particularly noteworthy that a significant portion of the additional revenue can be tied back to exclusive promotions with top publishers.

The cooperation with the top publishers was also dramatically intensified and improved to ensure that performance can be planned in the medium term, with the goal of achieving reliable joint planning of exclusive campaigns.

Conclusion

To avoid getting bogged down in complex affiliate programs, strategy is particularly important. In our experience, the key to success lies in, firstly, planning the right promotions and, secondly, acquiring and activating the right affiliates for each individual affiliate program. Of course, experience and excellent contacts with affiliates help.

Thanks to the consistent optimisation of both areas, we were able to double affiliate sales year-on-year together with our account. We view the increased sales, especially through the promotion of exclusive partnerships, as an outstanding success.