How Jos. A. Bank keeps a mature affiliate program fresh
A successful online marketing program poses its own challenge—to keep growing on top of success, marketers have to keep finding new ways to reinvigorate mature programs. One way Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. keeps driving results from its established affiliate marketing program is to give its top-producing affiliates special commission incentives to secure prime placement of links and offers on those affiliate publisher sites.
Bank, which is No. 233 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, also gives top-producing affiliates access to more detailed information on upcoming events and offers. The strategies have helped grow affiliate sales on JosBank.com by an average of 40% a year since 2001, the retailer says.
“We wanted an affiliate marketing program that would engage consumers, expand our online presence, and drive long-term growth,” says Pete Zophy, divisional vice president of e-commerce at Jos. A. Bank. DoubleClick Performics, the affiliate marketing unit of DoubleClick Inc., has been Jos. A Bank’s affiliate network services provider since 2000. Currently almost 1,000 of the affiliates in Performics’ network are active—defined as having driven at least one sale—in Bank’s affiliate program.
One example of how Jos. A. Bank and DoubleClick Performics work to drive affiliate sales is the one-day sale event the retailer held on Dec. 19, 2006, during which everything on JosBank.com was priced half-off. To encourage affiliate publishers to actively promote the sale on their sites, Bank gave them unique links and custom ads created by DoubleClick Performics to post, and it increased commission to the affiliates for sales driven through those links. Bank also offered free shipping on orders of $175 or more during the sale.
That affiliate marketing effort was key in driving online sales that were up 88% on sale day over Dec. 19 of the previous year, according to Jos. A. Bank. The incentives also put Bank in a better position to attract the active participation of loyalty- and reward-based affiliate publisher sites, the retailer says.
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