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28 PrecisionMarketing February 22 2008
Digital Marketing Report: Case Study
Dixons
Dixons has long been an
advocate of affiliate marketing.
In May 2007, the brand joined
Affiliate Window in order to reap
further benefits from this
growing sector
Dixons, along with the other brands within the DSGI group, has recruitment drive to get new affiliates on the program,” advises
been a keen advocate of affiliate marketing – a fundamental part
‘‘
What’s Stent.
of the e-commerce marketing plan for the brand since 2000.
“Affiliate marketing allows us to generate incremental busi- important with any
“There is an opportunity around improved communication,
not just having a good relationship with the network but also
ness volumes at an agreed cost per sale, as well as putting Dixons
brand in front of customers; who are buying or doing research program changing
developing relationships with your key affiliates. It’s about lis-
tening to them, understanding what they want and identifying
that we might not reach via other channels,” says Pat Foley, head
of marketing and operations at Dixons. networks is to
how we can meet their requests to help them deliver more busi-
ness to us, ” adds Foley.
After six years with the same affiliate network DSGI changed
to Affiliate Window in May 2007. remember to look
“We are always looking to optimising the businesses perform-
ance across all our marketing channels. Affiliate marketing is no
“The main reasons we moved was because of changes to the
team structure in Dixons,” says Foley. “We needed to review our after the affiliates,
exception and obviously we need to be up front and transparent
in what we want to achieve through regular communication to
affiliate management and our network relationship. Affiliate
Window gave us a clear account management solution that suited they are the
the stakeholders and the network. It’s all about improving our
performance and achieving our commercial objectives, in today’s
these changes.”
‘‘
Julia Stent, account manager at Affiliate Window, who has merchants
business everybody is looking to get the best return possible and
that is a key challenge going forward.”
worked with Dixons since they decided to move to Affiliate Win-
dow, agrees. “What’s important with any program changing net- biggest asset
“There are two core affiliate types associated with our pro-
gramme; firstly price comparison affiliates, largely because
works is to remember to look after the affiliates, they are the Dixons is so price competitive and has good consumer offers and
merchants biggest asset. Although many of the big affiliates work secondly paid search (PPC) affiliates. We changed the way Dixons
across different UK networks, the merchant will want to ensure managed their PPC affiliates, restricting it down to a few indi-
that all the big sales drivers are still working with them after the viduals who have different areas of expertise, which compliment
move, so care must be taken that changing their network doesn’t what Dixons do themselves. This increased the business going
adversely affect the customers or the affiliates. The only way to through this affiliate channel. We’ve also looked at content affil-
achieve this is by good communication and by providing iates, developing ideas and getting Dixons exposure through The
improved tools for the affiliates to use.” Sun and News of the World. The newly launched News Interna-
“We helped Dixons to communicate very clearly with their tional affiliate revenue model is currently lower than their other
affiliates about; what was going to happen, when it was going to income streams, it is set to grow rapidly. The relationship also
happen, what they had to do, and we advised them about the com- provides good brand exposure for Dixons who only pay for on a
pletely revamped commission structures. Most importantly we performance basis,” continues Stent.
made sure that the relationship between Dixons and their affili- “We’ve been on the Affiliate Window platform for long enough
ates was still strong and wasn’t going to be affected by the net- to now make improvements based on Awin Index data (pro-
work change over. Then we looked at implementing our gramme performance indicators provided by Affiliate Window).
technology to help Dixons operate their programme and identify We’re aware of the benefits it can deliver, the index is bench-
areas that could improve the ROI.” marked differently in different sectors, and we’re learning how
Dixons affiliate Rick Harris, managing director of the data should be interpreted in our sector. We’ve also just
www.offeroftheday.co.uk, agrees. “Technically it was very recruited additional people within the team who will join Affili-
straightforward for us, to actually swap networks it’s fairly ate Window for a training day, we’re certain that the additional
straightforward. I know others struggled with the deep linking manpower will make a real difference. We’ve been very satisfied
(taking customers straight through to a product description page) with the performance that we’ve achieved since we appointed
where it wasn’t compatible with the old ones, but these were Affiliate Window. In particular with the account management
resolved quickly and simply.“ and the way they have facilitated and developed relationships
Communication seems to be the key in this successful with key affiliates, that’s been superb,” says Foley.
migration. “By applying Affiliate Window technologies to the Dixons pro-
“Changing a network is like starting from fresh, you can fill the gramme we have enabled affiliates to generate more revenues
holes in your PPC, strip out parts that aren’t providing incre- than before, while Dixons can clearly identify this business as
mental sales, tighten up on your terms and conditions, only let in genuine incremental growth,” Stent concludes.
affiliates that you really want to work with and also use it as a big
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