Hobbycraft Affiliate Program Case Study
The Client
Hobbycraft are the largest arts and crafts retailer in the UK. They provide ideas for hundreds of exciting and inspirational activities with their value essentials, arts and crafts materials, cooking and baking supplies and knitting, stitching and haberdashery items.
Objectives
Hobbycraft approached us in 2013 to help them launch an affiliate program and maximise their online performance. They gave us a target to reach £1 million in revenue through the channel within 2-3 years – we achieved that within the first 12 months! We now have a target to achieve a 20% YOY growth. This year Hobbycraft decided that working with voucher sites wasn’t suitable for their business, as they don’t run voucher codes. A key challenge for us is to manage the program without voucher sites, still achieving a 20% YOY growth.
Strategy
We launched the Hobbycraft affiliate program in July 2013. We carried an initial recruitment strategy to work with all the big cash back and voucher sites, to get the program up and running and sales ticking over nicely. Our next step was to reach out to the more long tail affiliates, nurturing a hub of content and craft blogger affiliates which we knew would be a great match for Hobbycraft. Getting the retargeting affiliates on board really gave the program and boost and is still successfully generating huge revenue for the program.
Day-to-day management of the program includes sending out regular communications to the affiliates detailing the current offers and promotions Hobbycraft are running. We manage the promotional budget generating a positive ROI, by selecting tenancies and promotional packages that offer the most opportunity for the program. Ensuring Hobbycraft’s affiliate strategy follows their overall online marketing strategy, we work to maximise their online performance by carrying out weekly and monthly analysis and reporting on those results.
Results
- Revenue in 2014 well exceeded target for the first full year of the program
- Revenue increased by 420% in 2014 compared with 2013
- Currently on target for 20% growth in 2015, without using voucher sites
