Case Study: Building a Multi-Brand Niche Affiliate Program
Edmund Scientifics and Science Kit Companies
Situation
Science Kit, a 50 year old catalog company was running a niche affiliate program for their Edmund Scientifics brand (science and hobby products) on one of the major affiliate networks, but they program was falling short of their expectations. Science Kit engaged with Converseon to manage the Scientifics program; through niche recruiting and hands-on management Converseon boosted their sales on the network, but Science Kit still wanted more. The company has a number of other niche sites in the science, education and hobby arena, and they predicted that if they could expand their product offering through affiliates to include more of their sites and products, they could not only grow their original Scientifics affiliate program, but also boost sales for their other sites as well. The problem: not all of the sites have enough volume to warrant individual affiliate programs, in terms of technology or management.
Solution
In order to be able to afford new affiliate programs, Science Kit decided that they wanted to move away from the network. Converseon offered them an alternative in the form of the Converseon Platform, a highly flexible tracking technology back-end that Converseon customized to allow Science Kit to bring four of their brands together in one mini-network. Thus, the Science and Education Affiliate Network (SEAN) was born.
For affiliates, SEAN features a single application and login for all network sites, one place to collect stats and creative, and a single consolidated payment monthly. From SEAN, affiliates can promote a wide variety of products across all of the Science Kit sites through banners, text links, datafeeds and PPC marketing. For Science Kit, SEAN allows for economies of scale in managing the SEAN program: affiliate marketing costs are now shared across all of the participating Science Kit sites, which enables great flexibility with regards to affiliate commissions, bonuses, and incentives.
Results
The program was fully launched with four sites in November 2005. Sales for November were up 99% from the previous year, and December was up 356%; the trend continues with an average of 430% growth for the first three months of 2006.
Affiliates love the new program: the wide variety of products available, the tools and creative, the exceptional customer service, and the enhanced commissions levels and bonus programs. According to David Williams, e-commerce project manager for Science Kit, "Many vendors, both offline and online, will tell you how they like to "underpromise but overdeliver" - Converseon is the only company I have ever worked with that has actually done just that. SEAN went from a complete standstill in mid-November to over $250,000 in sales in less than four weeks."
We invite you to learn more about Converseon's affiliate management services and our Converseon Platform alternative tracking solution.
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