How a UK sustainable health and beauty brand transformed its affiliate strategy and increased revenue +200%.

The Challenge

A UK-based sustainable health and beauty brand faced a critical decision: shut down its affiliate marketing programme or find a way to make it work. The client believed traditional affiliate marketing, dominated by voucher sites and subnetworks, did not align with their values or business goals.

With major affiliates restricted, the programme struggled to deliver results. However, rather than closing it entirely, the brand agreed to trial a new UK affiliate programme optimisation strategy proposed by Gen3 Marketing.

The key objectives were:

• Removing low-value affiliates to improve conversion rates.
• Introducing a sustainable affiliate marketing approach with high-value partnerships.
• Aligning affiliate efforts with brand-led influencer collaborations.
• Fixing a broken affiliate validation process to restore trust.

The Gen3 Approach

Eliminating Low-Value Affiliates

• Removed voucher and subnetwork affiliates, which generated high traffic but poor conversion rates.
• This led to an initial drop in traffic but significantly improved audience quality and conversion rates.

Shifting to Content & Cashback Partnerships

• Introduced a strategic mix of cashback and content affiliates, ensuring high intent, engaged customers.
• Over 50% of sale-driving affiliates after the strategy shift were newly recruited partners.

Collaboration with the Client’s Influencer Agency

• While most influencer marketing moved to a separate agency, Gen3 Marketing retained key influencer affiliates.
• Seamless collaboration ensured that affiliate and influencer marketing remained aligned for long-term brand growth.

Fixing the Validation Process & Rebuilding Trust

• The client’s original validation process had a 78% decline rate, frustrating affiliates.
• After Gen3 Marketing introduced a data-driven affiliate marketing approach, the decline rate dropped to 10%, significantly improving affiliate engagement.

The Results

Year-over-Year Growth

• +200% increase in total sales
• +200% increase in revenue
• +500% increase in conversion rate, now exceeding 35%
• More than 50% of revenue-driving affiliates were new recruits
• Cost efficiency improved as revenue growth outpaced spending

The Value of a Strategic Affiliate Marketing Approach

Fixing a Broken Affiliate Validation Process

• A 78% decline rate discouraged high-value affiliate partners from staying engaged.
• Gen3 Marketing introduced best practices for affiliate validation, reducing the decline rate to 10% and restoring trust.

Retaining & Growing Key Affiliate Relationships

• Prevented the loss of high-performing affiliates through proactive relationship management.
• The affiliate programme restructuring resulted in over 50% of revenue-driving affiliates being new partners.

A Long-Term, Ethical Affiliate Marketing Strategy

By redefining its UK affiliate programme, this brand successfully transformed its performance while staying true to its ethical marketing values. The turnaround demonstrates that, with the right affiliate marketing strategy, brands can drive sustainable revenue growth in the UK market.

Without the backing of an experienced affiliate agency, it is unlikely that these results would have been achieved. The turnaround in performance and rebuilding of affiliate trust were directly driven by Gen3 Marketing’s expertise and leadership in the UK market.

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