Beauty Encounter is a specialty retailer who has earned a reputation as a popular shopping destination for affordable beauty and fragrance products. Founded in 1999 and based in Fountain Valley, CA, they evolved from a family-run wholesaler to an online fragrance retailer. As their online business developed, they wanted to increase their brand exposure and reach new customers while trimming their cost per customer acquisition. They launched an affiliate program in June 2011 to achieve these goals.
For Chief Technology Officer Thu Truong and her team, affiliate marketing ended up playing a vital role in the growth of their e-commerce efforts. Not only have they acquired new customers at a desirable cost, but they have also expanded their online presence. Truong states that their affiliate program has “given us access to productive affiliates, which is like having tens to hundreds to thousands of marketers spread knowledge of our brand name to online shoppers who normally would not know about Beauty Encounter and what we have to offer.” Throughout the first months of launch, the Beauty Encounter team established a solid set of publishers to achieve their branding and direct response goals.
In addition to analyzing performance and recruiting new publishers, Beauty Encounter launched an incentive program to motivate their top publishers. Truong explains, “We offered higher commission rates and exclusive offers to affiliates with a strong track record of driving sales for us. The incentive program motivated our top publishers to increase exposure of our brand and promotions, and really allowed these partnerships to flourish.” In the end, the results spoke for themselves. After just five months, Beauty Encounter saw their affiliate conversion rate increase by over 7%, ultimately helping to boost their total online sales by 7% as well.
To learn more about Ms. Truong and the Beauty Encounter affiliate program, read the full case study.
Posted by Will Heidrich, Account Manager
