Generating leads with affiliate marketing: strong strategy and impressive results

The partnership

During one of our regular affiliate catch-ups with Philips, it emerged that the brand was on track to miss their lead gen targets for the year. Philips were unaware that using their affiliate marketing channel to close the gap was an option. That’s where the partnership with iO began.

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Challenge

Designing an effective lead gen strategy for multiple European territories with a CPL under €3.

Solution

Establishing a dedicated lead gen team to expand the affiliate marketing campaign to multiple markets and industries of Philips.

About Philips

Philips is a Dutch electronics conglomerate founded in 1891, primarily focused on medical devices. The company is an industry leader and employs more than 77,000 people.

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How we approached it with the Lead-Gen Squad

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Philips' question — and iO's answer

Philips wanted to introduce two business units — Personal Health and Domestic Appliances — to different markets in Europe, namely the UK, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

For this, our experts selected a number of partners who could deliver high-quality leads, with the required volumes to achieve the set targets. By managing budgets tightly and effectively, we were able to identify and grow several focus markets.

Philips: a true lead gen machine …

Using various methods (email marketing, sweepstakes, and incentivised quizzes), we generated leads. In both divisions, we went to work with different creative displays for products — targeting different demographics.

Through extensive testing, we found that a fixed discount of €10 generated more conversions than 10-15% discounts. As a result, we arrived at the same incentive model in all countries.

We also always maintained clear and transparent communication with Philips and ensured that all leads complied with GDPR legislation.

Thanks to strong communication between country managers and publishers, it soon became clear that several partners were active in multiple countries. This allowed us to scale up internationally quickly and efficiently — and Philips had partners of the right calibre at every stage.

… that delivers results

Our approach paid off. In Q1 2022, we achieved an average global CPL rate of €1.54 for the two business lines, and in Q2 2022, that CPL rate was €1.61.

As it turned out, running this campaign through affiliate channels was up to 10x cheaper than it would have been through other channels.

The Philips CRM database grew substantially thanks to our affiliate marketing efforts:

35K+ leads in Q1 (40% above target);
35K+ leads in Q2 (16% above target);

In 2022, affiliate marketing provided more than 50% of leads in just 6 months.

We helped Philips with

Nice numbers!

10x

cheaper

35K+

leads in Q1

40%

above target

1.54 €

average global CPL rate

An award-winning project

In 2023, this project won a Partnership Award - Bronze in "Best partnership optimization strategy".

We couldn't be more proud of this recognition. It's a testament to our intensive collaboration with the client and the right blend of expertise and skills.

More awards that we've won

Newly assembled team

Philips Personal Health and Domestic Appliances traditionally work in silos. In this project, however, it was necessary to break those silos. We organised joint meetings so that the parties involved could learn from each other, discuss performance and market differences, and build successful partnerships.

Philips and iO have been working closely together for more than four years, and the affiliate team is only growing stronger.