Tips & Guides — 10 May 2022
Partner Marketing Movers and Shakers
In the age of connectedness, branding is so much more than simply carving your niche. In fact, carving your niche is just the first step. Today, crafting a successful brand means building a rapport with your customer — establishing your tone of voice, putting a face to the company, being visible online, and creating a community.
One way companies are working together to boost their brand profile is through partner marketing — an effective way for two or more companies to join forces and access broader audiences and customer bases.
Partner marketing is an effective strategy that gives your business the opportunity to collaborate with a like-minded business with a similar target demographic, and each business reaps the benefits. It’s a win-win!
The team here at Affise have compiled a list of brands leading the way when it comes to partner marketing. Read on for insight into the brands across a range of industries — from beauty to fintech, and homeware to healthcare – setting a precedent for others to follow throughout 2022 and beyond.
MamaEarth is an Indian-based, female-led brand committed to providing toxin-free skincare, haircare, beauty products, and baby products for all. Their mantra is ‘to spread a little love and goodness everyday’ — and one way they are doing this is by ensuring they always recycle more plastic than they use. In addition, the brand is PETA Certified — so they have never (and will never) test their products on animals.
In the age of influencers and self-made side hustlers, partnership marketing doesn’t always have to mean teaming up with another company. An influencer brand partnership can be just as effective — in fact, when MamaEarth appointed famous Bollywood actress and Celebrity Big Brother UK contestant Shilpa Shetty as brand ambassador, their sales rapidly increased.
Learn more about MamaEarth here.
Self-defined as ‘India’s Number 1 Audio and Wearable Brand’, boAt Lifestyle is a lifestyle brand that offers stylish consumer electronics. The company first set sail back in 2016 — with the aim of providing millennials with audio products and accessories that were affordable, durable, and ‘fashionable’.
Since then, boAt has grown to become a technology go-to for more than 800,000 customers — offering everything from headphones, earphones, and speakers, to travel chargers and top quality cables.
Back in 2020, boAt joined forces with celebrity designer, Masaba Gupta, to launch a limited-edition collection of unique headphones at Lakmé Fashion Week 2020. The two brands then went on to launch a whole line of products to appeal to the millennial customer — giving a nod to 70s disco in the process.
Learn more about boAt Lifestyle here.
Founded in 2007, Myntra is India’s biggest fashion eCommerce site. Initially, their business model was mostly B2B — allowing clients to personalise products like T-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, and more.
Over the years, they’ve expanded their offerings and moved away from personalisation — with their portfolio now including more than 150,000 products from over 1,000 brands.
In 2021, Myntra teamed up with London-based fashion brand, Urbanic — marking a first foray into ecommerce for Urbanic, and a new age of youth and style for Myntra.
Learn more about Myntra here.
Next up, we have Trip.com, a hotel network site helping to provide accommodation to people looking to get away. A NASDAQ listed company since 2003, the company boasts 1.4 million hotels in over 200 countries, ensuring there is something on offer for everyone.
What’s more, Trip.com also comes equipped with an impressive 2 million individual flight routes across the globe, travelling to more than 5,000 cities.
Another string to Trip.com’s bow is that of their affiliate program, which allows people to apply to work alongside the company. Their current partners include Asia Miles, Singapore Airlines, Finnair Plus, and many more – highlighting the obvious success of the program.
Learn more about Trip.com here.
Located in Mumbai, Dhani is a one-stop platform providing transactional finance and primary healthcare products to its customers. From household and kitchen items, right through to personal care, gardening tools, stationery, and more.
Last year, Dhani was approached by the Vivo Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) for an opportunity to be the men’s professional Kabaddi league of India’s official timeout partner.
This partnership gave Dhani visibility during the PKL’s live matches — Dhani’s chief marketing officer, Ankit Banga, was especially thrilled for his company to be part of a national event.
Learn more about Dhani here.
Bookmyshow is India’s largest entertainment booking service — providing showtimes, movie tickets, reviews, trailers, concert tickets, and access to events near Mumbai.
CEO and co-founder Ashish Hemrajani is the brains behind this pulsing hub of entertainment. After launching Bigtree Entertainment (the parent company which owns Bookmyshow) in 1999, Ashish launched Bookmyshow to great success.
2020 saw Bookmyshow partner with celebrity engagement platform, Tring — where fans in India, the USA, the United Arab Emirates, and countries throughout Europe are given the chance to book personalised messages and shout-outs from their favourite celebrities.
This partnership allowed Bookmyshow users to engage with their idols on a new level — bringing new excitement to the world of entertainment.
Learn more about Bookmyshow here.
GoBuy, an online eCommerce site, has a plight to allow people from all over the world to be able to buy items from the US without extortionate shipping costs. By registering as an on-site member, you will gain access to brands like Sephora, Macy’s, Barney’s, Hot Topic, and many more sites that would usually come with sky-high postage fees.
As well as this, GoBuy also have their own affiliate program, where affiliates can make up to $3,000 USD per month. The site offers a generous 10% of the sale with cookie duration of 30 days, depending on how many customers the affiliate brings in, highlighting many exciting marketing opportunities.
Learn more about GoBuy here.
eCommerce company Nykaa focuses on selling beauty, wellness and fashion products across websites, mobile apps, and 84 offline stores, and back in 2020 it made history as the first Indian unicorn startup headed up by a female. It’s also widely known for its ever growing online community for beauty lovers, and even a beauty helpline for those in need.
In terms of partnerships, back in May 2019 Nykaa acquired 20Dresses.com, a private women’s styling platform in order to help expand and enhance its private label product chain. Also in 2019, the company launched its first celebrity partnership brand with actress Katrina Kaif, called ‘Kay Beauty’. More recently, Nykaa acquired the Indian fashion jewellery brand, Pipa Bella, in order to capture the growing market for contemporary fashion jewellery in India.
Learn more about Nykaa here.
Founded in Germany, the game development company strives for sustainability in all they do, seeking the most eco-friendly methods possible. What started as a hobby quickly grew into a blossoming business venture, with their medieval strategy game ‘Tribal Wars’ gaining hundreds of new members every day.
The InnoGames team are old hands when it comes to partnership marketing, and come equipped with their own partnership program, allowing brands to pay a flat fee to work together on campaigns. InnoGames is currently partnered with BlueStacks, WeLoveX, GMX, and Digital Turbine, making it easier for all parties to push boundaries and promote their platforms.
Learn more about InnoGames here.
Vedix is a customised ayurvedic hair care regime, with products designed to address the unique problems experienced with different types of hair. All of the items sold through the brand have been formulated by a professional team of Ayurvedic doctors.
In September 2021, Vedix announced a digital marketing campaign to further promote its unique hair care range. The company partnered with Kunal Kapoor, who came on board as the face of the campaign. The actor – one of the few highly successful model turned actors in the Indian film industry – has emerged in recent years as a style icon and trendsetter, so made the perfect choice.
Learn more about Vedix here.
Itead specialises in smart homeware solutions, such as software that allows people to control every light in their house from one panel, along with Nextion HMI Display, and Airspy SDR Receivers. Equipped with almost every hi-tech homely gadget you could think of, the company strives to provide innovation and convenience for homeowners, encouraging them to live simpler lives.
When it comes to partnerships, the brand also has their very own affiliate program, allowing people that join to earn up to a 14% commission rate. To give affiliates a head start, Itead provides two well-known networks to target – ShareAsale and Commission Junction.
Learn more about Itead here.
Finally, we have the Career Wallet Group, a leading recruitment agency in the UK. The agency strives to avoid the need to search multiple job sites, utilising their many partnerships to match job seekers with their desired careers.
Teaming up with recruitment giants like TotalJobs, adzuna, ZipRecruiter, and whatjobs? has allowed The Career Wallet Group to stay ahead of the competition when it comes to new job opportunities, highlighting the mutual benefits of partnerships.
Learn more about The Career Walley Group here.
One of the best-known fast-fashion online retailers, SHEIN, was founded in 2008. With all eCommerce sector surge happening during the pandemic, the Chinese brand became a worldwide leader outpacing Amazon.
SHEIN’s wise partnership marketing strategy played a significant role in this breakthrough. The brand chose to ally with micro-influencers on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. In contrast with social media stars with millions of followers, micro-influencers deliver great results thanks to higher engagement rates.
To motivate opinion leaders to showcase SHEIN’s products, the brand sends free garments every month to those who have joined its affiliate program. Some brand ambassadors also get 10-20% commission from referral sales.
Learn more about SHEIN here.
Jumia is an African technology company working in the eCommerce vertical. The brand offers marketplace, logistics, and payment services to empower the African economy and business and provide the best experiences to customers.
To promote its brand and increase traffic, Jumia offers a robust partner program for three categories of potential partners. The company works with micro-influencers and content creators, opinion leaders, and affiliates operating in Cashback, Reviews, Email Marketing, Coupons, or similar fields.
Affiliates can start promoting Jumia right after the registration with the program, while other partners need to receive approval. All partner categories can use the company’s discount codes and compensations for sales.
Learn more about Jumia KOL here.
Partner marketing is a winning strategy for brands struggling with modern marketing challenges. While lead acquisition costs are growing and prospects’ attention is becoming harder to get, partnering with other brands, influencers, and content creators allow companies to test new channels and attract customers paying for the delivered results only.
To reap the benefits of partner marketing, brands need a reliable and robust technology solution at hand. Affise Reach has everything you need to start your first partnership campaign. With our platform, you can discover perfectly matching publishers, foster direct relationships with them, track their performance and automate routine chores, such as payments.
Written by
Affise Academy
Affise is a partner marketing platform for brands, advertisers and agencies to scale via all possible performance marketing channels. Synergy of technology and our long standing experience lets you expand your partnerships, automate every step of the campaign lifecycle and make data-driven decisions.
See all articles →
