1.
Working in a niche industry:
How to tackle the acquisition
of mainstream affiliate coverage
Catherine Dunn & Christina Weaver

2.
Who is Lovehoney?
Biggest global online retailer of pleasure
products
Across 9 global markets, including the US
- our 2nd biggest market
Winning over 66 awards to date - including
the Award for Enterprise from the Queen of
England!
More customer product reviews than
any other adult merchant globally, 200k
and counting!

3.
Lovehoney - Sector Growth
The Sexual Wellbeing Market is estimated to grow to $36 billion USD by 2023, boosted by
increasing customer engagement, and by new customer influx
We aim to deliver lots of that fantastic global growth via our affiliate channel
We’re already seeing amazing engagement in the US - with affiliate sales up +92% YoY in 2019!
Lovehoney Affiliate Growth
92% Growth YoY35% Growth YoY 258% Growth YoY 87% Growth YoY

4.
It doesn’t matter what niche you are, the fundamentals of affiliate marketing remain the
same
Make sure to consider:
● Reinforce your brand messaging - to both customers and affiliates
● Ensure affiliates are familiar with the benefits of promoting your program - turn them
into brand advocates
● Make connections to reach a wider audience - explore new partnerships
● Reach out to the widest possible engaged audience, connecting positively with
affiliates, and with potential customers
Niche brands - same, but different
Remember!
Niche does not mean small

5.
Key Affiliate Pillars of Success
Build Relationships New Customer Acquisition Plan, Plan, Plan!

6.
Being niche you may not immediately spring to mind for affiliates - so work hard to
ensure you ARE forefront of their minds!
Things to consider:
● Attend affiliate events - such as Affiliate Summit West!
● Engage regularly with affiliates - host events and meetings, have regular calls, send
them emails and newsletters
● Be open to new types of affiliates
● Showcase the positive attributes of your program to aid affiliate recruitment
Build relationships

7.
Traction your affiliate channel to increase new customers
Things to consider:
● Target your program structure to prioritise new customer acquisition
● Utilise affiliate demographic reach info to find new audiences
● Target affiliates who consistently drive a high % of new customer sales
● Push specific products or ranges that appeal to new customers
● Explore working with affiliates in new markets
New customer acquisition

8.
Avoid last minute panic!! Put together detailed strategy plans ahead of time, factoring
affiliates into your marketing plans
Things to consider:
● Provide your affiliates with everything they need to promote you - think imagery,
offer details, key products to promote
● Share your promotional plans with affiliates as far ahead as possible
● This enables affiliates to factor your brand into any campaigns or events they may
be planning
● The more useful information you provide your affiliates, the more useful they will be
to your brand - and the better they will convert!
Plan ahead for best results

9.
Key Strategy Deep Dives
?!
But who even is
Build Brand Awareness Think Outside the Box Think Smarter, not Harder

10.
Normalise your brandBuild Brand Awareness
Building brand awareness should be a key priority - your sales strategy
and conversion tactics can follow
Key things you can do to build awareness:
● Get listed on the biggest traffic affiliate sites
● Run competitions
● Blogger product reviews
● Run Display
● Work closely with your PR & Marketing team - for content and context

11.
Think outside the box!
To ensure your brand stands out, you should interact with your affiliates in
more creative ways.
A couple of examples that we do at Lovehoney are:
● Run our own affiliate events
● Run creative competitions with bloggers for posts and engagement
● Run interactive commission boost campaigns

12.
Work smarter, not harder
Using your data is critical for success, and there are a few ways in which
you can use data to target your campaigns and strategy much more
effectively.
A couple of the key uses of data we use at Lovehoney are:
● Utilising your customer data for demographic and product trends
● Take into account attributed value to see the true value in affiliate
campaigns and performance

13.
Summary
Understand and
engage with your
affiliates
Don’t be afraid to
explore new
markets
Use your
demographics,
attribution and
reporting wisely
Reward
behaviours you
want to encourage
Be prepared!

14.
Catherine Dunn - Global Affiliate Marketing Manager
Christina Weaver - Senior Global Affiliate Marketing Executive
Contact the Affiliate Team at: Affiliates@Lovehoney.com
Lovehoney Affiliate Team