Know your Dates: 2023 Retail Marketing Calendar

To further help you get the most out of your affiliate programme during shopping peaks, our experts have shared the strategies you need to leverage major retail events and drive success:

Stay ahead of the competition

It’s never too early to understand how your audience is shopping during peaks events. We’re seeing a trend of sales periods lasting longer than usual, with sales in the UK growing by 42% YoY on the Monday before Black Friday in 2022. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, you can’t afford to wait until the last minute to share promotions.

In response to this shifting behaviour, brands who adopt an always-on strategy maintain visibility all year round. To further engage with customers regardless of where they are in the buying journey, utilise a full-funnel approach and experiment with content, influencer and subnetwork publishers to build awareness in the early months. When retail events are around the corner, they’ll be educated about your brand and ready to convert.

Use your publishers and network

Remember your publishers are a wealth of information. They know your audience inside and out, and it’s vital to communicate your brand’s commercial objectives with them at all times. Like Alex Short from PerformID (MyAmexShopping) said, “Partnerships are about sharing best practices.” Connect with publishers for real-time consumer trends and insights to stay agile in tweaking affiliate strategies, especially when you’re in a market that follows a different retail calendar.

Additionally, to exceed your performance goals, partner with your top 10 click and order active publishers to optimise your programme through exposure opportunities. Make sure they’re aware of the events that are key to your brand to deliver the biggest wins in times of uncertainty.

Benchmark with better data

Being asked to do more with less is a challenge for marketers. Advertisers can better understand how to optimise campaigns using our industry-first On-demand Benchmarking tool to compare programme performance to industry benchmarks. It also supports advertisers in advocating for more affiliate investment. Additionally, using affiliate forecasting tools means brands can make better strategic decisions. Based on the mix of publishers and commission rate changes, you can receive performance insights to further optimise results from last year.

To avoid the risk of testing new strategies during peak periods, identify the smaller events in your market and to test-and-learn. Taking the learnings from the data, you can make smarter campaign decisions and optimisations during the larger retail peaks.

It’s time to roll up your sleeves and scribble down the events on your calendar! Subscribe to our blog to stay updated with insights and strategies from Rakuten Advertising.