Marketing Strategies

Publisher Spotlight: 55Haitao

Rakuten Advertising recently sat down with Josephine Nieh, Director of Strategic Partnerships at 55Haitao (55海淘), to talk about riding the wave of the rapidly booming affiliate industry in China.

Josephine Nieh, 55Haitao

Josephine Nieh, 55Haitao

In this interview, Josephine explains why now is the time to put China on your radar.

Tell us a little bit about your brand.

Josephine: 55Haitao has been in the affiliate industry for over 10 years and we are proud to say that we are a Platinum Publisher on the Rakuten Advertising Affiliate Network. We are the largest loyalty site in China that not only offers cashback, but also rich content for our highly engaged users. Our newsletter reaches 5 million customers and our site garners an average of 2.5 million impressions daily.

Our top performing advertiser verticals include beauty, luxury, fashion, sneakers and streetwear. Three quarters of our audience is based in China, but we do see traffic from other parts of the world including the US, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and other regions across Asia-Pacific. Most users are aged between 20-40 years and skewed towards a female audience.

What sets you apart from publishers in your category?

Josephine: We’re not just a loyalty site. We have a full-time, world class editorial team that constantly stays on top of new trends and new brands, making recommendations to our very engaged user base daily. We are able to reach consumers in multiple stages of their shopping journey, whether they are simply researching and being inspired by new products or committing to purchase, all on one site. Add together compelling cash back rates plus persuasive content and you’ve got yourself a sale.

How do you help advertisers add value and drive incrementality?

Josephine: Let me give you an example. Over the years we have built a strong partnership with Clinique by running exclusive campaigns with competitive cash back rates that resonate well with our users. We provide quarterly placement packages to further promote these offers. We also frequently monitor campaign performance and customer feedback and share this information with Clinique to further improve the program. As a result, we saw year-to-date sales and orders increase by 105% and 49% respectively compared to the year before.

Our team also worked with Clinique to try content seeding through influencers and live stream channels which helped boost brand awareness across our audience base, increasing click-through rate by 50% year-over-year.

What excites you about the affiliate marketing industry and where it’s headed? What new innovations will we see from you this year?

Josephine: The e-commerce industry is undoubtedly growing at a rapid pace around the world, but last year, China was the only major market to report economic growth. We are seeing even more opportunities within the affiliate industry in this market as it continues to flourish.

At 55Haitao, we plan to further expand our teams in each department to cater for this growth. We aim to amplify our collaboration with micro and macro influencers, particularly those on China’s top social platforms such as Little Red Book, Douyin and Bilibili. Through this, we are confident that we will be able to drive more new-to-file customers within the Asia-Pacific region than ever before.

Why did you choose to partner with Rakuten Advertising?

Josephine: Rakuten Advertising has a simple and user-friendly platform for publishers. Its reporting tool provides the data we need to easily optimise campaigns. More importantly, Rakuten Advertising’s account management team is extremely dedicated and knowledgeable, and the network services the best-in-class beauty and fashion brands from around the world.

Get in touch with us today to find out how you can partner with 55Haitao. To hear more from our publishers in the future, subscribe to our blog today.

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