Unlocking a new marketing channel
Hawaiian Shaved Ice, a top name in shaved ice products, teamed up with their affiliate agency, Apogee, to explore opening new marketing channels. Having successfully launched a D2C affiliate program the previous year with Apogee’s assistance, the brand sought to further amplify their affiliate initiatives. This led to the exploration of a complementary affiliate marketing channel directing traffic to Amazon. Through their collaboration with Apogee, Hawaiian Shaved Ice discovered Levanta, an affiliate marketing platform for Amazon sellers, purpose-built to enable merchants to open their own Amazon affiliate marketing program.
Adopting a market leading platform
Levanta offers Amazon sellers an all-in-one solution for launching and growing an Amazon affiliate program. Integrating the affiliate platform is as simple as linking an Amazon account to import brands and products. The platform enables sellers to automatically earn Amazon’s Brand Referral Bonus to offset commission costs – and features a Creator Marketplace to find new affiliates, publishers, and influencers.
Finding success fast
Apogee’s implementation of Levanta delivered an ROI fast. By month five, their revenue on Levanta was already equal to their D2C program that launched 12 months prior. Apogee’s affiliate recruitment strategy was the primary driving factor in this swift growth – with an initial focus on heavy-hitting creators that could delivery early success and attract other affiliates. This network effect Learn more on the next page!
” Our strategic partnership with Apogee and Levanta has afforded us the opportunity to strengthen our e-commerce presence and expand the reach of our products to a broader audience.”
– Jennifer Naylor, Director of Marketing @ Hawaiian Shaved Ice
Strategic partner recruitment
So how did Apogee and Hawaiian Shaved Ice do it? They started by pairing their own network of affiliates with Levanta’s Creator marketplace to power an outbound partner recruitment campaign. The strategy targeted Creator’s who have had prior success promoting competitive products. After nearly three months of running their partner recruitment engine, they struck gold. A content creator with significant influence was recruited to the program, and she hit the ground running. Within her first month, she had already sold 9x the previous highest selling affiliate in the program.
The power of Private Commissions & Bonus Payments
Levanta enables Sellers to set Private Commissions and offer Bonus Payments to specific Creators. With these features, Hawaiian Shaved Ice was able to create special incentives fast for this high-influence content creator. As a result, she got started faster, and then continued to promote heavily. She made 14 posts over the next two months – and other content creators were taking notice
The network effect
As the high-influence content creator continued to add to her sales during Prime Day, other content creators had already begun to hear of her success with Hawaiian Shaved Ice’s program on Levanta. Before long, similar content creators were applying in droves in fear of missing out on – their Amazon program ballooned to over 260 affiliates. By the end of month 5, their monthly affiliate program revenue on Levanta nearly matched Hawaiian Shaved Ice’s D2C affiliate program started over a year prior. The combination of strong partner recruitment, network effect, and a powerful affiliate marketing platform had unlocked a new marketing channel
