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Ecommerce Essential

B2B Brand Evolution

Secured majority market share, exceeding growth targets by ↑50%

A global ecommerce leader seeking to strengthen its North America brand recognition was preparing to launch expanded consumer targeting capabilities for its online rewards site when the global Covid19 pandemic swung economic markets into unprecedented volatility. Suddenly, options to curb financial uncertainties – like cash back rewards – became vital crisis strategies.

By elevating the product launch as a strategic brand evolution meeting a pivotal market need, we successfully seized a rare opportunity to reframe our competitive playing field – outgrowing niche affiliate sites to become an ecommerce advertising platform with consumer targeting tools that rival Google and Meta. Plus the shopping incentives needed to keep consumers spending through the pandemic recovery era.

Reporting and predicting market-shaping behaviors through executive thought leadership underscored the credibility of the company’s newfound market leadership, creating corporate exposure alongside household names, like Paypal, Goldman Sachs, Klarna and Honey, setting the stage for high-profile B2C marketing investments, featuring Super Bowl, Olympic and World Cup ads.

Elevating the brand’s strategic positioning aligned the business with an unexpected revenue boom for winning pandemic-era shopping strategies, exceeding market predictions by 47% and accounting for ↑50% of ecommerce partnership dollars.

FEATURED STRATEGIES

Brand Vision & Product Launch: Leveraging a strategic product launch to promote a pivotal shift in corporate strategy elevated the conversation beyond product features and performance – it established the company’s credibility as a category innovator and a compelling, more cost-effective alternative to Google and Meta for scaling customer acquisition.

Retail Research Program: The volume and range of Rakuten’s brand partners let us model unique research into business trends and consumer behaviors, which we combined with market data to recommend ad optimization strategies that reinforced the sophistication of a newly launched consumer targeting product, while attracting increased platform investments.

Executive Thought Leadership: Packaging Rakuten’s comprehensive retail insights alongside executive expertise secured our credibility with top-tier retail reporters, leading to repeat conversations with Bloomberg, New York Times, CNBC, APM Marketplace, as well as leading retail trades. 

Bloomberg.com •

Netflix Subscriber Woes Hint at U.S. Consumer Pushback on Prices

For retailers operating bricks-and-mortar stores, it takes time to raise prices, and they have to be thoughtful about their strategy in doing so, said Ms Kristen Gall, president of Rakuten Rewards, a shopping platform that offers consumers deals and rewards from retailers.

That might not play out in the first quarter but come later this year, consumers could especially feel the squeeze, she said.

"I think retailers still do have the power to raise prices and still be okay," Ms Gall said. "The question is, do any of them overshoot and raise prices by too much and it actually turns customers away from their brand."

It is a difficult balance to strike, and while consumers are so far hanging tough in the face of decades-high inflation, they are still sensitive to prices. Data last week from retail sales and consumer sentiment offered some comfort that Americans are not ready to pull back on spending en masse just yet.

Performing All Around the World With Affiliate Marketing

The rise of ecommerce and the digitally native consumer has brought new opportunities for brands to branch out and reach consumers in new markets. The U.S. ecommerce market is certainly enormous, with revenue reaching over $767 billion in 2021 and expected to grow to over $1.3 trillion in 2025. But these numbers are still a fraction compared to global ecommerce growth, which is expected to reach over $7.3 trillion in that same timeframe.
AdExchanger •

How Rakuten Rewards Is Adapting To A New Affiliate Model – The First-Party Ad Platform | AdExchanger

Rakuten Rewards, formerly Ebates, is an 800-pound gorilla in the affiliate marketing business. Now, it has set its sights beyond the affiliate category.

“We’re busting out of the affiliate marketplace, because we can target using our own first-party data.

What we can do now is more akin to Facebook or Google - define an audience to reach for acquisition, retention, retargeting, and with the conversion power of a reward.

If you raise your cash-back rate to double digits, I can tell you that you’re going to 3x or 4x your volume on our platform. That’s really consistent."
Adweek •

Affiliate Marketing Needs a 'Big Tent' to Keep Growing

For an industry with partnerships and relationships at its core, the affiliate marketing world is shockingly siloed. Media sellers and programmatic ad-tech companies have a long history of collaboration in areas like standards and measurement. Organizations like the Interactive Advertising Bureau have dedicated working groups where partners and competitors come together to brainstorm and enact innovation, address industry pain points and find solutions that best serve all parties involved—and we...
Adweek •

The Key to Affiliate Sales for Back to School: Improvisation

Marketers are gearing up for yet another busy back-to-school shopping season, and new data shows that there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy to get consumers to open their wallets. According to an analysis by Rakuten, consumers are planning on prioritizing many different rewards incentives when doing their back-to-school shopping.For example, we found that nearly a quarter (22%) of parents prefer buy-one-get-one offers when shopping for their children’s back-to-school needs; other incentives incl...