Get Jolly With It: Increase Your Holiday Affiliate Traffic Like J.Crew

The holidays are well known for some of the year’s biggest sales and best deals. It’s when eCommerce companies (among others) turn up their digital marketing heat to gain leads and hit Q4 goals.

Want a way to hit those high notes?

Run an affiliate program and offer special deals to make your numbers soar through referral traffic.

Let’s analyze jcrew.com for example. The retailer did an excellent job of being agile, watching its affiliate partners closely in November, and making adjustments to its strategy come December to see success.

Let’s dive into exactly what the trendy brand did, and how you can replicate the same victory this holiday season with your own affiliate networks.

Online traffic > mall traffic

No one likes sitting in a traffic jam, especially during the peak holiday shopping season. On the flip side, everyone loves watching those website visits shoot up.

Looking at jcrew.com’s marketing channels on Similarweb Competitive Analysis tool, we can see that the brand grew from 142,900 in November 2020 to 169,900 thousand in December 2020 in referral traffic, an 18.91% increase.

This is a prime example of how when you want to get more, you have to do more.

Instead of just sitting around and hoping for more traffic, jcrew.com proactively adjusted its strategy to see results.

But where is all that traffic coming from?

Traffic doesn’t just appear out of nowhere.

On its mission to lift sales, jcrew.com worked with 137 referring websites in November and jumped to 153 in December. The 16 extra partners proved rewarding, ultimately lending a helping hand to the increase in traffic.

But the big factor here is slickdeals.net traffic.

The slickdeals.net difference

Jcrew.com saw solid numbers in November 2020 but lost out in November on slickdeals.net, one of the biggest players in the affiliate space.

The marketing team at jcrew.com must have recognized that the coupon and rebate giant wasn’t getting enough of its attention.

Ultimately, jcrew.com was getting outperformed by competitors in the affiliate arena, so it had no choice. The retailer adjusted its strategy to add more products, deals, and coupons to entice customers on slickdeals.net.

The shift was massive, going from under 5,000 in incoming traffic from slickdeals.net in November to over 14,000 in December, accounting for a 320.96% increase.

Get slick, stay agile with your affiliate marketing

We want you to ring in the New Year with met KPIs and more traffic than you could have anticipated.

Here are some key takeaways from jcrew.com’s success to get you there:

• Pick the right affiliate partners for your products and services
• Identify where you’re winning and where you’re losing to competitors
• Adjust your strategy to add strong, relevant affiliates to the mix based on the time of year and where your customers look for deals
• Know the leading platforms, like slickdeals.net, and add more incentives for customers on these platforms to see your web traffic increase

While we can’t predict what next year holds, we can guarantee fresh insightful data in your future with Similarweb – and that’s certainly worth popping the bubbly for.

Get more digital marketing holiday optimization tips with our Display and PPC holiday insights articles.

by Chelsea Feil

Marketing Intelligence Specialist

Chelsea, a storyteller and data enthusiast, graduated with a B.A. in Media and Communications. She enjoys sunsets, beach frisbee, yoga, and exploring new places.