The Holiday Affiliate Campaign Exceeded client Expectations, Driving Record Performance For Carhartt.
Results
- Achieved an increase in revenue YoY during the 2024 Cyber 5 holiday
- Saw an increase in new customer acquisition
- Drove a 16% year-over-year improvement in conversion rate
Capabilities
- Affiliate Marketing
- Customer Loyalty Strategy
- Data-Driven Approach and Optimization
Industry Description
Established in 1889, Carhartt is a global premium workwear brand with a rich heritage of developing rugged products for workers on and off the job. Headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, with approximately 5,800 associates worldwide, Carhartt is family-owned and managed by the descendants of the company’s founder, Hamilton Carhartt. For more information, visit www.carhartt.com.
Overview
Carhartt set its most ambitious eCommerce goals for 2024, aiming for record revenue and significant new customer growth. However, the brand faced several challenges as it approached the crucial holiday season—its busiest period of the year. These included inflationary pressures on consumer spending, a shortened holiday shopping window due to a late Thanksgiving, increased competition, and the added noise of an election year.
To meet these ambitious targets, Carhartt partnered with media agency of record January Digital and affiliate platform Impact to implement a full-funnel affiliate strategy. This approach aimed to drive incremental revenue, attract new customers, and leverage top-tier affiliate publishers—all while preserving the brand’s premium profile.
A key factor in the strategy’s success was advanced publisher segmentation. By analyzing publisher types and incrementality, Carhartt optimized its investments to focus on the most profitable opportunities using both Impact and Adobe Analytics’s last touch models.
Daily optimizations informed by media mix modeling and incrementality testing ensured a diversified, high-performing media mix throughout the season to drive the greatest business impact. This allowed Carhartt to reduce investment in less incremental channels and reallocate investment further up the purchase funnel to attract new customers.
Goals
As Carhartt prepared for the Cyber 5 holiday season, the brand set ambitious affiliate goals: drive significant revenue growth, acquire new customers, and strengthen loyalty with existing ones. Shifting away from traditional coupon-based strategies, Carhartt focused on loyalty partners and content sites to attract high-value customers with larger average order sizes.
To achieve these objectives, Carhartt leveraged key partnerships with Rakuten and Capital One, while diversifying placements across multiple publishers. These collaborations were instrumental in hitting revenue targets and expanding reach during the peak traffic period.
Challenges
To drive success during Cyber 5, Carhartt leveraged insights and tools from Impact to identify top-performing partners and optimize affiliate relationships. Rakuten emerged as a key partner, while Impact helped uncover additional content affiliate partners crucial for expanding reach. Key features of the platform—including YoY comparison overviews, real-time data updates, custom contracting for dynamic commissioning, and partner-specific promotions—enabled precise planning and execution. Scheduling tools like Calendar CPA Scheduling ensured campaigns were perfectly timed, while automated reporting provided actionable insights on partner performance.
Carhartt also implemented targeted strategies to incentivize partners, including higher CPA rates, tiered commission structures, and exclusive product feeds. These efforts motivated partners to maximize their impact during the critical sales period. With real-time data from Impact, Carhartt maintained strong partner communication, quickly adapting strategies to optimize performance.
Results
Carhartt and January Digital’s 2024 Holiday full-funnel eCommerce campaign exceeded both client expectations and industry benchmarks, driving record performance for Carhartt. Key results include:
- Revenue Growth: Achieved an increase in revenue YoY during the 2024 Cyber 5 holiday with the overall eCommerce business surpassing revenue goal.
- New Customer Acquisition: Saw an increase in new customer acquisition, driven by retargeting efforts and high-conversion tactics across multiple affiliate placements.
- Improved Conversion Rate: Drove a 16% year-over-year improvement in conversion rate, driven by strategic paid placements and collaboration with loyalty publishers.
- Loyalty Program Growth: Experienced an increase in Loyalty Signups on Cyber Monday, driven by paid placements promoting the 5X Loyalty promo.
- Optimized Campaign Performance: Leveraged impact.com’s real-time tracking and reporting tools, enabling continuous optimization and ensuring Carhartt exceeded its holiday goals.
