By Nicole Bradbury, Brand Partnerships Consultant at Awin
Brands are always looking for new ways to attract new customers and increase their digital sales. One strategy is offering a gift from relevant partner brands at checkout.
The gift with purchase widget is a promotional tool that retailers can add to their checkout flow. It allows consumers to select free gifts from other brands that get added to their order. After completing their purchase, shoppers receive a follow-up email with instructions to claim their free gift offer.
The holiday season presents a great opportunity to trial a gift with purchase unit. It’s the perfect time of year to provide added value to consumers and test out campaigns ahead of next year.
Retailers may find that shoppers who encounter gift with purchase promotions at checkout convert more often and if they add the gift to their basket, they may also increase their overall spend without any extra prompting.
The best part of gift with purchase is that instead of allocating internal budget, retailers can partner with complementary brands who want to offer gifts to each other’s customers. This way, consumers can try new products with the hope that they’ll become loyal paying customers of those brands in the future.
Subscription services in particular tend to provide compelling gift offers that truly delight shoppers. Retailers who leverage gift with purchase are often consistently impressed with the strategy’s ability to boost results.
As an increasing number of brands have discovered, implementing a gift with purchase reward mechanism at the point of purchase can drive impressive results. Such as:
- Increased basket completion – by offering a gift or reward offer at the point of purchase, shoppers are more likely to convert.
- Enhanced loyalty – gifting customers at the point of purchase improves the shopping experience, allowing brands to build better relationships with shoppers.
- New revenue streams – by monetising their point of purchase inventory, brands can earn inbound revenue streams from advertiser ad-spend.
For the advertiser being promoted, offering a gift or reward offer on another brands website can be a fantastic way to acquire new customer audiences and harness valuable first party data, as showcased by deodorant brand Wild.
What retailers can learn from Wild
Wild, a fast-growing and sustainable UK deodorant brand, effectively implemented a gift with purchase strategy with SimplyCook. This partnership provides some interesting key takeaways for retailers who are looking to provide additional value to their customers, and improve key performance metrics. These include:
- Align Offers with Brand Values: Choose advertiser offers that resonate with your brand values. For Wild’s eco-conscious customers, a healthy recipe subscription box was a natural fit and resulted in an 18% conversion rate.
- Partner with Specialists: Collaborate with specialised providers like Tyviso for efficient execution. This allows you to focus on finding suitable advertiser partners for their audience.
- Build a Scalable Retail Media Network: Beyond increased basket completion, Wild generated substantial, five figure, inbound commission in the first month of their campaign. Hosting a gift with purchase ad unit can help retailers to create their own retail media network and capture advertiser ad-spend.
Wild have also expanded their gift with purchase ad-unit into other markets, including DE, US, and AU, which other retailers might find beneficial and can help maximise profits in challenging times.
My top tips for positing, and launching, your own gift with purchase strategy
Wild saw incredible success and have continued to enhance their retail media network to drive continued value for their business. Here are some of my top tips for those considering a gift with purchase strategy:
- Select advertiser offers that complement your own brand values. Your customers want added value, but it should feel native to their shopping experience. Relevancy is key to engagement.
- Negotiate advertiser offers that provide value. Again, adding value to your customer’s shopping experience is key. Providing your customer with a gift or a free trial tends to work better than a percentage discount.
- Promote the gift in your checkout. Make the gift visible and clear to redeem. For every redemption you generate inbound revenue, so make it easy for the customer to identify the gift.
- Implement robust tracking and measurement. Both you and the advertiser will want to measure campaign performance. Consider ways, such as using a tracking platform, to measure your gift with purchase campaigns.
- Consider a specialist solution provider. You can remove the need for lengthy and costly development resource by partnering with solution providers that can support your gift with purchase integration.
The success of any gift with purchase ad-unit also hinges on continued optimisation and testing. Do not be alarmed if a partner offer does not resonate with your customer audience. Take it is as a learning and pivot your partner strategy for your next campaign.
A well-executed gift with purchase strategy can not only incentivise purchase intent but can also harness powerful customer insights to fuel your future partner growth potential. With the right partner offers and implementation, a gift with purchase ad-unit could form an integral part of your digital retention and growth strategy.
If you would like more information or would like to connect with Wild, please contact [email protected].
Published 21/11/2023
