Yogi Bare: Avelon Affiliate Marketing Case Study


Yogi Bare (YB) is built around a sustainability-led, community ethos. Their products are sold worldwide, used by hundreds of thousands of yoga enthusiasts and are known for their incredible attention to detail.

Month by Month average conversion rates as an average for all affiliate brands vs Yogi Bare.

Avelon has been lucky enough to work with Yogi Bare over the past 7-months, helping them to track and grow their community affiliate program. YB have seen a staggering 1002% return on investment, thanks to a strategy that puts their social ambassadors at the heart of the action.

In this case study, we take a look at their key performance metrics, the strategy behind gaining such an incredible return and how this fit in amongst the rest of Avelon's brands, so you too can get the same return.

For ease, we've listed the contents of the article below:

  • The Yogi Bare ethos & strategy
  • What was Yogi Bare's return on investment
  • Acceptance onto program percentage
  • Active affiliates / verified sales percentage
  • Return on investment
  • Percentage of total orders vs other brands
  • Number of orders per month
  • Split of purchase types
  • Summary (you can skip to this bit if you like)

The Yogi Bare ethos

Yogi Bare was built from the love of yoga and its ability to help create new communities. We can whole heartedly say their ethos is in the right place and by supporting independent yoga studios across the world, they've been able to built communities and become a foundation from which other yoga brands can aspire to achieve.

Inspired by nature and community

Yogi Bare - Inspired by nature and community

Being so community and nature focused, Yogi Bare wanted to steer clear of discount code sites and embrace their community, so they split their affiliates into two separate categories: Yogi Bare Cubs and Very Important Bears (VIBs).

Cubs are traditional affiliates across their community who want to offer referrals to other yogi's they practice with, whilst VIBs were social-led yogi's who fit a criteria of a certain amount of followers, engagement and have previous experience working with the brand. Think of the VIBs as more 'proven affiliates' and Cubs as 'testing the water'.

Yogi Bare Cub Ambassador Program homepage

Yogi Bare also took the time to build out a custom landing page for their Ambassador program, which followed the same ethos as their branding. Instead of focusing on the word Affiliate, they leant into Ambassador wording and made it clear that what you were applying for was more than just a program: it's a family.

Yogi Bare Cub statistics


What was Yogi Bare's return on investment?

Yogi Bare's initial cost outlay was solely the team taking the time to invite all of their affiliates via the Avelon Invites feature. This feature makes it simple and keeps all communications to affiliates within the Avelon ecosystem.

YB's team also custom engraved one of a kind yoga mats for their VIBs, alongside hosting a retreat to ensure they were onboard with their brand.

One thing to note is that YB is incredibly careful about who they let into the program. The below table shows the average percentage of acceptance into affiliate programs vs Yogi Bare's acceptance.

% of affiliates that are accepted vs the average

With the lower acceptance % and the team taking the time to really onboard new affiliates, the % of affiliates who drove sales vs the average was also incredibly high, and continues to rise and they dedicate more time to nurturing relationships. As you can see from the graph below, Yogi Bare's % is 100% higher than the average across the platform.

No. Affiliates with sales vs no. affiliates in program

On average, 25% of all affiliate programs on Avelon get a return of 800 - 1000% per month. Whilst this doesn't take time of the team into account, it's worth noting that this number has cost of commissions, cost of clicks (optional) and a variety of other factors involved.

The amount of time spent working on your affiliate programs also reduces by an average of 14% after the first 6-weeks, followed by a steady 30% of maintenance vs original set up time every week from that point on.

Yogi Bare immediately saw a huge increase in orders from when the program went live. Within 3-months, YB became one of the top affiliate programs on Avelon and continues to grow month on month.

Percentage of orders vs other brands. Yogi Bare sits in the upper echelon of brands using affiliate marketing as a revenue driver.

Of course, it goes without saying that Black Friday was a huge say for Yogi Bare. 45% of their total sales comes from the week surrounding the discount day, as they offered consumers 10% of their product through affiliates, whilst offering affiliates 10% commission, too.

One other point to note, was the split between types of purchases. QR codes are, on average, 3.5% of total affiliate sales across all Avelon driven purchases, but QR codes were much higher through Yogi Bare's affiliate program. Once again, this is down to their referrals / in-person affiliate push for yogi's practicing together and empowering yoga teachers by gifting them product to test, along with a QR code and a link.

% split of purchase types for Yogi Bare. QR codes were 15%. Link clips at full RRP were 62.5% and discount codes were 22.5%


Summary

The key performance metrics behind Yogi Bare's success are undeniable, but here are the top line points:

  • Yogi Bare were meticulous in their ambassador search and were incredibly selective. The acceptance onto their program was just 15% whilst the average across the affiliate industry is 55%.

  • Yogi Bare didn't push for sales, they pushed for content and natural reviews and referrals between other yogi's. QR code scans were 15% of their total sales, which is 500% higher than the industry average and shows more peer-to-peer sales.

  • YB split their affiliates into two categories: Cubs and VIBs. This allowed them to test the water with lower percentage affiliates before moving them up to VIB status.

  • Their percentage of active, selling affiliates was over 100% higher than any other affiliate program on our platform at 70%.

  • Yogi Bare's Return On Investment was 1002%.

  • YB stayed in the top 12.5% of affiliate programs by volume every month.

  • YB's order volume in November was 45% of their total affiliate sales.


Fancy getting your hands on some incredibly durable, sustainable yoga mats? Check out Yogi Bare's website here or sign up to their Ambassador Program here.

Why not learn what the average commission percentage across the affiliate industry is or find out how much of your total revenue should come from affiliate marketing?

If you'd like to learn more about Avelon and how our zero-fee affiliate platform can help you drive more sales, be sure to get in contact by emailing hello@avelonetwork.com or sign up via the sign up portal.