Avelon wins Best Value, Best Functionality & Features, Best Ease of Use and Best Customer Support on Capterra. Automating ambassador sales & driving eCommerce revenue with Ass Savers
Whilst the business may have a humorous name, there’s nothing funny about how much of a meteoric rise Ass Savers have had in the cycling world. The Gothenburg (Sweden) based mudguard manufacturer has gone from strength to strength, becoming a renowned staple on almost every riders winter bike – and back in 2023, they really pushed the brand to new heights with an update on their renowned mudguard, the Win Wing.
The initial problems
Ass Savers didn’t have an affiliate/ambassador/influencer program, but because of their reach, they had great in-roads to working with influencers. They even had a list of high-profile cycling influencers they were ready to work with, but no way of rewarding them for posting about their products. They wanted to promote their new Win-Wing 2 so they were gifting influencers with a gift card to buy the product with free shipping and then post about the product with a discount code.
Ass Savers also had another problem: Sweden has rather specific laws about paying freelancers from other countries that aren’t contracted to their company, so they required a third party to automate payments on their behalf.
From our initial conversations, we also saw that the team didn’t have time to manage, track and payout any of the affiliates they wanted to work with.
Working with Crank Communications, the cycling focused agency owned by Bregan Koenigseker in Berlin, we advised on commission and discount code structure plus developed a basic system to onboard affiliates in bulk, which has now formed the new Bulk Invites feature that is available to all brands on our platform.
Onboarding of influencers
With 40+ affiliates that Ass Savers wanted to onboard and little time to manage them, we knew we had to develop something specifically for them and emphasise the automation of email invites and welcome messages. We got to work and developed bulk invites, whereby Ass Savers could enter all the basic information of the affiliate, add a custom email message and then a welcome message which would alter depending on the name of the affiliate.
We then also automated discount code uploads by pre-adding discount codes to their emails, which would then activate upon successful acceptance of the invitation and as soon as affiliates starting posting their discount codes, we started tracking the sales.
The incentive for influencers
Ass Savers incentivised their affiliates with a €100.00 gift card and free shipping for them to purchase the Win Wing 2 and any other products they required, plus 14-20% commission on any sales they drove through their links and discount codes. Now I know what you’re thinking: how do you know if there will be any sales off the back of this outlay? Well, you don’t – it’s a risk, just like any other marketing effort.
Think about it like this: the CPA per £10.00 spend of Google Ads are around £3.00 right now. If you can beat that 30% CPA but also get content from influencers and drive sales, then you’re winning. Ass Savers took this idea and just went with it…and it really did pay off.
The automation of everything
As we previously touched on, Ass Savers didn’t have time to manage any of these influencers, so they gave them the gift card and allowed their 3PL solution to fulfil the orders placed – but they solely relied on Avelon to onboard, track, communicate and reward them for their marketing efforts.
We did this through bulk invites, automatic creation of links and discount codes, daily, weekly & monthly sales roundups via email and even speedy payouts – but we wanted to ensure their influencers saw return faster to increase engagement. So, we increased payment speeds from 45-days to 30-days, plus handled all taxation and invoice criteria for each influencer individually.
What were the results?
There weren’t any KPI’s or targets set when Ass Savers signed up, because it was the first influencer campaign they embarked on. Saying that, we think it’s been pretty fruitful for them with next to no input from them since they signed up.
“The highly automated service in combination with a top notch personal service is the key combination for a small brand like us. A successful sales and marketing channel with minimal admin and a reasonable price is very hard to find these days!” – Staffan, Ass Savers founder.
Affiliates immediately starting driving traffic and hit 6000 clicks within 3-months and remained at a 6% average conversion rate. As Avelon works on first-party cookies, all the data collected was GDPR compliant, too.
Ass Savers saw a 600% return on investment in November, 543% in December, 517% in January and 534% in February and a 100% active affiliate rate, which is absolutely staggering. Active affiliate rate means how many affiliates they had selling products in their program vs how many affiliates they actually had. Good work!
The results seem to be ongoing, too – with Staffan indicating they haven’t logged in since November 2023 and still driving an average of 550% ROI every month since February. As Ass Savers wind down their sales and focus on product development during Summer, we’re excited to see what this winter season brings for them.
Summary
- Ass Savers saw an average ROI of 550% over 6-months
- 6000 clicks to the site were driven with a 6% average conversion rate
- Discount codes never gave more than 10% off the total sale and they gave 10% commission to the affiliate