How Awin’s SaaS technology powered Americanas’ ecommerce growth

Americanas SA is a household name in Brazil. Founded in the 1920s, it expanded its presence over the past century to become one of the country’s leading retailers, operating an assortment of popular brands such as Submarino, Shoptime and Sou Barato.  

The company set up their own in-house affiliate network seven years ago in a pioneering move for Brazilian ecommerce that proved both profitable and popular with its partners. But with the program increasingly sought after, Americanas needed a more robust, scalable affiliate solution that could match its own rapid growth as a business. 

For companies of this size, consolidation is crucial for maximum efficiency, especially across multiple brands. From data to payments and products, having a single platform that unified every aspect of the affiliate program was a key objective. Although Americanas could have continued to upgrade their in-house platform, the business saw more value in using an external solution that could immediately offer all the improvements they needed.  

Awin’s private network offering provided the perfect answer. Cutting-edge tracking and attribution capabilities housed within an easy-to-use white labelled interface that could be customized for each of the company’s individual brands.  

With instant access to a host of brand-new tech and tools within this streamlined interface, Americanas could focus its efforts on strengthening affiliate relationships without worrying about what was under the hood. 

Improving the partnership experience 

Publisher on-boarding saw one of the largest improvements. On average, it took 60 days to join Americanas’ former program due to legacy procurement procedures. With Awin’s technology handling the sign-up process, from registration all the way through to compliance checks, a new partner could be up and running in less than 24 hours. Whilst this change had a significant impact on attracting new prospects, it also played a pivotal role in the migration of existing partners too. 

Moving an entire network of affiliates to a new platform is no easy feat. But through a phased approach, Awin ensured that affiliates were migrated swiftly and seamlessly. Americanas’ partners were invited to sign-up on the private network, educated on its new features and fully integrated once tracking checks were conducted. Within six months, every existing publisher had successfully moved over. 

As Nicolas Bodin, Marketing Manager at Americanas says, “We quickly noticed a decrease in affiliates’ need for support and better integrations, and this helped us accelerate new partner recruitment and grow partner revenue.” 

Payments were also overhauled. Automatic invoicing and streamlined processes allowed more frequent payments on the private network, dramatically decreasing average payment times for publishers. Registered companies were often waiting 120 days before payment – this was cut in half to 60 days. Sole traders were also paid quicker, down from 60 days to 45 on average.  

Compared to the first month, the number of publisher payments increased 226% as partners migrated to the new platform and its processes. With consistent cashflow established and finances automatically handled end-to-end by Awin, both Americanas and their affiliates could focus on their marketing partnerships rather than financial admin. 

Similarly, the new Communications Centre transformed Americanas’ ability to keep its partners up to date on the program and brand. Its segmentation capabilities allowed it to group certain partners together in their comms, new email templates could be created in the powerful built-in editor and reporting provided a log of when and to whom every message was sent. For publishers too, the Centre provides a single, official source of communication from the advertiser, ensuring updates were received. 

Unlocking new opportunities through tech 

Awin’s products not only helped in developing Americanas’ existing partnerships but opened up completely new possibilities too.  

The voucher code attribution tool enabled the tracking of sales based on the code alone which made influencer and creator campaigns immediately much more feasible and appealing to a partner segment that tends to provide more branding than direct sales value. Similarly, Awin’s ‘payment on assist’ tool also introduced a new way of rewarding these partners for that upper-funnel contribution.  

Flexible commissioning across product categories allowed fine-tuning of margins and the ability to adjust ROI down to the individual item. This was especially important for a company of the size of Americanas with numerous brands that sit within its portfolio, each having their own extensive product range.  

All these features were supported by powerful reporting tools, allowing both advertisers and affiliates to measure their impact and analyze performance in real-time.  

Within the interface, Americanas could aggregate performance across its group with views on specific products, devices, or even individual pieces of creative. New campaigns and strategy were developed as a direct result of these capabilities, driving growth and deepening relationships with publishers. 

The platform’s tech also helped future-proof Americanas’ program. By integrating server-to-server (S2S) technology at launch, the effects of any further changes to ad tracking would be mitigated. In light of recent moves against third-party cookies from Apple and Google, as well as increasingly aggressive ad-blockers, Awin’s S2S solution ensures Americanas’ publishers will continue to be rewarded fairly for the sales they drive. 

Results 

Moving to Awin’s private network solution achieved Americanas’ most important objective – centralizing and simplifying the management of its various brands in one place. The new platform allowed an unprecedented level of visibility and control over their affiliate program, creating new, efficient processes for coordinating their partner management. 

Within six months of launch, the business could already see the benefits of making the switch to Awin’s SaaS solution across its group of individual brands: 

• +400% increase in new publishers 
• +127% additional revenue generated per quarter 
• +222% commission per quarter invested in partners  

Almost a year on, feedback from both Americanas and its partners has been incredibly positive. Both the interface and its features were highly praised by affiliates, and the new functionality played a pivotal role in driving improved performance across the business’ individual retail brands.  

By opting for Awin’s private network, Americanas has been able to take it affiliate partnerships to a whole new level. And, as the business approaches its centenary, it is well set to continue its successful growth in the age of ecommerce.  

“Migrating our affiliate program from our own platform to Awin’s solution helped improve our results and our services.  

Moving to their SaaS solution now allow us to manage a wide variety of partners easily, from influencers, buyers’ guides, vouchers and cashback to the largest loyalty programs, all in one platform. This means our sales and marketing teams can spend more of their time focused on strategy.  

Thanks to the combination of our strategic in-house team and Awin’s SaaS solution, the Americanas SA affiliates program is the marketer leader for Brazilian performance marketing.” 

Nicolas Bodin, Marketing Manager, Americanas SA