Is your mature affiliate programme running on autopilot? Huawei and Tradedoubler show how deliberate reinvestment and smarter publisher segmentation delivered 87% revenue growth without changing the commercial model.
Campaign Objective: Unlocking a Second Phase of Growth
Huawei is a global technology brand with a portfolio spanning smartphones, laptops, tablets, audio devices and wearables.
Operating in a mature and highly competitive market, Huawei UK already had an established affiliate programme. The challenge was to unlock a new phase of growth: moving affiliate from a supporting channel towards a core revenue driver without sacrificing efficiency or fundamentally changing the existing commercial framework.
The ambition was to build sustainable growth by strengthening the programme itself: understanding where publishers could contribute most effectively, expanding the partner ecosystem and investing in opportunities with the greatest potential to scale.
The objective was therefore to significantly increase the scale and commercial contribution of affiliate marketing while maintaining efficiency and building a stronger foundation for long-term growth.
Strategy and Approach: Invest Where Performance Points
Huawei and Tradedoubler focused on getting more growth from the existing affiliate framework.
The strategy started with a more sophisticated view of the publisher ecosystem. Instead of managing publishers as one group, the aim was to understand their different roles and growth potential, using factors such as intent, scale and incrementality to guide decisions.
A second principle was deliberate reinvestment. Rather than treating efficiency primarily as a reason to contain affiliate spend, Huawei was prepared to invest more where performance indicated an opportunity to generate additional scale. Performance-linked incentives supported this approach by aligning increased investment with publisher activation and growth.
Finally, affiliate was brought more closely into Huawei’s broader commercial planning. The aim was to move beyond maintaining an established programme and manage affiliate as a strategic revenue channel with clear opportunities for long-term expansion.
Execution: Analyse, Activate, Invest, Optimise
The approach was implemented and continuously optimised over a 12-month period, with activity focused on building sustained growth rather than relying on individual promotional peaks.
- Analyse and segment the publisher base: Existing publishers were assessed according to factors including intent, scale and incrementality. This helped identify where additional growth potential existed and where greater activation could deliver value.
- Expand the partner ecosystem: The programme increased activity across a broad mix of publisher types, including cashback, Google CSS, display, voucher and comparison platforms, creating multiple routes to reach customers and generate incremental growth.
- Invest behind growth opportunities: Performance-linked commission incentives were used to encourage additional publisher activity, while increased commission investment supported greater engagement and scale.
- Measure and optimise continuously: Performance was reviewed throughout the year, allowing activity and investment to evolve as opportunities emerged. Publisher performance, investment decisions and wider commercial priorities were considered together rather than in isolation.
This created a continuous process of analyse, activate, invest and optimise within Huawei’s existing CPA framework, enabling successful activity to scale without fundamentally changing the programme‚Äôs underlying commercial model.
Results: 87% Affiliate Revenue Growth
The programme delivered strong and consistent growth over the 12-month period.
Year on year, Huawei achieved:
- 87% growth in affiliate revenue
- 61% increase in sales
- 90% growth in clicks
- 16% increase in average order value (AOV)
The results demonstrate growth across several dimensions. Traffic increased significantly, but the impact went beyond generating more clicks: sales rose by 61%, while the 16% increase in AOV contributed to revenue growing even faster, at 87%.
Importantly, this was sustained growth rather than a short-term promotional spike. The programme delivered consistent progression across the period while continuing to operate within its established commercial framework.
Challenges: Scaling Without Starting Again
Finding new growth in a mature programme: With an established affiliate programme already in place, simply continuing existing activity was unlikely to deliver the required level of growth. Publisher segmentation helped identify new opportunities within the existing ecosystem, while expansion across different partner types created additional routes to scale.
Scaling without reinventing the commercial model: The objective was to accelerate growth while continuing to work within Huawei’s established CPA framework. Rather than introducing a completely new model, the programme used performance-linked incentives and increased investment to encourage publisher activation and scale.
Balancing scale and efficiency: Greater investment needed to translate into sustainable commercial growth. Data-led publisher management helped direct attention towards partners and activities with the strongest potential, while ongoing optimisation ensured investment remained connected to performance.
Key Learnings for Advertisers: Rethink the “Steady-State” Channel
- Mature affiliate programmes can still deliver significant growth.
An established programme should not automatically be treated as a steady-state channel. Revisiting publisher strategy, investment and commercial planning can reveal substantial opportunities for further growth.
- Understand the role different publishers play.
Publishers contribute in different ways across the customer journey. Segmenting partners according to factors such as intent, scale and incrementality can provide a stronger basis for optimisation than treating the publisher base as one homogeneous group.
- Integrate affiliate into wider commercial planning.
Affiliate can deliver greater strategic value when it is considered alongside broader business objectives rather than managed as an isolated acquisition channel.
The Huawei case demonstrates that maturity does not have to mean stagnation. Established affiliate programmes can unlock another phase of growth by taking a more structured approach to publisher management, investing deliberately in the ecosystem and connecting affiliate more closely with wider commercial planning.
Read more on this Tradedoubler case study
