Case Studies

Max Mara & Dentsu

Boosting high-fashion affiliate performance

The Results

Through strategic program optimizations from Dentsu and Rakuten Advertising’s premium quality partnerships, advanced technology, and innovative insights, Max Mara revamped their existing affiliate strategy for high-end fashion and outperformed in the following:

-30%

decrease in cost from new reversal process

+79%

conversion rate increase after product feed update & program optimizations

+363%

increase in clicks PoP (period-over-period)

750K+

impressions

About the Brand

Max Mara is an Italian fashion brand that specializes in high-end ready-to-wear clothing and accessories for women. The brand was founded in 1951 by Achille Maramotti in Reggio Emilia and is known for its sophisticated designs, luxurious fabrics, and timeless sensibility. The Max Mara brand encompasses the foundations of Italian quality, design, and style.

Dentsu is the agency designed for what’s next. They help clients predict and plan for disruptive future opportunities and create new paths to growth in a sustainable economy. Taking a people-centered approach to business transformation, Dentsu uses insights to connect brand, content, commerce, and experience, underpinned by modern creativity.

The Story

Max Mara and Dentsu audited Max Mara’s existing affiliate program and found opportunities where improvements could be made to outthink and outperform, ultimately driving more overall affiliate growth. These opportunities included creating more sufficient CPA placements, improving partner communications, and creating a reversal process for refunded orders.

The Rakuten Advertising Solution

Rakuten Advertising and Dentsu have a long-standing partnership of success in increasing profitability and optimization for our clients.

Dentsu is part of our Preferred Agency Services Program, which provides our affiliate agency partners with innovative tools and solutions to fuel consistent growth for our clients.

To improve the performance of Max Mara’s affiliate program, we focused on optimizing paid placements and re-vamping existing newsletters to attract new and lapsed publishers.

Leveraging Dynamic Commissioning

Trialing Rakuten Advertising Dynamic Commissioning for certain product lines to test varied commission rates to learn what performs best and optimize against those findings.

Optimizing paid placements through CPA

Negotiated ongoing BAU placements to maximize ROAS through banner, email, and push notifications.

Revamping affiliate newsletters to publishers

Aligned newsletter content to publishers’ stated interests, driving value and encouraging editorial content.

Instituting a reversal process

Outlined and facilitated a new reversal process to reduce unnecessary action costs of refunded orders.