affiliate & partnership marketing

Partner Spotlight: Shopback

GrowthOps

4 November 2021

Affiliate Marketing traditionally relied on the use of “cookies” to track the consumer journey to conversions, allowing affiliate networks to determine which affiliate created a sale.

In our latest series Partner Spotlight, the GrowthOps Partnerships and Affiliate team will sit down with industry partners to dissect the latest in all things partnership marketing. To kick things off, Partnerships and Affiliates Manager Umair Usama sat down with Shopback Head of Sales, Tom Howard.

ShopBack is the largest rewards and discovery platform in Asia-Pacific. It is the first stop of a consumer’s shopping journey, helping users make better purchase decisions and shop the “Smarter Way”.

Welcome to Spotlight, Tom. Tell us a bit about yourself and your role at ShopBack.

I’ve been around the Ecommerce space for the past 10 years, previously working for Groupon in the UK and Australia. I joined ShopBack back in 2018 as employee number one. The journey started in a humble Airbnb and we’ve become the largest cashback platform in Australia driving over $1.5 billion in sales since our launch. Currently, I’m responsible for the commercial team at ShopBack, looking after 2000+ retail brands to make sure they are getting the most of our platform.

How would you describe ShopBack?

ShopBack first launched in Singapore in 2014, with the mission of helping customers become savvy shoppers and we realised this by offering cashback to customers on their online purchases. Fast forward seven years and we now have over 28 million customers and are present in nine countries across APAC; Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea and Australia (1.5 million customers).

We’re still offering cashback to our customers and to-date we’ve rewarded customers with over $200 million in cashback. We’ve broadened our product suite to further help customers on their paths to becoming savvy shoppers. In the last 12 months we’ve launched a product search and compare feature that allows customers to search for a product, compare prices across a range of merchants. and set price alerts. We’ve introduced a gift card platform that allows customers to earn cashback on gift cards using their cashback balance and/or a Visa card or Mastercard. In Australia we’ve just launched an offline product that allows customers to earn cashback in store. Across APAC, ShopBackers are mobile first individuals aged 18-45 and it seems we’re equally popular with both males and females.

What sets you apart from all the Publishers in your category?

Our customers, our product and our brand. Having first established ourselves in South East Asia, we knew that we needed to deliver a mobile product that was far superior to anything else. We invested heavily into mobile technology and produced an award winning app that customers and advertisers love.

Our app not only provides advertisers the ability to target specific offers to segmented audiences, but it’s become a space where customers can discover new brands, find deals on brands they love and play. We know that 47% of ShopBackers don’t know what they’re looking for when they open the app, so we’ve improved discoverability for customers and opportunities for advertisers to place themselves front and centre.

How do you help advertisers add value?

Our Account Management team is second to none! They work closely with our partners to understand their overall objectives and then tailor solutions to achieve them. Thankfully our team of 155 engineers have also built unique product solutions that allow advertisers to slice up our audience and target specific customers. This drives key metrics like acquisition, retention, reactivation and GMV.

As we’ve grown our product has become a tool for discovery, with Australians opening the app 9.5 times a week on average. Today customers start their shopping journey with ShopBack. Searching for products and trusting us to share the best deals. We provide advertisers the opportunity to not only get in front of these customers, but to choose the messages they want to communicate.

How has GrowthOps helped you in achieving your goals?

GrowthOps has partnered with ShopBack closely since we launched in Australia over three years ago. The GrowthOps account management team are first class and we’ve seen some of our partnerships grow over 350% YoY. This showcases the dedication they have in growing their brand partners with ShopBack.

Let’s talk about doing something amazing together.

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