What was our solution?

Silverbean delivered a structured, multi-phase strategy to realign and grow L’Occitaine en Provence’s affiliate programme between January and June 2025. The approach focused on quality over volume, audience precision and cost-efficient experimentation, with every initiative designed to drive meaningful value for both the brand and its customers, without requiring additional budget.

Tackling Low AOV with Strategic Commissioning 

A central challenge for L’Occitane en Provence was ensuring that the affiliate channel reflected the brand’s premium positioning, particularly in terms of average order values. Early activity suggested that while the brand appealed to high-intent customers, partners weren’t being incentivised or equipped to promote higher value purchases. 

Silverbean implemented a multi-pronged strategy to address this, focused on both increasing AOV and using dynamic commissioning to reward commercially valuable behaviours. The approach included:

• Publisher segmentation: The team prioritised partners whose audiences naturally aligned with L’Occitane en Provence’s premium positioning, such as card linking or closed user groups with more affluent member bases. These partners were better suited to drive higher value purchases and more likely to respond to targeted commission incentives. 
• Incentivising product bundles: Silverbean introduced temporary commission uplifts for purchases of product bundles, encouraging partners to promote multi-product orders rather than single item sales. This created a win-win; customers were rewarded with better value promotions when buying more, partners earned more per conversion, and L’Occitane en Provence benefited from larger basket sizes.
• Smart commissioning for key products and behaviours: To ensure the channel was contributing to broader brand goals, the team introduced dynamic commissioning, adjusting partner commission rates based on desired customer actions or strategic focus areas.

These included: 

• Rewarding existing customers instead of defaulting to new customer incentives
• Running AOV linked commission test with cashback and card linking partners to boost multi-item orders
• Product led campaigns, where specific SKUs were promoted through partners with strong audience alignment. One example is an exclusive offer on hand cream products with Blue Light Card. As a closed user group that provides offers to NHS staff, the partnership offered a natural match between product and audience, driving relevance and conversion. 

Strategic Publisher Selection and Programme Clean Up

The team identified a number of historic partners, particularly subnetworks, which were generating disproportionately high click volumes without contributing meaningful conversions. These partners were inflating traffic numbers and skewing performance insights, making it harder to understand what was truly driving volume. 

Silverbean made the decision to remove these partners from the programme. While this led to an initial decline in overall click volume, it significantly improved traffic quality and increased the programme’s conversion rate, a key step toward aligning the affiliate channel with L’Occitane en Provence’s premium positioning. 

With the programme no longer weighed down by low quality traffic, efforts could be focused on optimising and expanding partnerships that delivered real value. 

Scaling Closed User Group and Card-Linking Partners

Silverbean leaned into closed user groups and card-linking partnerships, both of which proved a strong fit for L’Occitane en Provence’s objectives. 

• Closed User Groups such as Blue Light Card and Easyfundraising were given strategic priority. Blue Light Card in particular, offered a well-aligned audience, NHS staff who responded well to gifting and self-care promotions. By providing exclusive codes and increasing support during gifting windows, Silverbean was able to unlock significant growth from this partner. 
• Card-linking partners became key revenue drivers. These partners allow customers to link their credit or debit cards and receive cashback or points automatically when they shop with L’Occitane en Provence. Silverbean nurtured strong relationships with two of the programme’s card linking partners, optimising placements and negotiating activity that kept spend low while ensuring prominent positioning. 

Both partner types were selected not just for reach, but their ability to drive high intent purchases with minimal budget outlay, aligning with L’Occitane en Provence’s focus on ROI.