Orders from content partners increased by
Active partners increased by
Prep Kitchen is a UK-based meal prep subscription brand offering premium, nutritionally balanced meals designed to support fitness, health, and wellbeing goals. The brand delivers high quality, macro balanced dishes directly to customers’ doors, making healthy eating convenient, consistent, and flavourful.
Catering to health conscious consumers, athletes, and busy professionals alike, Prep Kitchen’s offering is built around performance focused nutrition and restaurant quality cooking, without compromising on ease or flexibility. As a subscription based service, long term customer relationships and lifetime value are central to its business model, driving the brand’s focus on engaging the right audience through strategic, brand-aligned partnerships.
Prep Kitchen entered the affiliate space with clear goals but also with significant restraints. Operating in a highly competitive market, where established and emerging brands consistently vie for customer attention through paid ads and content heavy campaigns, Prep Kitchen aimed to grow its brand awareness without relying on the high tenancy spends typically required to compete.
A key focus was to build visibility through content partnerships, particularly with publishers and platforms that aligned with the brand’s target audience: individuals who take their health and nutrition seriously and are willing to invest in a premium food prep service. However, the brand set a benchmark for customer acquisition cost (CAC), aiming to keep it low. This figure reflects the sensitivity to upfront spend, particularly given Prep Kitchen’s nature as a subscription based service, where lifetime value, not just initial sign up, is critical to success.
In addition to controlling CAC, the client wanted to ensure they were attracting the right type of customer. Those who would subscribe for more than just a week and who would see long term value in the product. This meant moving away from relying heavily on voucher code sites, which, while previously delivering volume, were not consistently attracting high quality or long term customers.
The brand also set a goal to secure one content inclusion per month, aiming for regular, relevant coverage without large tenancy fees. To do this, they needed to shift from a predominantly lower funnel affiliate strategy to a diversified mix with more upper funnel partners, such as content publishers, closed user groups and niche interest verticals. The objective wasn’t just to drive immediate sales, but to build awareness, communicate Prep Kitchen’s unique selling points (e.g. having a Michelin star chef, macro balanced meals), and establish a long term brand presence in the minds of their ideal customers.
This strategic pivot required not only a carefully managed budget, but also a high level of trust between the client and Silverbean, to allow for testing and data driven decision making. As part of this transition, Prep Kitchen had to be comfortable with the idea that content exposure may not immediately drive conversions, but would be vital for long term customer acquisition and retention.
To address Prep Kitchen’s ambition of increasing brand awareness while keeping the CAC low, Silverbean developed a carefully phased strategy that prioritised audience alignment, content led exposure and affiliate diversification, all while maintaining strict budget allocation.
With traditional tenancy based content partnerships often commanding high fees which would in turn drive up CAC, the team introduced a gifting strategy to secure editorial inclusions with relevant publishers. This approach enabled the brand to gain valuable exposure while avoiding large upfront costs.
Gifting was used as the primary exchange for unpaid content placements with publishers such as Glamour and the Evening Standard, which helped build Prep Kitchen’s presence in high authority media environments. In some cases, like with Talksport, gifting was paired with heavily reduced rates to secure cost effective placements (£500 vs standard pricing), enabling the team to stretch the budget further while targeting Prep Kitchen’s core demographic.
In parallel with the gifting campaign, the team leveraged CPA increases strategically with relevant partners where it could enhance visibility or unlock better placements. The increases were not applied broadly but were used selectively to ensure incremental value and protect CAC. This flexibility allowed Silverbean to maintain a love baseline spend while still being competitive with partners in key verticals.
For example the team worked with Compado on CPAi model to improve Prep Kitchen’s ranking onsite against competitors, allowing the brand to stand out in a comparison led environment without needing tenancy fees.
When Silverbean took over the affiliate program, it was heavily skewed towards voucher code partners, which, while effective for volume, did not align with the brand’s longer term focus on lifetime customer value.
To rebalance the mix, the team proactively onboarded closed user groups, content publishers and other upper funnel partners. This shift enabled Prep Kitchen to start reaching a more relevant, high intent audience, individuals more likely to stay subscribed beyond the initial trial period. Some of the partners recruited include Collinson (loyalty), Reward Gateway (CUG), Nextjump (CUG) and Independent (Content).
There was also a conscious effort to begin engaging with niche verticals, such as fitness and lifestyle publishers, including gym groups, to ensure that affiliate efforts reflected the customer base the brand was trying to attract.
The client’s willingness to allow for testing and flexibility played a key role in the program’s evolution. With freedom to trial different types of exposure and partner incentives, the team could gather and analyse performance data, enabling a test and learn approach to refine strategy over time.
Rather than committing to large tenancy spends, the budget was managed carefully, with an emphasis on:
This approach ensured CAC remained under control without compromising on the quality or impact of exposure.
Between January 2025 and July 2025, Prep Kitchen’s affiliate program entered a new phase of strategic growth, with a deliberate pivot toward audience-aligned content partnerships, diversified partner types and disciplined budget allocation. This strategy delivered stronger brand visibility, higher-quality customer acquisition and healthier partner diversity. All while keeping customer acquisition costs (CAC) within a highly competitive range.
Through gifting and relationship-building, Silverbean secured £1,000s worth of premium content exposure with high-authority UK publishers, significantly boosting brand awareness while delivering cost-effective conversions.
Glamour – One gifted Prep Kitchen box in May 2025 secured inclusion in a “Best Diet Meals Deliver” feature
Evening Standard – A gifted box in April 2025 led to inclusion in “Best Recipe, Diet, Cheese & Meat Subscription Boxes” listicle.
TalkSport – A gifted box, £500 fee and CPAi model in Jan 2025 secured top placement in a “Best Meal Prep Services” listicle and a standalone review.
These targeted wins demonstrate the effectiveness of the gifting strategy in securing high-value placements without the heavy tenancy spends, helping Prep Kitchen to stand out in a crowded and competitive market.
Gifting Delivers Big Returns: Strategic product gifting unlocked thousands of pounds worth of premium content exposure, driving brand awareness and high-quality customer acquisition without heavy tenancy spends.
Diversification Drives Quality: Moving away from voucher-dominated activity and onboarding content publishers, closed user groups, and niche verticals increased partner diversity and attracted higher-LTV customers.
Relationships Unlock Opportunities: Strong publisher relationships enabled Silverbean to secure reduced-rate placements and bonus inclusions with trusted UK media outlets.
Healthy CAC Enables Growth: Consistently competitive CAC gave Prep Kitchen the confidence to reinvest in the affiliate channel, funding high-profile exposure for the Anthony Joshua launch while maintaining efficiency.
Flexible Budgeting Maximises Impact: A test-and-learn approach to budget allocation ensured every spend directly supported long-term brand positioning as well as short-term acquisition goals.
