DFS uses online affiliate network affilinet to generate offline sales

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affilinet, the specialist affiliate marketing company, has announced that it is working with DFS as its affiliate network of choice.  The deal supports the British furniture retailer's wider initiative to integrate online and offline marketing activity and maximise sales from digital channels.

Having grown a strong brand presence through television and offline display advertising, DFS are using call tracking technology to improve the number of leads generated to the retailer's call centre via the internet.  Using new technology, unique phone numbers are generated for each of affilinet's publishers for use in online promotional activities and on their websites.  This enables customers to research items on the web and then speak with the call centre team to buy bespoke products.

Every call is trackable, so there is visibility over which affiliate is responsible for each lead generated to the call centre.  With this data, affilinet and DFS are able to analyse which publishers are performing best and continue to better shape the publisher base throughout the programs development.  

DFS decided to work with affilinet because of its flexibility and willingness to adapt to DFS' very specific needs and requirements.  The company was also keen to use affilinet's strong network of publishers and to take advantage of its wealth of experience in affiliate marketing for other retail brands.

Richard Thirsk, Head of Marketing at DFS comments, "Working with affilinet allows us to greatly extend our online reach beyond our traditional online media buys and search activity.  We are collaborating with specific affilinet publishers on a performance basis offering them unique telephone numbers to display on their websites so that consumers can immediately call our customer support team without having to leave the publisher site.  This approach means that customers benefit from researching what they want online and then making their bespoke orders with one of the team over the phone.  Publishers benefit from real time reporting of the calls they generate, previously they could only be rewarded for leads generated by a call back request form."

Peter Rowe, managing director, affilinet UK continues, "affiliate marketing is no longer simply a channel to deliver sales, but also a flexible way to maximise high quality lead generation activity for brands.  Our work with DFS utilises a new call tracking technology which will allow them to fully leverage our carefully monitored and fully transparent network of publishers"