Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) represent the most competitive sales period of the year, where brands must cut through the noise to capture customer attention.
For Click & Grow, the 2023 BFCM campaign delivered exceptional results with a 272% revenue surge in affiliate sales, jumping from $187,000 in 2022 to $350,000 in 2023.
To understand how Click & Grow achieved these remarkable results, let’s look at the foundation they built before launching their breakthrough BFCM campaign.
The Context – Building a Foundation for Growth
Click & Grow creates innovative indoor gardening solutions that empower individuals to grow fresh herbs and vegetables at home.
As the company aimed to expand globally, affiliate marketing became a crucial part of their growth strategy.
However, they faced a major challenge. The program was split across five regional Shopify stores. Managing five separate stores made it extremely difficult to oversee operations and grow revenue effectively.
To address this issue, Click & Grow collaborated with Vivian Agency, which identified UpPromote as the ideal solution to restructure the program.
UpPromote helped unify all five stores into a single, easy-to-manage dashboard, ensuring a streamlined operation.
With a centralized system in place, Vivian Agency could then focus on high-impact growth strategies. They recruited quality influencers and used UpPromote to create performance-based rewards and personalized coupons.
The rebuilt program quickly scaled to over 800 partners, laying the foundation for a successful BFCM campaign 2023.
Learn more about Click & Grow’s affiliate marketing case study here.
BFCM 2023 – The Breakthrough Campaign
Identifying the Core Problem
With 800+ partners, Click & Grow had built an impressive affiliate network.
However, a critical weakness threatened their BFCM success: their tracking system couldn’t handle the complexity of peak sales periods.
The problem was about coupon codes. During promotions, affiliates received special discount codes to share with their audiences. But these codes required constant manual updates, activating them when sales started, then deactivating them when promotions ended.
As Ilya – the affiliate manager at Click & Grow explained,
Without proper tracking, the team couldn’t measure performance or pay commissions accurately.
Meanwhile, standard affiliate links weren’t generating the results Click & Grow needed. As Ilya stated bluntly, “Specifically for us, affiliate links didn’t work.”
This hard-earned lesson made it clear that a coupon-centric strategy was essential, but the existing system created more problems than revenue.
Leveraging UpPromote’s coupon codes
With UpPromote’s coupon codes, Click & Grow could solve their problem.
The team created universal, evergreen codes that remained active year-round. “We made these codes universal, they worked all the time, they worked during Black Friday and Cyber Monday,” Ilya noted.
These codes functioned seamlessly without any updates. Affiliates could promote confidently knowing their codes always worked, and UpPromote’s dashboard tracked every sale automatically.
The team then added a strategic layer to increase affiliate motivation. They introduced exclusive discounts available only through affiliate codes.
Ilya described, “If you just come in, you get all the wonderful sales for Black Friday, but then if you come in after being referred by an influencer who told you, hey, this is this specific secret code, then you get an extra sale on top of Black Friday sale.”
This gave affiliates a compelling reason to promote Click & Grow over competitors during the crowded holiday season. They could offer their audiences something genuinely better than what was publicly available.
Preparing Affiliates for Success
Technology solved the tracking problem, but Click & Grow knew that tools alone wouldn’t guarantee results.
Working with Vivian Agency, the team ensured affiliates were ready to execute during the critical BFCM period.
The team created simple, actionable resources. Ilya revealed their approach: “We call them sales snapshots – quick summaries, like one-pager summaries for affiliates that talk about how the sale works, so they don’t have to figure it out.“
Everything was laid out clearly so affiliates could reference it instantly without hunting through multiple emails or documents.
Moreover, Click & Grow understood that a single announcement would get buried in the noise of BFCM preparation. So they built a deliberate multi-touch communication strategy.
Ilya emphasized the importance of repetition: “We will not mention the sale once, we will mention it several times, talk about it through different channels.“
The team used multiple platforms to reach their affiliates. “If the affiliate is not checking their email every day, we will message them on Instagram, we will talk to them on TikTok, or something else,” Ilya explained.
The goal was straightforward: “We need to make sure that they hear the message and hear it multiple times.“
Moreover, to make communication more convenient, merchants can keep in touch with their affiliates within the UpPromote app.
Vivian Agency, who assisted Click & Grow in revamping their affiliate program, also emphasizes the importance of effective communication during holiday seasons.
For instance, merchants can identify top-performing affiliates from UpPromote’s Top Affiliate table and send personal messages to show appreciation for their efforts. They can also use bulk emails to notify all affiliates about upcoming campaigns in one go.
Driving Engagement Through Incentives
Click & Grow continued to maximize affiliate participation through strategic incentives.
The team offered increased commission rates specifically for BFCM. “For affiliates who also make a choice about what to invest in during Black Friday, Cyber Monday sales, we also offer them incentives, so they get more from promoting us,” Ilya shared.
The incentive structure worked because it directly addressed the competitive reality of the holiday season.
Affiliates wanted to maximize their earnings. And higher commissions made Click & Grow the favorite choice, motivating affiliates to promote them over competitors.
As Ilya put it, the incentives “helped us engage with them more, motivate them to talk about us versus our competitors, or just other products.”
Merchants can leverage UpPromote to manage these seasonal rates efficiently.
They can create a separate BFCM program with higher commissions and move affiliates into it – no need to assign each affiliate manually.
Moreover, UpPromote’s auto-tier commission can help drive even better performance. Merchants create commission tiers based on achievement levels, for instance, 10% commission baseline, 13% after $4,000 in total sales, 17% after $9,000.
As affiliates hit these benchmarks, they automatically move up based on metrics like sales value, commission totals, or referral quantity.
The Outstanding Results
The combination of simplified tracking, exclusive offers, early preparation, and strong incentives produced remarkable outcomes.
- BFCM 2023 affiliate revenue jumped 272% compared to the previous year.
- The program generated $350K in total annual sales, which jumped from $187,000 in 2022.
BFCM 2025 – Scaling the Success
Building on the lessons learned from BFCM 2023, Click & Grow is refining and expanding their proven strategies to drive even greater results for 2025.
Refined Discount Strategy
Click & Grow will continue leveraging affiliate-specific discounts, which proved to be a major driver of sales in 2023.
“We will still use the affiliate codes set up to offer these exclusive savings,” Ilya confirmed.
Customers referred by affiliates will enjoy all the public Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. On top of that, they’ll receive an additional exclusive discount available only through affiliate codes.
The added savings motivate customers to buy, helping affiliates generate more referrals.
Sales Snapshots and Multi-Touch Communication
To ensure affiliates are well-prepared to make the most of the shopping season, Click & Grow will once again provide “sales snapshots”.
These concise, easy-to-digest one-pagers will outline all the details of the BFCM promotions.
“These quick summaries help affiliates understand the sale immediately, without having to dig through emails or documents,” Ilya explained.
In addition to providing these snapshots, Click & Grow is enhancing their communication strategy. Affiliates will receive multiple reminders about the campaign across various platforms, including email, Instagram, and TikTok.
Vivian Agency’s Partnership Project Manager, Alejandra Arenas, recommended taking preparation one step further.
She suggested providing affiliates with ready-to-use marketing materials, seasonal banners, sales graphics, and promotional assets that align with Thanksgiving and Halloween timing.
Merchants can put all resources into UpPromote’s Media Gallery, so affiliates can grab the materials and start promoting immediately.
Affiliate Incentives
To further motivate affiliates, Click & Grow plans to introduce targeted rewards during the BFCM period. Partner contests will play a key role, with top-performing affiliates earning exclusive bonuses or increased commissions.
“We will use UpPromote analytics to track performance and reward our top affiliates,” Ilya shared.
To make things easier, merchants can leverage UpPromote’s Bonus feature. They can set clear, performance-based goals for their contests.
For instance, they can create a rule where any affiliate who generates over $1,000 in sales during the BFCM period automatically receives a cash bonus. The system tracks progress and awards bonuses to affiliates without any manual work.
Ellie Tran, a seasoned SEO content writer with three years of experience in the eCommerce world. Being a part of the UpPromote team, Ellie wants to assist Shopify merchants in achieving success through useful content & actionable insights. Ellie's commitment to learning never stops; she's always eager to gain more knowledge about SEO and content marketing to create valuable content for users. When she's not working on content, Ellie enjoys baking and exploring new places.
