This article explains what brand-to-brand partnerships are, how they work on Awin, and how advertisers can use technology partners to launch campaigns that increase revenue, improve customer experience, and reach new audiences.
What are brand-to-brand partnerships?
Brand-to-brand partnerships allow two brands to collaborate so they can promote each other and drive incremental revenue. These partnerships are made possible through technology partners that connect both sides, manage tracking, and streamline activation through the Awin MasterTag.
Brands can take part in two ways.
Acting as an advertiser
As an advertiser, a brand can be promoted by relevant partner brands. The advertiser provides an offer, such as a discount, gift, or free trial, which is shown to the partner brand’s customers before or after they make a purchase. The advertiser pays a commission to the partner brand for any conversions driven through these placements.
Acting as a brand partner
As a brand partner, an advertiser can monetize their audience by showing offers from other brands during the customer journey. When the brand’s customers redeem these offers, the brand partner earns a commission for each referred sale.
While these partnerships are highly effective, they can be technically complex. Brand-to-brand technology partners simplify the process by enabling discovery, activation, and tracking directly through the Awin MasterTag.
The purpose of a brand-to-brand solution
Brand-to-brand marketing campaigns aren’t new, but they traditionally demand significant resources. Brand-to-brand technology partners reduce this effort by providing an easier, more scalable way for brands to find partners, launch promotions, and track performance.
For customers, these partnerships create additional value by surfacing relevant offers at key moments in their shopping journey.
For brand partners, this unlocks two revenue streams:
Revenue from their own core business.
Commissions earned from referring customers to other brands.
For advertisers, this approach opens a new conversion source that traditionally required manual partnership building and complex integrations.
The key value is simplicity: the MasterTag enables brand-to-brand activation with minimal technical involvement.
Examples of brand-to-brand campaigns
Gift with purchase
Member perks
Email or social promotions
Product insertions
On-site banners or checkpoints
Sponsored content
Offline placements
How does this solution work and what information does it leverage
Brand-to-brand partnerships use JavaScript tags to track conversions and display brand promotions. These tags are added to the advertiser’s site through the Awin MasterTag, which removes the need for internal development support.
The Awin Advertiser MasterTag should be added to every page of the website, including the confirmation page, but not on any page that displays or processes payment information.
Once installed, the technology partner can:
Load the scripts needed to run partnerships.
Display offers at relevant points in the journey (checkout, PDP, widgets, and more).
Track conversions and share performance data.
Brand partners can customize the customer experience, including which offers appear and when. Advertisers can choose their preferred partners and offers through the technology partner’s interface. Conversions are tracked and paid through a cost-per-acquisition model.
Common data points used
Usage data
Conversion data
Benefits of this solution
Incremental revenue opportunities
New customer acquisition and loyalty
Improved branding and awareness
Diversified partner mix
Better customer experience
Next steps
Browse the Partner Discovery to find brand-to-brand partnership opportunities and get started.
Awin case studies
Currys rapidly unlock new revenue stream from brand partnerships with BrandSwap integration
Brand partnerships raise profitability, CVR, and AOV at Secret Sales
How Plusnet used brand partnerships to improve customer retention