From channel launch to seven-figure revenue in under 2 years

How we built an affiliate channel for one of the UK's largest pawnbrokers — driving seven-figure revenue at consistent 20x+ ROAS by matching partner strategy to their accessibility-led customer base.

7-figure Affiliate revenue delivered Across 22 months on the programme

20x+ Consistent ROAS Sustained for two consecutive years

28 Active partners Across cashback, voucher, sub-network and closed-user-group

H&T came to us with a thriving online retail operation — pre-owned and new jewellery, watches, and gold — selling at meaningful volume through their direct site. What they didn’t have was an affiliate channel. No publisher partnerships, no closed-user-group relationships, no presence on the major networks that drive intent-led traffic in the jewellery and watches category.

The brief was specific: build an affiliate channel from zero that could drive incremental online revenue, work efficiently within H&T’s commercial economics, and reach the audiences that mattered to the brand — value-conscious shoppers, key workers, and customers underserved by traditional banking and retail.

Competitors in the jewellery and watches space were already running affiliate programmes, capturing intent-driven traffic through partnerships H&T didn’t have. The channel needed building — and building in a way that matched both the brand’s commercial model and its customer base.

Starting position

£0 Affiliate revenue at start

0 Active publisher partnerships

0 Network presence

290 Stores Without a single affiliate partner

Issues identified

No existing affiliate programme infrastructure
No publisher relationships to inherit
High-AOV products with specific audience match requirements
Multi-segment customer base needing differentiated partner strategy
Established competitors already running affiliate programmes

For an established brand serving a specific customer base, the question wasn’t whether to build an affiliate channel — it was which channel to build. We focused the partner strategy on two principles that matched H&T’s audience and commercial model.

Closed-user-group partners for key-worker and public-sector audiences. H&T’s customer base skews heavily toward people working in the public sector, the NHS, the military, and other organisations served by closed-user-group reward platforms. We built dedicated partnerships across leading closed-user-group networks reaching these audiences — each with exclusive codes targeted to its member base. These partners reach customers who are both natural buyers for H&T’s product mix and motivated by meaningful discounts on high-value purchases.

Mixed-category partner programme for broader reach. Alongside the closed-user-group focus, we built coverage across voucher sites, charity partners, fintech platforms, sub-networks, and CSS partners. Budget went where the audience match was genuine — with targeted onboarding fees and exposure packages where partners delivered the right audience at the right point in the channel’s growth.

Underpinning both: weekly performance reporting, monthly partner reviews, and continuous reinvestment toward the partners and segments performing strongest. Over the engagement we researched 61 publishers, onboarded 44, and built 28 to active revenue-driving status.

Pillar 01

Closed-user-group partnerships with exclusive code strategy

We built a network of closed-user-group partnerships targeting the audiences most aligned with H&T's customer base — covering key-worker, public-sector, defence, and charity-worker reward platforms. Each partner received exclusive discount codes targeted at its member audience, with code structures refined over the engagement as we learned what drove the strongest conversion lift. These partnerships gave H&T credible reach into customers underserved by mainstream retail discounting, and the exclusive code structure ensured each audience felt directly catered to.

Pillar 02

Mixed-category partner programme across voucher, charity, fintech, sub-network and CSS

Beyond the closed-user-group focus, we built coverage across voucher sites, charity partners, fintech platforms, sub-networks, and CSS partners. Sub-networks proved particularly valuable in the channel's early phases — inheriting access to thousands of downstream publishers without individual recruitment overhead. CSS partnerships have become a major growth driver more recently. The mix has evolved through the engagement: the right partner category for month three isn't always the right one for year two, and the programme has been rebalanced repeatedly as the channel matured.

Pillar 03

Active exposure campaign management

Rather than treating publishers as a static distribution list, we ran a continuous programme of targeted exposure campaigns — paying for category-page placements, deal-led featured positions, and editorial mentions across high-traffic partners during key commercial windows. Activity spanned premium voucher sites, cashback platforms, charity partners, and national-press editorial placements, each chosen for the audience it reached and the commercial window it landed in. Every exposure was tracked against previous performance to confirm incremental value before reinvesting.

7-figure Affiliate revenue delivered Across 22 months on the programme

20x+ Sustained ROAS Across two consecutive full years

Month 2 To peak efficiency 22x ROAS achieved in second active month

28 Active publisher partnerships From cashback to closed-user-group

From zero to scale in the first six months

Monthly affiliate revenue, Jul 2024 to Apr 2026

Period	Value
Jul-24	716
Aug-24	46110
Sep-24	42430
Oct-24	23661
Nov-24	72338
Dec-24	124880
Jan-25	82940
Feb-25	36478
Mar-25	69909
Apr-25	89804
May-25	75321
Jun-25	47723
Jul-25	63802
Aug-25	106046
Sep-25	192050
Oct-25	210278
Nov-25	75648
Dec-25	217834
Jan-26	173660
Feb-26	56794
Mar-26	131137
Apr-26	240266

From a standing start in July 2024, the channel scaled to consistent five-figure monthly revenue by August and held six-figure months from November 2024 onwards. The trajectory continued through 2025 into 2026 — the chart shape tells the compounding story even with absolute figures held back.

Sustained efficiency across two consecutive years

Average ROAS by year

Period	Value
2024 (Jul-Dec)	26.6x
2025	26.1x
2026 (Jan-Apr)	23.9x

ROAS held above 20x for the engagement's full first calendar year and into 2026, demonstrating that high efficiency wasn't a launch phenomenon but a sustained operating reality. 2024's partial-year figure reflects the channel's first six months — a period that included the discovery phase but still delivered industry-leading return on spend.

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