Waitrose - Silverbean

Who is Waitrose?

Waitrose is one of the UK’s most recognised premium grocers, with a reputation for exceptional quality, responsible sourcing, and an elevated customer experience. As part of the John Lewis Partnership, the brand prioritises customer trust, brand integrity, and long-term loyalty. Values that strongly influence its digital performance strategy.

Known for its discerning audience and high-quality product range, Waitrose competes in an increasingly dynamic grocery landscape where customer loyalty is hard-won. This requires a digital marketing and affiliate approach that aligns with the brand’s premium positioning, protects its reputation, and ensures full compliance with evolving regulatory standards, including HFSS restrictions that significantly influence creative and promotional activity.

With a strong baseline of loyal customers but heightened competition from other major grocers, Waitrose needed its affiliate programme to evolve, diversify and become more data-driven, without compromising brand integrity or customer experience.

What was the challenge?

When the team reviewed the programme in late 2024, it was clear that Waitrose was facing a period of plateau. A major Google search update earlier in the year had caused several top partners to lose visibility overnight, resulting in a rapid drop in performance. To stabilise

revenue, previous activity had leaned into lower-funnel partners, but these partners brought limited quality, low incrementality, and a poor fit for a premium grocer.

The team identified that a significant share of revenue was coming from partners that didn’t reflect the Waitrose brand or deliver meaningful growth. Removing them was essential, but doing so created a looming gap that needed to be filled with higher-value, more strategic partnerships.

At the same time, Waitrose had several internal limitations that made competitive growth difficult. The level of data available for the programme was limited. Some tracking enhancements, such as product-level data, improved attribution and exclusive single-use codes, were scheduled for future tech updates. Until these went live, visibility into audience behaviour and partner opportunities was naturally more limited.

This meant Waitrose struggled to activate premium partners or run targeted campaigns to specific customer segments. It also made year-on-year performance growth difficult: although removing lower-funnel partners strengthened incrementality, it also removed a large share of revenue that needed to be replaced with higher-quality sources.

Strategically, the grocery market had become increasingly competitive. Other supermarkets were investing heavily in digital performance and expanding their affiliate footprint. Waitrose needed to protect its existing customers, grow value from its current base, and win back market share from competitors, especially shoppers migrating to competitor online services.

Finally, new HFSS regulations introduced further complexity. As a premium grocer with stringent brand standards, Waitrose needed far more control over imagery, placements, and messaging. Lower-funnel partners could not provide this level of governance. The programme required partners that could deliver insight, control, and precision, not just volume.

What was our solution?

To rebuild the programme on a more strategic foundation, Silverbean introduced card-linked offer (CLO) partnerships as a way to drive incremental growth while improving customer insight and enabling more targeted exposure.

CLO partners had been part of earlier discussions, but due to budget limitations, the team wanted assurance that their approach aligned with Waitrose’s broader affiliate strategy. Once live, CLO presented a unique opportunity: the ability to run highly targeted, brand-safe campaigns without requiring exclusive codes or extensive reliance on the affiliate network’s limited data. The team began a test with two different CLO partners.

CLO Partner 1

CLO partner 1 offered a more sophisticated card-linked setup than traditional exposure, giving Waitrose a direct channel to reach high-value shoppers. Previously, their standard reward

programme had underperformed, but Silverbean identified that the card-linked model had been under-utilised. Despite initial scepticism, based on historic low ROI, the team decided to run a three-month controlled test.

The risk paid off. Performance exceeded expectations, and CLO partner 1 became one of the strongest contributors in the period it was live.

CLO Partner 2

CLO partner 2 offered a six-month test window and a more established data dashboard, making them a strong secondary partner. They provided deeper behavioural insight, clear segmentation, and the ability to differentiate reward rates for new customers, existing customers, and customers who had recently shopped with competitors. This differentiated approach allowed Waitrose to directly influence customer behaviour in a way the affiliate network could not support.

Both partners were selected based on their alignment with Waitrose’s strategic pillars:

Protect existing customers through loyalty incentives

Grow value by increasing frequency and AOV

New customer acquisition through data-backed targeting

Unlocking richer insights and competitor targeting

One of the most transformative outcomes of the CLO approach was the data it unlocked. Through card-linked tracking, Waitrose gained access to:

Geographic performance beyond expected regions
Age-bracket segmentation
Gender-based conversion and engagement differences
Behavioural insight into competitor shoppers
Revenue generated specifically through targeted competitor displacement campaigns

For the first time, Waitrose could see the clear impact of offering differentiated rewards to customers who had recently shopped with competitors and exactly how much revenue was driven by that targeted exposure.

Restoring balance to the publisher mix

Introducing CLO also allowed the team to confidently remove lower-funnel partners while maintaining revenue stability. The higher-quality performance from CLO partners enabled more controlled experimentation with mid- and upper-funnel partners, including content publishers such as Linkby, where brand awareness opportunities had previously been deprioritised. With CLO revenue supporting the lower funnel, Waitrose could finally diversify the mix into more strategic territory.

Ensuring compliance and brand protection

CLO partners also strengthened governance at a critical time. With HFSS rules restricting online promotion of many grocery items, CLO’s controlled environment offered the ability to approve imagery and copy before campaigns went live. This delivered a level of protection and control not possible with extensions or unmanaged voucher sites, reducing legal risk and ensuring brand positioning was maintained across every touchpoint.

What results were achieved?

During the live CLO period, the programme saw significant growth and diversification. Key performance highlights include:

Overall revenue increased by almost half, reversing stagnation and strengthening programme resilience.
CLO partners contributed around a third of all revenue while both were active, demonstrating clear incremental value.
New customer revenue grew by more than double the typical baseline for Waitrose.
Customer insights revealed unexpected demographic and geographical patterns, including stronger performance among younger shoppers and notable activity in Glasgow and Edinburgh as well as London.
The partner mix improved substantially, with low-funnel contributors dropping significantly compared to the previous year.
Engagement from competitor shoppers was strong, with high CTRs from both new and existing audiences who had recently purchased from other retailers, reinforcing CLO’s value as a targeted acquisition lever.
Combined, the two CLO partners offered access to more than 13 million UK users, significantly extending brand reach and awareness beyond the affiliate channel.

CLO Partner 1: High-Value, High-Efficiency Growth

CLO partner 1 delivered exceptional performance throughout its three-month test period, establishing itself as one of the programme’s strongest contributors:

Achieved an outstanding ROAS, far exceeding programme benchmarks.
Delivered an AOV higher than the programme average, consistently outperforming throughout the test period.
Contributed significantly to overall programme revenue during the weeks it was live, reinforcing its effectiveness as a premium-value partner.
Demonstrated strong engagement from competitor-shopping audiences, with CTRs among these users performing at near-parity with existing Waitrose customers.
Provided rich insights into demographics, regional behaviour and competitor crossover that were previously unavailable through the affiliate network.

CLO partner 1 offered both high-quality sales and deeper customer intelligence that will shape future strategic planning.

CLO Partner 2: New Customer Acquisition and Scalable Reach

CLO partner 2 played a critical role in broadening reach and accelerating new customer growth over its six-month activation window:

Delivered a strong ROAS with particularly efficient performance across new customer segments.
Over half of revenue came from new customers, a dramatic uplift compared to the usual programme average.
Supported the broader Protect, Grow, New strategy by driving high engagement across both new and existing segments, including targeted competitor-shoppers.
Added significant scale through exposure to several million highly engaged UK users, boosting brand visibility and consideration across untapped audiences.
Provided valuable behavioural insight, including demographic breakdowns that challenged assumptions and highlighted new areas of opportunity.

CLO partner 2 became the programme’s strongest engine for new customer growth, positioning Waitrose to reach audiences traditionally underrepresented within the affiliate channel.

These results not only addressed immediate revenue goals but also strengthened the programme’s long-term strategic resilience. The uplift delivered by both CLO partners enabled Waitrose to diversify its mix, pursue new mid- and upper-funnel opportunities and unlock brand-building initiatives that had previously been deprioritised due to ROI concerns.

Key Takeaways

CLO unlocked data the affiliate network couldn’t provide
From demographics to geographic distribution to competitor crossover, the insight gained through CLO provided a depth of understanding that will shape Waitrose’s 2026 strategy.

Higher-value partners restored incrementality and strengthened brand alignment
Removing lower-funnel partners became feasible once CLO revenue stabilised performance, allowing the programme to confidently shift toward more premium, strategic partnerships.

Competitor targeting became more meaningful and measurable
Differentiated reward structures for competitor shoppers delivered clear revenue contributions and proved the commercial value of CLO-led displacement.

Performance gains unlocked further innovation
The success of CLO empowered the team to test content partnerships, build trust with senior stakeholders, and explore opportunities that previously would not have been approved.

Brand safety and compliance improved significantly
CLO partnerships allowed full control over creative assets, essential in the lead-up to HFSS restrictions and a major improvement on unmanaged lower-funnel environments.

How Waitrose Unlocked a Significant Revenue Increase and Strengthened Customer Insight Through CLO Partner Innovation

For those with only 30 seconds, this is what we achieved: