£21 to £54 average order value in one month
A food and gifting brand whose affiliate program was performing steadily — but its average order value sat at the same level the brand was seeing internally, around £21. We wanted to test whether it could push that number higher.
Vertical
Food & Gifting
Focus
Average order value
The problem
Average order value
Voucher sites get a lot of hate in the affiliate world, and much of it is earned: a blanket code sitting on a coupon site discounts customers who were going to buy anyway. But the problem is the deployment, not the tool. Used surgically — controlled, targeted, and measured — a discount can move a specific metric when you need it to. In this case, the metric was basket size.
What I did
What a discount-code strategy involves
The point is not to discount more. It is to discount on purpose: codes go only to the customers you choose, in a form that cannot leak, tied to the behaviour you want. Three rules made it work.
Unique, single-use codes, issued with a tech partner rather than open blanket codes. No leakage to code-scraping sites, and full control over who receives which offer.
Different discounts for new and existing customers. A stronger incentive for first-time buyers, since new customer acquisition was a parallel goal, and a lighter one for returning customers.
Offers structured to reward bigger baskets, so the discount worked for the brand’s margin rather than against it.
Average order value, in one month
Sales, month on month
Average basket multiple
The results
What changed
Average order value went from £21 to £54 within a month of launch.
Sales grew 36% month on month, with the average basket at 2.6 times where it started.
The discount did not just move volume. It changed what customers put in the basket.
Common questions
01
Can discount codes increase average order value?
02
What is the difference between a single-use code and a blanket code?
03
Why do affiliate managers dislike voucher sites?
04
Should new and existing customers get the same affiliate discount?
05
