A London gifting brand whose year revolves around four peaks — Christmas, Mother's Day, birthdays, seasonal moments. The programme was stable but unoptimised: every partner, whatever their value, sat on the same flat 4% commission.
Vertical
Luxury Gifting
Focus
Commission restructure
1.8x
Peak-month revenue, YoY
2.1x
Peak-month orders, YoY
5/5
Peaks grown year over year
The approach
I joined in October 2025, with the first peak weeks away. The rebuild:
Audited every active partner by behaviour, not category — who introduces new audiences, who converts mid-funnel, who intercepts at checkout, who only fires when there's a discount.
Introduced a tiered commission structure: checkout-intercept partners on a defensive rate, while content, loyalty and affinity partners moved higher — every tier with a defensible reason behind the rate.
Activated the partner mix ahead of every peak: rebriefed priority partners, refreshed creative, lined up exclusive offers — so incremental partners get visibility before generic discount sites do.
Locked in clean monthly reporting, so the brand can see exactly which tier produces what — and where every pound of commission goes.
The findings
Every comparable month since has grown 1.5 to 1.8x year over year — December alone went from £72,927 to £115,632. The pattern matters more than any single month: it's a system working across the calendar, not one lucky peak. Order growth outpaced revenue growth in every comparison, which means the customer mix has shifted toward first-time buyers — exactly what a gifting brand wants for lifetime value. And the commission budget didn't grow: the same spend was redirected away from checkout-intercept activity toward the partners actually bringing new customers in.
