Driving sustainable fashion growth: Faguo’s challenges and successes with affiliate marketing

Interview with Anne-Sophie Lacroix, growth & loyalty manager at Faguo

Hello Anne-Sophie, can you introduce us to Faguo and tell us about your role?

Faguo is a ready-to-wear brand primarily for men, with a strong online presence and around fifty physical stores. Our mission is deeply rooted in our DNA as a purpose-driven and B-Corp certified company. We’re committed to promoting sustainable fashion while also striving to be seen as a desirable brand and a leader in fair fashion. I’ve been the Growth & Loyalty Manager at Faguo for two years now. My main role is to maximize customer acquisition and retention to meet our revenue and profitability goals.

What led you to create an affiliate program?

We felt the need to launch an affiliate program to address several key challenges:

• Communication: We wanted to strike a balance between our CSR commitment and our fashion image, while strengthening our appeal to consumers.

• Omnichannel approach: It’s crucial for Faguo to adopt a unified view of our customers and provide a consistent shopping experience across all channels. We also want to use digital marketing campaigns to encourage multichannel purchases.

• Web-to-store strategy: We aim to drive customers to visit our physical stores, boosting in-store sales as part of our web-to-store strategy.

• Hybrid target audience (men and women): With about 40% women in our customer database, we needed to adapt our marketing approach for this mixed audience and figure out the best way to engage female customers.

• Operational efficiency: Managing growth with a limited operational team is challenging, especially when handling acquisition and CRM. Partnering with an affiliate platform was essential to offload some of these tasks and optimize our operations.

Why did you choose Affilae to implement your affiliate program?

We chose Affilae for several reasons:

• A transparent business model, free from conflicts of interest, aligned with our values.

• A focus on the top of the funnel.

• The option to share commissions.

• Personalized support, advice, and follow-up: we work closely with Mélanie, our Account Manager, to refine our strategy. This includes discussing the media mix to implement, selecting the most relevant channels, identifying key communication periods, and defining the messaging to share with our partners.

• Real-time access through their SaaS platform, combined with Mélanie’s personalized support, offers the perfect balance. This approach allows us to work independently while benefiting from the dedicated assistance of our Account Manager. The ability to track commissions in real time also ensures full transparency, preventing any surprises at the end of the month—something that can be less straightforward with other partners.

Faguo

How is using Affilae a strategic asset in terms of productivity and competitiveness?

There’s no doubt that our collaboration with Affilae saves us both time and money.

Their platform provides valuable market insights, especially for teams working independently. The advice, tips, and market data shared by the Account Managers help us take a step back and analyze results from an external perspective, which is especially helpful during challenging periods.

This relationship of trust, marked by smooth communication and transparent exchanges, strengthens our position in the market and helps us achieve our acquisition and profitability goals, all while enhancing our brand’s desirability.

And the results speak for themselves! We’ve seen a significant increase in our affiliate-driven revenue, with affiliate marketing now making up about 8% of our overall media mix.

Would you recommend Affilae?

Absolutely. I highly recommend Affilae. They have the ability to meet our specific needs with a personalized approach and immediate action plan.

Their great flexibility allows us to quickly adapt to evolving marketing strategies. Covering the entire acquisition funnel gives us a lot of freedom.

We initially focused on the top of the funnel but have since broadened our scope to a hybrid approach, and Affilae has supported us every step of the way during this transition.

This adaptability gives us the confidence that if Faguo’s direction shifts in the future, we can easily pivot with Affilae thanks to their wide range of formats, publishers, and strategies that are quick to deploy.

Want to know more?

Discover our results in the Faguo case study.