Brilliant Drives 2,746% Increase in Direct Subscriptions During Back to School Seasonality

Outcomes

Objective

Brilliant, a popular STEM e-learning app, was looking to capitalize on their back to school seasonality and grow its subscription base through new partnerships with Perform^[cb]. The Perform^[cb] team knew planning in advance would be crucial in an effort to onboard top publishers and secure the best promotional placements ahead of the back to school shopping peak. 

Approach

Perform^[cb] knew that in order for Brilliant to be ready to take advantage of this seasonality, they would need to have top-tier placements confirmed no later than Q2 to ensure efficient ad spend. Brilliant’s affiliate program has historically grown the most when focusing on upper and mid-funnel content partnerships. With this in mind, Perform^[cb] spent the spring months onboarding new partners, such as niche education publishers, preparing optimizations around both new and existing partnerships, and testing commission increases to learn what attracts the most users to Brilliant. By gathering this baseline campaign data and proactively preparing, Perform^[cb] was able to accelerate Brilliant’s success during its peak seasonality. 

Results

As a result of proactively securing new upper to mid-funnel partnerships, as well as testing and optimizing commission increases, Brilliant achieved a 425% increase in revenue by affiliates during the back to school season. The Perform^[cb] team exceeded Brilliant’s KPIs by onboarding 15 new partners and implementing eight different optimizations, which led to a 188% increase in orders. With a 2,746% increase in direct subscriptions, as well as a 227% increase in free trial subscriptions converting to annual subscriptions, it’s no surprise that Brilliant saw an 82% increase in average order value (AOV). By taking advantage early on to plan around their back to school seasonality, Perform^[cb] was able to ensure Brilliant’s affiliate program success.