In the third episode of The Partner Marketing Podcast, Matthias Stadelmeyer, CEO of Tradedoubler, welcomes Sabrina Fiorini, Global Associates Director at HelloFresh. During the episode, Matthias and Sabrina engage in an extensive discussion about the pivotal role of Partner Marketing in helping international Brands such as HelloFresh and Expedia scale their business. The conversation provides a detailed exploration of HelloFresh’s subscription-based business model, the structure and objectives of its Partner Marketing strategy, the challenges faced in this field, emerging trends, and Sabrina’s professional insights drawn from nearly two decades of experience in Partner Marketing.
Getting to know Sabrina Fiorini
Matthias: “Welcome, Sabrina. It's great to have you here today! You are Global Associates Director at HelloFresh. What does a Global Associates Director do?”
Sabrina: “Thanks for having me, Matthias. So, my role is part of the Growth Partnerships Team at HelloFresh, which comprises affiliates, partnerships, and influencers. And as an Associate Director for Partnerships, I'm essentially responsible for affiliates and partnerships marketing.”
Sabrina explains that her primary responsibilities include developing strategies to acquire new customers, optimizing customer lifetime value (CLV), and ensuring that partnerships align with HelloFresh’s overall business goals. Sabrina’s role also involves designing frameworks to guide collaboration with partners, driving operational alignment across HelloFresh’s international markets, and working closely with regional teams to adapt global strategies to local needs.
HelloFresh’s business model & core objectives
Sabrina: “HelloFresh’s mission is to change the way people eat, and we'll do that through high-value food solutions. I think the most commonly known solution is the meal kit box.”
Sabrina continues explaining that HelloFresh provides customers with a convenient solution to meal preparation by delivering pre-portioned fresh ingredients and detailed recipe instructions directly to their doorstep. This approach eliminates the need for meal planning and grocery shopping, making it easier for customers to enjoy home-cooked meals.
HelloFresh offers a diverse range of recipes, catering to different dietary requirements, such as vegetarian, vegan, and allergen-sensitive options. Customers can choose their meal preferences through HelloFresh’s app or website. The subscription model allows customers to customize their plans, providing flexibility to pause deliveries or adjust meal quantities based on their preferences. This adaptability ensures the service meets the dynamic needs of households while encouraging recurring orders through its subscription framework.
How relevant is Partner Marketing for HelloFresh’s Growth Strategy?
Sabrina: “I think Partner Marketing is a key part of any marketing mix. (...) In all the companies I'm aware of, Partner Marketing, or at least affiliate marketing, is a key component of their overall marketing mix. And I think particularly the relatively risk-free investment, the fact that it's pure CPA-based and performance-based, makes it so attractive because it's relatively easy to test new things.”
While Partner Marketing enables Brands to engage in a win-win relationship with Publishers, networks, and other collaborators, it is also distinct in its variety. Partner Marketing offers access to diverse platforms and customer segments that may not overlap with other digital channels, such as search or social media. This breadth makes Partner Marketing both an effective and dynamic approach to customer acquisition.
Therefore, Partner Marketing plays a critical role in HelloFresh’s overall marketing strategy. The primary objective of these efforts is to acquire new customers by leveraging partnerships with Publishers and other Brands. While long-term metrics, such as customer lifetime value (CLV), are crucial for assessing the overall success of partnerships, HelloFresh places an emphasis on short-term metrics like customer acquisition. This approach allows the company to evaluate the immediate impact of its campaigns while collecting data to analyze trends in long-term customer behavior.
Organizational structure & Partner Marketing strategies at HelloFresh
To manage its operations across multiple regions, HelloFresh employs a matrix organizational structure that divides the business into two primary segments: North America and International. Sabrina oversees the International segment, which includes 16 markets across Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Based in Berlin at HelloFresh’s global headquarters, Sabrina works closely with local teams to ensure that regional strategies are tailored to market-specific conditions while maintaining consistency with the company’s global goals.
Sabrina outlines three foundational pillars for successful Partner Marketing strategies:
Recruitment: Identifying and onboarding new partners is critical for expanding the reach and scope of marketing campaigns.
Engagement: Building and maintaining strong relationships with existing partners ensures sustained collaboration and success.
Optimization: Regularly analyzing performance metrics and refining strategies help maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of partner campaigns.
Sabrina notes that operational efficiency and scalability are also central to HelloFresh’s strategy. Sharing insights and lessons learned across markets allows the company to implement best practices globally while adapting to local needs.
What types of partnerships does HelloFresh manage?
HelloFresh’s Partner Marketing strategy includes a wide range of partnerships, which fall into two main categories: Affiliate networks and direct Brand partnerships.
Affiliate networks: HelloFresh collaborates with established affiliate networks to access a broad range of Publishers, including cashback platforms, loyalty programs, price comparison websites, and content-driven Publishers. By partnering with a single affiliate network across its international markets, HelloFresh ensures consistency in how these relationships are managed.
To optimize its affiliate network partnerships, HelloFresh relies on a combination of external agencies and an in-house team of account managers. This dual-layered approach ensures that campaigns are executed effectively, monitored rigorously, and aligned with HelloFresh’s customer acquisition objectives.
Direct Brand partnerships: In addition to affiliate networks, HelloFresh engages in direct collaborations with Brands such as financial institutions and retailers. These partnerships often focus on creating unique value propositions for the partner’s audience. For example, HelloFresh may design exclusive discounts, tailored content, or personalized campaigns that align with the partner’s goals and meet the specific needs of their customers.
Each type of partnership is managed differently to reflect its unique characteristics. Affiliate partnerships benefit from standardized tools and processes, which provide consistency in tracking and evaluation. Direct Brand partnerships, on the other hand, require a more customized approach, with strategies tailored to meet the specific objectives and expectations of each collaboration.
Sabrina: “Some of our partners are really interested in generating additional revenue, meaning a secondary monetization opportunity for them. Other partners literally just want a unique offer, something that gives them an edge over their competitors. So, they might be more interested in having a unique discount, and there's more of a value exchange that way. And they're less interested in potentially understanding the conversion rate, the CCV, and so on, than a typical CPA-based partner.”
Performance measurement & incentive structures for partners
To ensure that partnerships deliver meaningful results, HelloFresh implements detailed performance measurement and incentive structures. These include:
Customized commission rates: Higher commission rates are offered to partners who deliver first-time customers or target high-value segments with strong lifetime value potential.
Vertical-specific incentives: Different commission rates are assigned to partners depending on their category, such as cashback sites, loyalty programs, or content Publishers, to reflect the varying performance potential of each vertical.
Bespoke agreements for top partners: For high-performing partners, HelloFresh negotiates custom agreements based on historical performance data and anticipated future contributions.
Metrics such as customer acquisition cost, conversion rates, and long-term revenue contributions are closely monitored to evaluate the success of partnerships and to refine strategies as needed.
Sabrina: “So some partners have targeting opportunities where we can focus on the customer type or lookalike of a typical customer. Other partners have a relatively broad customer base and might give us information about what their typical customers look like. But we may have limited ability to target a very specific set of their customers.”
Matthias: “Do you incentivize differently then in order to steer that a bit?”
Sabrina. “Yes. We mostly do it at two levels, I would say. We do it at a vertical level, meaning we have different commissions depending on the customer. So, for example, on our affiliate program, we have different commissions depending on the vertical. And then with our top partners, we might also have bespoke commissions that take into account the historical metrics.”
Organizational and regional differences in Partner Marketing practices
Drawing on her nearly 20 years in Partner Marketing, Sabrina shares insights about organizational differences between HelloFresh and Expedia as well as regional differences in Partner Marketing practices.
According to Sabrina, the organizational structures and approaches to Partner Marketing at HelloFresh and Expedia vary significantly, primarily due to their differing sizes and scopes. Sabrina explains that her tenure at Expedia involved working within the distribution partnerships team, which managed not only affiliate marketing but also white-label solutions and API partnerships. Over time, these functions expanded, requiring larger teams and more sophisticated structures to manage the complexity of a multi-billion-dollar organization.
At HelloFresh, the setup is more streamlined and tailored to the company's subscription-based model. The scale of operations at HelloFresh does not necessitate the extensive team sizes seen at Expedia. Additionally, organizational differences determine whether partnerships are managed as standalone teams or integrated into broader marketing functions. In smaller organizations, partnerships are often less compartmentalized, allowing for closer integration with other marketing activities.
During her career, Sabrina also encountered regional differences in how Partner Marketing is conducted. Markets such as the UK and Germany share similarities, particularly in their reliance on cashback and loyalty programs. However, in other regions like France, Italy, and Spain, these verticals are less prominent. Instead, businesses in these markets often favor partnership models that focus on CPM (cost per impression) or CPC (cost per click), rather than the CPA (cost per acquisition) approach prevalent in the UK and Germany. These regional differences underline the importance of tailoring strategies to fit the unique cultural and market dynamics of each country.
Challenges in Partner Marketing
Transparency in tracking and performance measurement remains a persistent issue in Partner Marketing. Sabrina explains that while progress has been made in enabling communication and collaboration between Brands, networks, and Publishers, challenges still exist in achieving consistency across platforms and technologies.
Tracking remains the foundation of performance-based marketing, and Sabrina stresses its importance in Partner Marketing. However, achieving clarity and compliance can be challenging due to the varying opinions and regulations across different regions. For large organizations like HelloFresh, tracking involves multiple stakeholders, including legal, operations, and tracking teams, which can complicate implementation and decision-making.
Sabrina suggests that creating a standardized industry white paper or consensus document, involving input from networks, Publishers, and Brands, could help address these challenges. Such a resource would provide clearer guidance and reduce inconsistencies in tracking practices.
Sabrina: “It would be helpful to have like an affiliate industry guide, almost like a white paper. Or some kind of consensus that includes the views of the networks, Publishers, and Advertisers. Even though we all want a win-win-win situation, there are different perspectives, and this requires some sort of debate so that we can get to a level of clarity. I think what happens in the absence of this is that everyone is trying to figure it out for themselves. And comes up with different implementations, different solutions, which then just makes it confusing again to a lot of people because they might be moving to different companies, and they see different applications when there is no clear guidance.”
Insights from Sabrina’s career experience & recommendations for marketers
Reflecting on her career, Sabrina highlights that relationships are at the core of successful Partner Marketing. The industry is both large in scale and interconnected, meaning that maintaining professionalism and building trust are critical for long-term success. Sabrina also notes that relationships often resurface in unexpected ways, emphasizing the value of leaving a positive impression.
Sabrina identifies collaboration as one of the key strengths of Partner Marketing. The diverse nature of partnerships allows for innovative solutions and shared successes, which she finds personally fulfilling. This collaborative spirit, combined with the variety of people, companies, and verticals involved, keeps her passionate about her work in Partner Marketing.
Drawing from her nearly 20 years in Partner Marketing, Sabrina shared several key insights:
Building relationships: Trust and professionalism are foundational for long-term success in the interconnected affiliate marketing industry.
Maximizing strengths: Focusing on one’s strengths is critical for delivering impactful results and creating value, both personally and organizationally.
The value of transparency: Being transparent about challenges, such as fraud, not only fosters trust but also enhances credibility with partners and stakeholders.
To enable mutually successful partnerships, Sabrina advises marketers to deeply understand the objectives, value propositions, and success metrics of their partners. By fostering strong, collaborative relationships and aligning on shared goals, marketers can drive meaningful results and achieve long-term growth.
Sabrina: “My recommendation would be to ask a lot of questions to understand what the company you're looking to partner with wants to achieve, what is their value proposition, to deeply understand what it is that success looks like for them and then work out if you can create this vision together and how you can jointly work towards those goals.”
Final thoughts on Partner Marketing’s future
Sabrina reiterates that Partner Marketing offers significant value to businesses due to its collaborative and performance-driven nature. Its ability to address a wide range of customer segments makes it indispensable in the marketing mix. While challenges such as transparency and regulatory compliance persist, Sabrina believes that fostering open communication and collaboration can drive meaningful progress.
Looking ahead, Sabrina emphasizes the importance of leveraging relationships, sharing best practices across markets, and continuing to adapt to technological and regulatory changes. By addressing these areas, Partner Marketing will remain a dynamic and impactful force in driving business growth.
If you would like to learn more about how HelloFresh scales its business internationally through Partner Marketing, you can find the podcast episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, our website, and all other podcast platforms.
About The Partner Marketing Podcast
The podcast brings together thought leaders and professionals from across the globe. In each episode, our host, Matthias, sits down with guests to discuss the evolving world of Partner Marketing and share personal stories.
For more details, please visit www.tradedoubler.com/podcast
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