How Jungle Scout drove 30% net new annual company revenue through their affiliate program

Jungle Scout is an industry-leading Amazon seller software that helps anyone looking to start or scale a business on Amazon. Founded in 2015 as the first Amazon product research tool, Jungle Scout today is an all-in-one platform for Amazon sellers that has evolved to include a full suite of tools to streamline the seller journey from sourcing products, optimizing listings, managing inventory and more.

Jungle Scout has been a fixture in the Amazon community for nearly a decade, partly due to its wildly successful partner program managed on PartnerStack over the last few years. We previously profiled Jungle Scout in 2021 when they had first adopted PartnerStack and scaled their partnership revenue to $4M+ annually. 

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A PRM designed to evolve with your team and your goals

Kieva Amante joined Jungle Scout in June 2023 as the new Affiliate and Partnerships Manager and subsequently inherited the enormous program. Kieva wasn’t new to the space, bringing over five years of professional experience and some painful lessons. “I've worked on programs in the past where we were essentially managing a partner program out of Google Sheets. And it's just painfully long to do that and very, very hard to scale,” shares Kieva.

Kieva’s goal was deceptively simple — drive customer acquisition and drive revenue. While having a partnership program already in place gave her something to start with, it also came with its own unique set of challenges. As any seasoned partnerships manager will tell you, no partnership program is truly self-driving.

As Kieva dove into the weeds she was able to approach the program and its challenges with a fresh set of eyes. She doubled down on the PartnerStack features that had become permanent fixtures in workflows and started leveraging other features to usher in a new era of sweeping success for the program.

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A happy partner is a paid-on-time partner

When Kieva took over the partner program, she also took over all the responsibilities of managing thousands of partners. One of the biggest challenges was invoicing and payouts, a particularly complex process due to Jungle Scout’s tiered partner commission structure. PartnerStack’s ability to automate payouts wasn’t just a time saver, it became a life saver.

“Without PartnerStack, I can't imagine what our invoicing process would look like. With thousands of partners in our program today, and so many of these driving daily revenue, it’s paramount that partners are paid for every successful referral correctly, and on time.”

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PartnerStack’s built-in automated payouts make sure everyone gets paid, on time. Built with flexibility in mind to support modern day partnership programs, PartnerStack was easily able to support Jungle Scout’s unique commission structures. After shuddering recalling her experiences on Google Sheets, PartnerStack’s automated payouts were a no-brainer for Kieva and Jungle Scout.

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From streamlining to strategizing

While Kieva had inherited an already sizable affiliate program when she joined Jungle Scout, one of her main focuses was scaling growth even further. To drive big picture growth, Kieva needed to balance time to focus on strategy with time to onboard new partners and manage existing ones.

Unfortunately, there’s only so many hours in a day. Fortunately, Kieva found a simple solution when she started seeing “all the little [PartnerStack] triggers as my co-workers.” One of those triggers was “a 90 day onboarding email cadence I implemented, that essentially handholds all of our new partners as they enroll in our program,” shares Kieva. The onboarding email flow includes milestone-based automations that empower partners at each step of their journey.

While automations and triggers might just seem like a handy feature for saving a few hours, Kieva shares, “they’ve been invaluable to our team.” PartnerStack’s automations were built with partnership workflows in mind. Kieva uses the time saved to strategize the growth of the program. As it turns out, this approach has been highly effective.

Taking the program even further, Kieva combined human problem solving with her tech. While a lot of partner programs shy away from providing their partners with recurring commissions, Kieva saw an opportunity. After listening to what partners were asking for, she realized this was exactly what the program needed. Jungle Scout needed to start rewarding partners for referring retaining customers that love their product — so, that's what they did. Along with recurring commission, they restructured their program entirely and implemented a tiered program structure that creates a clear path to growth for partners. As partners meet the threshold to elevate throughout their program tiers, they unlock additional perks and benefits. These automations, with the help of PartnerStack triggers — including messaging, increased commissions and movement throughout the program tiers — all happen while Kieva focuses on scale and strategy, strengthening the program overall.

“PartnerStack has been such a helpful tool that's allowed us to save time and streamline so many otherwise manual processes, while I get to focus on strategy and big picture work, so it's pretty valuable.” 

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PRM’s enable healthy partner relationship building at scale

One of the major challenges Jungle Scout was facing back in 2021 was unengaged, inactive partners. Since then, partner engagement and relationship building have been a key component of Jungle Scout’s partnership strategy.

One of the cornerstones of a healthy relationship is communication. Kieva sees herself as the “the link that connects all of our partners with what's happening internally at Jungle Scout.” With PartnerStack’s built-in messaging functionality, Kieva can instantly reach partners to share Jungle Scout product launches and updates, the latest amazon content, and new ways for partners to boost their earnings.

To drive partner engagement, Kieva recently launched a partner gifting program that celebrates different milestones, opened partner office hours and committed to a 24 hour response time to partners. 

On the other end, Kieva says that PartnerStack has also been beneficial for partners. “With PartnerStack, our partners can easily reach our team, access all the marketing resources they need to promote and share Jungle Scout, and keep track of their personal earnings and performance as a partner,” says Kieva. PartnerStack’s all-in-one platform keeps partner managers and partners in one place, mitigating miscommunication and saving time in the process. 

“It’s been a great tool for our partners, allowing us to centralize everything from communication, resources and analytics. For our partners, PartnerStack serves as an all-in-one hub connecting them with their Jungle Scout partnership.” 

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“These are really impressive performance metrics”

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While each automation and engagement initiative may seem small, Kieva has set herself and the business up for scalable success. After all, it’s become a program that is a huge revenue driver for Jungle Scout.

Kieva shares some staggering results, noting that, “in 2023 our program managed on PartnerStack brought in 29% of net new annual company revenue. These are really impressive performance metrics.” Agreed! Kieva continues, “in terms of our new customers acquired through PartnerStack or the partner program, again, in 2023, that was 30%.”

The success of Jungle Scout's partnership program demonstrates the value of investing in the right tools and strategies. It also shows that a PRM with the  ability to do everything, everywhere, all at once can be a game-changer for scaling up an already successful program. If you're exploring ways to accelerate your business growth, a powerful PRM like PartnerStack is right by your side at each step of the process.

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