Publisher Spotlight: Global Savings Group

Rakuten Advertising had the opportunity to sit down with Global Savings Group’s Director of Account Management, Juan Mazzotta, to chat about the company’s offering and plans for the future. Join us as we dive into all things Global Savings Group.

Tell us about Global Savings Group

Global Savings Group is the world’s largest shopping community, recommendation and rewards platform with an international footprint across more than 20 markets. Our goal is to empower consumers to get more out of life by providing them access to the best savings, cashback, deals, product inspiration, reviews and other digital shopping services.

We were founded in 2012, and back then, we focused on coupon sites. We’ve expanded significantly in the subsequent 11 years and now count cashback portals and deals communities in our offering. Brands in the GSG portfolio include coupon sites like Coupons.com and CupoNation, our European cashback brands iGraal and Shoop, and deals communities, including Hotukdeals, Dealabs, and Mydealz. The deals communities are a new addition in 2023 since we joined forces with Pepper.com at the start of the year.

Given the broad range of solutions, we work with an extensive range of advertisers. Most of our customers are eCommerce players, ranging from the biggest names to smaller companies just starting their growth journeys.

What sets you apart from other publishers?

I’d say two things: firstly, our broad range of solutions, and secondly, our scale.

As mentioned previously, GSG has various consumer products, including coupon sites, cashback portals, and deals communities. This means that we can offer advertisers a wide range of solutions aligned with their goals. For example, brands looking to improve their conversion rates and drive new sales efficiently can use our ‘traditional’ coupon offering. For brands looking to raise awareness and reach customers earlier in the funnel, we can run content campaigns or help them reach millions of potential customers via our deals communities. Advertisers looking to reach a large community of new potential customers or raise AOVs can work with our cashback sites. And that’s just a taster of what we can offer!

When it comes to scale, we are also unique. Firstly, we operate in 22 markets around the world. Secondly, our solutions have a huge reach – hundreds of millions of unique buyers and billions of pageviews annually. This is hard to find elsewhere!

How do you help advertisers add value and drive incrementality?

We help advertisers achieve various goals, including reaching new audiences, improving conversion rates, increasing AOVs, driving repeat purchases, and generating new sales with clear ROI.

For example, we found that the AOVs of our users were, on average, 59% higher than the AOVs of some leading eCommerce retailers’ customers across the fashion, travel, and home/furniture verticals. Our data also shows that our channels can deliver a much higher return on ad spend (ROAS) than other leading channels like Facebook and Google Ads.

Our more ‘traditional’ offerings, such as coupon sites, remain handy tools for improving conversion rates. Given the challenging economic situation, they’ve become more relevant and valuable than ever in the last couple of years. But we know that many retailers also want solutions that help them build their brands, and consumers are looking for useful insights to help them decide what to buy in a world where choice is greater than ever. So, the content solutions we’ve developed over the last few years have enabled us to serve our users better and offer ways for advertisers to reach customers earlier in their buying journeys.

What excites you about the affiliate marketing industry and its direction? Are there any new innovations we will see from you in the coming months?

In general, I am thrilled to see the affiliate industry continue to grow each year. Even during the eCommerce downturn after COVID, advertiser spending on affiliate marketing rose year-over-year. That indicates that advertisers are seeing the value of the channel and understanding that it can help drive profitable growth regardless of the economic situation. Hopefully, this trend continues, and we will see advertisers investing more in the channel in the coming years and treating it as a viable alternative to Google Ads, Facebook and the like.

Social commerce is another exciting trend in the industry. More people are discovering products through social media platforms like TikTok, and the fusion of social media and affiliate marketing opens new avenues for both brands and affiliates to reach their target audience. Social commerce also isn’t limited to social networks like TikTok and Instagram. We see how it can impact our deals communities, such as Hotukdeals in the UK and Mydealz in Germany. Combined, our communities worldwide attract more than half a billion pageviews each month, and users love visiting them to get inspiration and discover amazing deals sourced by other shoppers in the community. This type of social commerce will continue to grow in popularity in the coming years.

At Global Savings Group, we are continuously developing our products to help our users find the best savings and deals online. We now have a comprehensive range of consumer products across coupon sites, cashback portals, and deals communities. The next step will be to ensure our users can easily find the best deals across these different products, which we’re already starting to do.

We also see the opportunity to offer more personalised content and offers to our users based more on what they are interested in. Although personalisation has been a hot topic for years already, we still see further room for innovation there.

Why did you choose to partner with Rakuten Advertising?

We’ve been working with Rakuten Advertising globally for more than 10 years now, and one of its key benefits is its good mix of advertisers. Another is its global reach, which is aligned well with the markets we are focused on. Another benefit of Rakuten Advertising is its tech, which I believe is among the strongest affiliate networks. Last but not least, we’ve found the partnership management team at Rakuten to be strong, and as a result, we have built some great relationships.

Want to work with Global Savings Group? Visit rakutenadvertising.com today or speak to your account representative.