Case Study
How Using Katalys Shop Boosts Commerce Revenue
Katalys Shop Helped Chron.com Outperform Affiliate Links
About Chron.com
With 125 million page views and 39 million unique visitors every month, Houston-based Chron.com is a top US news website with a notable local presence. Published by Hearst Communications, Chron.com stands out from other news sources due to its highly diversified audience of readers and its dependable, consistent content.
Challenge
When 16% of e-commerce sales consist of affiliate advertising, how can publishers keep their revenue-generating affiliate programs without diverting readers away from their pages? Chron.com wanted a solution to this problem, but they also had a few goals in mind.
They wanted to:
- Show measurable results from their marketing/ partnerships
- Partner with an attribution technology team they could trust
- Improve reader engagement on-site
- Increase conversion rates and revenue
- Do all this without exhausting additional development efforts
Solution
Chron.com partnered with Fohm.co, a home goods product, to examine how effective Katalys Shop is compared to affiliate product links. Katalys Shop offers a seamless checkout experience for users directly within the ad placement or sponsored content, thereby maximizing product discovery and customer acquisition. They ran an A/B test to compare the two and determine the new strategy’s success.
Results
Katalys Shop performed significantly better than the affiliate link strategy, improving on- and off-site conversion rates and drastically reducing the amount of time to transact. As an added benefit, Chron.com received real-time, transparent conversion data while ensuring its readers stayed on the site after making a purchase. The brand partner, Fohm, also benefited from new customers funneled through a simplified purchase process.
Overall, Katalys Shop led Chron.com to higher revenue, better data, and a better customer experience than the traditional affiliate link route.