Currys is the leading omnichannel retailer of technology products and services in the UK. Its dedicated stores and website sell an extensive range of technology products including computing, consumer electronics, domestic appliances and mobiles.
The challenge
Alongside retaining their position in the market, Currys has been incredibly adept at monetising different areas of their website through value-added partnerships. With the view to bolstering their already established retail media strategy, Currys wanted to explore additional brand partnership opportunities through Awin.
The retailer saw a gap to introduce post-purchase rewards to cultivate a fresh revenue stream and enrich the shopping experience for their valued customers.
While discussing the project with BrandSwap, an Awin brand partnerships solution provider, Currys clarified the importance of a swift implementation. The launch of post-purchase rewards at Currys needed to arrive before the busy peak Christmas trading period, leaving just three weeks for BrandSwap to go live.
Currys, BrandSwap, and Awin also laid out three other objectives for the partnership, including:
- Showcase non-endemic, best-in-market advertiser offers to strengthen the efficiency of Currys’ retail media strategy.
- Deliver market-leading performance through a highly native format.
- Leverage data-driven insights to determine shoppers’ preferences for specific rewards at different points in the year.
The solution
As BrandSwap are readily integrated into the Awin MasterTag, Currys benefited from a streamlined method of deployment, eliminating the necessity for any software development or strain on in-house resources. The rewards went live in time for Black Friday, enabling the retailer to drive heaps of extra revenue during the busy Christmas period.
Crucially, Currys gained a rapid method of implementation with a partner that also delivered on the important fronts of advertiser selection, tech innovation, and user experience.
BrandSwap and Awin were able to hand-pick a selection of premium rewards from non-endemic advertisers that were strategically chosen to complement Currys’ products. Among other examples, meal kit subscriptions were earmarked for purchasers of cooking appliances, while offers on laundry products were selected for those checking out with washing machines.
The rewards were showcased through a simple user journey that made them all the more logical for Currys’ shoppers to consider. It worked as follows:
- After completing their purchase, Currys shoppers were presented with a choice of three rewards from third-party advertisers on the order confirmation page.
- Customers could choose to see an additional three rewards, with no limits on the amount they could redeem.
- After making their choices, customers were redirected to the advertiser’s own ecommerce store to finalise their request.
Finer details, like BrandSwap’s designing of the solution to fit natively with the rest of Currys’ on-site experience, ensured the rewards formed part of a seamless customer journey. The decision to highlight advertisers post-purchase also guaranteed zero interference between Curry’s core business and retail media offering.
Scaling the partnership
Currys’ success with post-checkout rewards soon led to conversations around how the concept could scale. The new financial year brought a fresh set of targets:
1. Boost revenue: Increase earnings from commission generated by advertiser rewards by 33% (FY 2024).
2. Improve range of advertisers: Expand the brand partner network to give customers a wider selection of rewards.
3. Bolster functionality: Add new features to improve the rate of offer redemption.
BrandSwap swiftly added a ‘save to WhatsApp/email’ feature for customers to store brand partner rewards on their chosen messaging platform. Currys’ solution also moved from Javascript to SDK for enhanced control, enabling it to appear in different forms depending on the customer status (e.g. pop-up for new customers, embedded banner for existing ones).
BrandSwap created a dashboard for Currys to identify what customers buy when they redeem a brand partner reward, which led to a targeted recruitment drive for advertisers in sectors that prove popular among certain audiences.
For an extra revenue boost, BrandSwap also launched several new featured placement units, allowing advertisers to pay a premium for increased exposure. This led to a number of targeted opportunities, including:
- Recipe box subscription service HelloFresh offering a free trial to customers purchasing a refrigerator or oven.
- AA breakdown showing prominently when customers purchased a car product, e.g. a Bluetooth stereo or adapter.
- Morrisons supermarket targeting postcodes which have historically produced high-value customers.
The results:
1. Boost revenue: The introduction of featured placements and the popularity of new advertisers led to Currys exceeding its previous year’s revenue by +43%, surpassing the ambitious target of +33%. Using Currys’ margin from Q4 2024, brand partner rewards generated the equivalent of £19.8 million in sales revenue.
2. Improve range of advertisers: New data and insights helped Currys build a network of 25 brand partners (+133% year on year).
3. Expand functionality: The addition of WhatsApp and email, along with the new targeting capabilities facilitated by the SDK integration, and several new inventory options, bolstered Currys’ retail media offering.
Following the evolution of Currys’ post-checkout rewards in 2024, the retailer, Awin, and BrandSwap even claimed Best Use of Performance Marketing Technology at the 2025 Performance Marketing Awards, cementing their status as a leading partnership in the retail media space.