Littlewoods upgrades online marketing

Web retailer consolidates third-party marketing strategy to boost web sales

Littlewoods is looking for a twofold increase in online sales

Littlewoods has signed a two-year deal with network buy.at to consolidate its third-party marketing strategy and boost web sales to meet its £750m target.

So-called "affiliate" marketing deals agree for one site to feature content or ads designed to drive traffic to another. Under the Littlewoods deal, buy.at will manage a combination of search engine optimisation, pay per click and loyalty site affiliates to increase the shop chain's online performance.

"Affiliate marketing is key to the plan to double online sales to £750m in the next three years," said a Littlewoods spokesman.

"A single affiliate network means we will have greater visibility of how each product and affiliate is performing and increase efficiencies using one management area and reporting system, rather than duplicating effort," he said.

The relaunch of littlewoodsdirect.com in September saw a 44 per cent rise in online business.