Brand or Performance? Huawei Shows Why Affiliate Doesn’t Have to Choose

Visibility and performance are often treated as separate marketing objectives. One focuses on building awareness and consideration; the other on delivering measurable commercial results. Affiliate has traditionally sat closer to the performance end of that spectrum, with CPA and last-click conversion at the centre. But as the channel expands across content, influencers and premium media, that distinction is becoming less clear.

Huawei Germany offers an interesting example. Faced with the challenge of marketing premium consumer electronics with longer consideration cycles, Huawei and Tradedoubler took a broader approach, combining premium visibility with performance-driven partnerships within the same affiliate strategy. Within eight weeks, the campaign increased traffic by 157% and revenue by 102%.

The case challenges the idea that affiliate has to choose between brand and performance. With the right partner mix and commercial model, the channel can contribute to both.

Why Premium Products Challenge a Last-Click Approach

Not every purchase journey starts with a customer ready to convert. Premium consumer electronics often involve more research, comparison and consideration before a buying decision is made.

That creates a challenge for an affiliate strategy focused predominantly on the bottom of the funnel. If success is centred on the final click, there is less scope to support the earlier interactions that help consumers discover a product, understand its value and narrow down their options.

For Huawei Germany, the opportunity was to extend affiliate’s role across more of that journey. The strategy needed to create visibility in credible environments, support consideration and still capture demand when consumers were ready to buy.

Build the Publisher Mix Around the Customer Journey

Instead of expecting every publisher to deliver both visibility and conversion, Huawei built a mix in which partners took on distinct roles across the customer journey and contributed to complementary objectives.

Content and influencer partners supported awareness and consideration, while premium media placements with partners including BurdaForward and Atolls added visibility during key campaign phases. Cashback and performance publishers helped capture high-intent demand closer to conversion.

This allowed Huawei to use the publisher mix as more than a collection of individual partnerships: each partner contributed to a wider strategy connecting early-stage visibility with measurable sales.

Move Beyond a CPA-Only Model

A broader publisher mix also required a more flexible commercial approach. Upper-funnel content and premium media placements do not always fit neatly into a traditional CPA-only model.

Huawei and Tradedoubler therefore combined impression-based media buying with performance tracking. This allowed Huawei to invest in premium visibility while still measuring clicks, sessions and conversions throughout the campaign. The result was a hybrid model that connected earlier-stage exposure with downstream performance rather than treating the two as separate activities.

For brands looking to expand affiliate’s role, the takeaway is to match the commercial model to the objective – using different forms of investment where they help partners contribute across more of the customer journey.

The Commercial Impact of a Full-Funnel Strategy

For Huawei, the combination of premium visibility, a broader publisher mix and performance tracking delivered results across the funnel.

Over the eight-week campaign, traffic increased by 157%, conversions by 120% and revenue by 102%. Importantly, performance remained 51% higher after the campaign period, showing that the uplift extended beyond the immediate activation.

As Lucrezia Teresa Lovecchio, Traffic Manager at Huawei, explains:

By joining our brand vision with Tradedoubler’s performance expertise, we’ve evolved affiliate into a full-funnel growth channel that connects strong visibility directly to revenue impact.

The results show that investing further up the funnel does not necessarily mean sacrificing performance. For Huawei, bringing visibility and conversion-focused activity into one affiliate strategy delivered both immediate commercial impact and sustained uplift.

What the Huawei Case Means for Affiliate Marketers

Huawei’s case points to a broader opportunity for affiliate marketing. As the channel expands across content, influencers, premium media and performance partners, its role does not have to begin and end with the final conversion.

The key is to build the strategy around the objective. If brands want both visibility and measurable sales, that means giving different partners complementary roles across the customer journey and using commercial models that support those roles.

This does not make CPA or conversion-focused partnerships less important. Instead, it expands what affiliate can contribute: combining earlier-stage influence with the performance accountability that has always been one of the channel’s strengths.

For brands, the question may therefore be less about choosing between brand and performance, and more about how affiliate can connect the two.

Want to take a closer look at the Huawei Germany case? Explore the full case study from Tradedoubler here.

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This content has been produced for Affiverse by an independent Advertiser and expresses their own views, in their own words. If you would like to feature as an advertiser and be interviewed on Affiverse’s media content platform, please email [email protected].