Why Draft Top Trusts Kickbooster For Their Crowdfunding And Ecommerce Affiliate Marketing

The Background

With Draft Top, it’s all about drinking topless! 

In 2015, Draft Top co-founders Armand Ferranti and Sean Kelly set out to change the experience of drinking beverages out of cans. They recognized that aluminum cans have their benefits and are an effective way to get beverages out into the world but they also have a major fault, many people don’t enjoy drinking from them. The idea was born where the top of the can would be removed entirely and turned into a cup. Through this, Armand and Sean found the experience of drinking from a can was more enjoyable, the aluminum taste from having their nose pressed against the can was gone and in fact their taste was enhanced by actually being able to smell the beverage. 

Armand and Sean had created something unique and they were ready to share it with the world. 

The Challenge

Draft Top ran their very first crowdfunding campaign in 2015 with a proof of concept. Once the campaign ended, they started selling for a year and a half to do some research and development, learning more about what people liked and disliked about the product. They made improvements and in 2019 launched their second crowdfunding campaign with a new product that would get them to mass production. 

Head of Sales, Pat Parizo, had a background in affiliate marketing so he knew this was something that would be incorporated into their strategy early on. Now, it was a matter of finding the right tool that could assist with their affiliate marketing strategy while taking the time and pressure off the four partners who were running Draft Top. 

The Outcome

During Draft Top’s search for an affiliate marketing tool, they were contacted by a member of Kickbooster’s support team with a friendly introduction and an invitation to learn more about their service. 

There were three major hurdles that Parizo saw with running an affiliate marketing campaign and after some research, he found that Kickbooster had a solution for each one. “First was the easy payout structure – Kickbooster handles everything. Second was how easy it is for people to get their unique links to post on social media and send to family and friends. Third, the discount codes that affiliates can get are unique to them and they can share those as an incentive for people to buy products through them,” said Parizo. “Those are the three major things that I saw was going to be difficult with us running an affiliate program and Kickbooster just had a seamless answer for all of those things.” 

Once the Draft Top campaign was up and running, they took advantage of another Kickbooster feature – the Marketplace. “We were able to use our network of existing affiliates while also gaining some new ones through the Marketplace, many of which are still doing very well. Not a lot of companies can offer that,” says Parizo.

Draft Top had a goal of $20,000 for their 2019 Kickstarter campaign. They ended up raising just over $595,000 ($26,000 boosted through Kickbooster). They moved their campaign to Indiegogo InDemand and raised an additional $239,039 ($10,944 boosted through Kickbooster). 

Now that the crowdfunding portion of their campaign was complete, it was time to move into ecommerce and start selling their product to the mass market. The Draft Top team had seen the benefits of affiliate marketing firsthand and wanted to continue implementing that strategy moving forward. After testing the waters with another affiliate program, they decided to move forward with Kickbooster’s ecommerce app. “Kickbooster is a way better platform, it’s very seamless. It’s our main affiliate program and the one we’re going to move forward with,” says Parizo. 

Kickbooster has helped Draft Top automate their affiliate marketing initiative while freeing up their team's time to focus on other aspects of the business. “We couldn’t be more satisfied, Kickbooster is such a great program and it takes a lot of the hard work off of our plate,” says Parizo. 

“We bumped up commissions on the platform to 15%, we do 10% discount codes for people to use with their friends, family and network,” says Parizo. “Affiliate programs are a big part of our business and we’re looking to grow ours with Kickbooster.”