Soniya Cooper
Soniya Cooper, Head of Marketing & Partnerships at LVLY, on Mother’s Day, her biggest retail moment of the year.
How has your marketing strategy evolved to meet rising customer expectations and cut through during this high-pressure period?
As a flower delivery business, events like Mother’s Day create a huge spike in demand – and for good reason. We focus on variety, trend-led design, and personalisation. Strategic collaborations also play a huge role. Every year, we partner with iconic Australian brands like Camilla and Miimi & Jiinda. This year we’ve teamed up with Kip&Co.
Our 2025 campaign, ‘Celebrating the person who makes you feel like home’, brings Kip&Co’s joyful aesthetic to our Flower Jar bundles.
Partnerships and affiliate marketing are an essential part of our business and overall marketing strategy. They’re not just a channel – they’re a core driver of brand growth. Affiliates, creators, and media partners sit alongside our owned and paid efforts, helping us reach new audiences and drive performance.
It’s also low-risk and scalable, as we only pay for conversions. That’s especially important during high-demand periods like Mother’s Day, where competition is intense. Last year, Mother’s Day spending in Australia neared $1 billion, and flowers remained the top gift choice.
We partner with a mix of publishers and creators – from editorial gift guides to high-performing affiliate offers. What we do understand is that there’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach. What might work for some may not work for others. By setting clear programme goals and outcomes, we work with each partner to unlock growth, reach broader audiences, and increase revenue.
Creators are brilliant at producing native content that feels genuine and relatable. When we partnered with Care Bears, people of all ages were gifting just to say ‘thanks for being my cheer bear’ or ‘it’s okay to be the grumpiest bear – I’ve got you’.
One of our bestsellers – our personalised jars – consistently drives strong conversions and lends itself to fun, shareable content. Personalisation continues to grow, already making up over 19% of Mother’s Day orders. Think flower jars, prosecco bottles, plants, and our best-selling flower jar + polaroid photo keepsake.
Q - Referral marketing is experiencing a resurgence. How is LVLY using personal recommendations and social proof to drive growth – and what results are you seeing?
Oh, we love a good review! We read every one that comes through. With warehouses in Perth, Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Brisbane, our reviews are also location-based – which is really useful.
We amplify this through our social channels, sharing real customer reviews, unboxing moments, and user-generated content.
Our goal is to make it the easiest gift they’ll ever organise – so reviews are hugely important to our business. We’ve seen more acquisition via referrals, stronger social engagement, and more repeat purchases. Ultimately, it’s about building a brand people genuinely love to talk about.
Authenticity is a word that gets thrown around a lot. How do you ensure that your brand partnerships remain meaningful and aligned with your values?
We’re guided by three principles: LVLY to the planet, LVLY to people, and LVLY to Australia. Every partnership we form reflects those values.
Our Kip&Co collaboration is a perfect example – fresh, fun, and timeless, like the mother-figures we’re celebrating. Their commitment to sustainability and ethical production means their products don’t just look good, they do good. The velvet purse is both practical and beautiful, and the picture frame becomes something meaningful once it holds a treasured memory.
We don’t do cookie-cutter collabs. Each one is built on creative alignment, mutual values, and long-term potential. Our goal is to be the most used and most loved flower and gifting brand in Australia – a brand people trust to help make someone’s day.
We also know Mother’s Day can be difficult for many. That’s why, for the second year, we’ve supported Motherless Daughters and their community event for women who’ve lost their mums. As part of our Thoughtful Marketing Movement, we offer the option to opt out of Mother’s Day emails – over 500 people used this this year, nearly double last year’s number. It’s a small gesture that means a lot.
LVLY partners with a wide mix of affiliates, creators, and advocates. What tools or approaches help you manage these relationships at scale – especially during high-demand periods like Mother’s Day – while keeping the experience consistent and on-brand?
One of our biggest early challenges was managing everything – tracking conversions, centralising reporting, and responding to performance data in real time.
Before we brought in impact.com’s partnership management platform, we didn’t have a structured way to manage publishers, customise reports, or optimise conversion rates. Now, we can do it all in one place - track affiliate links, monitor campaign success, and scale effectively. It’s made a huge difference to both our internal workflows and external relationships.
But tech alone isn’t enough. We meet regularly with publishers to align on content, strategy, and timing. Sometimes it’s not about the offer, it’s about when and where it lands. To support this, we keep most of our discounting mainly within our affiliate channel, helping partners stand out without clashing with other campaigns.