Click to Reveal Banned!

[Leeky]

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@stuart.. Yeah, we feed loads of sites which use click to reveal, we have no control over these at all, they simply use our feed and don't use our ready built sites.

@frostie... The method you mention where the affiliate decides to use highlight + open sites is just as bad as CTR, and when I was talking about CTR i was also including these.

Lee

[Stuart]

OK then, so I understand as someone who is looking to add codes to another site - not just a VC site, are we saying that this is ok

1. Step 2 - Click to reveal code - no pop of merchant
2. Step 2 click to visit merchant?

If I read these posts correctly then this is ok with most people as its 2 clicks and 2 separate stages for the visitor, ok, they might do step 1 and then leave the site with the code and go direct? hard luck, take the good with the bad what? - just trying to get my head around this, so I get it right on my sites, so please don’t shout at me ha-ha

If I do the following its not illegal but not liked by a lot of people

1. Step 1 - click to reveal, drop cookie and pop up merchant site in new tab or window
----------

Now what stopping a cookie being dropped at stage 1 of the 2 step process?

Stuart

[tijan]

Without click to reveal (merchants)

The merchant gives affiliates a voucher code.
The visitor goes to the merchant site first and sees a voucher code box.
The visitor keeps the basket window open and search for a voucher code
The visitor finds a voucher code and simply copy and pastes it in the checkout box.
Nobody gets the commission

Yeah, affiliate get no commission for showing a customer the voucher code to complete his purchase. You are looking at this from one angle. So, if the merchant sells toothpase and the visitor gets to checkout, looks around and found no code, do you think he will complete the purchase anyway? when there are competitors out there. Even a stupid customer will close the browser and look for a merchant with better bargain. So for complementing the effort of the merchant as an affiliate by showing the customer a valid code, i deserve no commission?

Submission: Your above theory will encourage more merchants to provide voucher codes because of the leakage your school of though is creating. That arguement belongs to a school of thought which is long dead.

With click to reveal.. (merchants)

The merchant gives affiliates a voucher code.
The visitor goes to the merchant site first and sees a voucher code box.
The visitor keeps the basket window open and search for a voucher code
The visitor finds a voucher code and has to click to reveal it, which then drops a cookie and the vc site affiliate gets commission (why should they get this commission)

If you are a merchant that does not want your affiliate to get commission in this case, then why provide the voucher code in the first place. If customer has not find a voucher code they are likely to forget the basket and checkwith other competing merchant. Your argument may have a ground only if the merchant is running a monopolistic business. I dont see how many merchant does that. Merchant should provide the voucher code at their own checkout if they dont want affilate who contributed to the part of sales process to earn commission. A sale is not completed until the customer has completely checkedout. Again, this school of thought is long dead leeky

Without click to reveal.. (vc affiliates)

The affiliate promotes a merchant by advertising a code
The visitor clicks through to the merchant site and comes across the vc box.
The visitor then enters the code
The vc affiliate gets the commission.

No, leeky. Most visitors research before they buy. In the above scenario the visitor does not click to the merchant site. He copied the code in his clipboard or notepad, he looks around for similar products from other retailers and compare how much he could save with the code. Fortunately the affiliates code is of better value. 2 days later visitor is ready to shop. Because he didnt click through to merchant site to get the code above, no cookie is written. Affiliates who has provided the resource for the research get no commission. Affiliates are no charity. Merchants are robbing affiliates enough with non commissionable items on affiliates landing pages, free phone numbers on affiliate landing pages. This scenario is like creating more loopholes for merchants to rob and cheat affiliates. Submission: This thought belongs to the school of thought that lead the world into the last recession. This is how they think.

Without click to reveal.. (content affiliates)

The affiliate promotes a merchant by hand written content
The visitor gets sent to the merchant site and comes across a vc box.
The visitor then keeps the window open and searches for a voucher code
The visitor finds a code and copy and pastes it in.
The content affiliate gets the commission.

Hey Leeky. This is called Robbing Paul to Pay Peter
Why dont you put it like this:
The affiliate promotes a merchant by hand written content
The visitor gets sent to the merchant site and comes across a vc box.
The visitor then keeps the window open and searches for a voucher code
The visitor doesnt finds a code because everyone refuses to publish the code
The content affiliate gets no commission.

If a content affiliate is worried about loosing commission to voucher code directory then he should publish the code at the end of his content. The code is free for all to use. If Roonie plays the ball to Ronaldo and Ronaldo passes to Drogba and Drogba finds the Net. neither Roonie nor Ronaldo gets credit for the Goal. Drogba gets the credit.

With click to reveal (vc affiliates)

The affiliate promotes a merchant by advertising a code.
The visitor gets sent to the merchant site and comes across a vc box.
The visitor then enters the code
The vc affiliate gets the commission

... but here is the problem...

The click to reveal user always sets the cookie even if they did nothing at all to promote that item, apart from be the last referer on a generic code, also some click to reveal users use this method to overwrite more cookies by confusing visitors to click multple merchants for the sole purpose of dropping cookies.

Even without a code, last refral wins in 99.9% of affiliate marketing. No one is forcing visitors to click on multiple merchant. It is always clearly stated that a voucher has expired when it is expired. It is up to the visitor to choose to click if he wants to click. Moreover, you dont have to be a voucher code directory to confuse visitors and this argument has no weight with CTR

If nobody used click to reveal then nobody would be stealing any cookies, and everybody would get the correct commissions for the sales they have made, or wouldn't get commission if no value was added which made the sale.

IF your argument is that Click to Reveal or voucher codes directory adds no value to a sale then refer to my diagrammatical expression.

[Leeky]

The only thing that is generally not liked is if the visitor is forced to visit the merchant if all they want to do is view or copy the code, as this opens up loads of abuse such as stealing commissions from other affiliates and causing the merchant to have to pay out when the site owner has done nothing to add towards the sale of the product.

Lee

[Leeky]

@Tijan

If you want to compare vc sites who use ctr to footballers then it goes like this.

The vc site does nothing apart from stand in the goal area, when someone goes to score, the vc site sticks his foot out to touch the ball (not direct it.. but just to touch it), the vc site claims the goal.

Then one day someone notices and tells him to do something worth while to get a goal for himself without stealing everyone elses.

So standing in the goal all way through the match gets banned, then suddenly the vc site owner has to work as hard as everyone else to score the goal, and everyone is happy because all the players get a fairer playing field.

Lee

[dougs]

Leeky looks like you need to kill icodes then as it simply is a system for stealing sales

Doug

[tijan]

Leeky looks like you need to kill icodes then as it simply is a system for stealing sales

Doug

I will second that. :tup

[Leeky]

Not sure how an xml feed can steal sales?, perhaps i'm missing the joke, but i'm sure there is a funny side somewhere

Lee

[Brett]

A small balloon wakes up in the night and is feeling a bit cold so he gets up and tries to get into his parents bed. When he gets there he finds there's not enough room for him so he lets a little bit of air out of his mum and tries to get in again - but still there's not enough room. So he lets a little bit of air out of his dad - but still not enough room - so finally he lets a tiny bit of air out of himself and manages to get in to bed in between his parents and has a good nights sleep.

Next morning when he goes down for breakfast his dad calls him to the table and says "Son, I need to have a word with you about last night. I'm disappointed with your behaviour. You let me down, you let your mum down and more importantly....................................... .................... you've let yourself down."

It's not relevant, there's no moral to the story, just thought I'd lighten the mood a little for those of you who've read the whole thread :-)

[dougs]

Leeky

You are supplying people with the ability to steal sales, that makes you an accomplice.

If you are that moral about it then stop supplying them and give them there money back

Doug

[Leeky]

Leeky

You are supplying people with the ability to steal sales, that makes you an accomplice.

If you are that moral about it then stop supplying them and give them there money back

Doug

Doug, we simply gather feeds from networks, improve and categorise them, then send them back out in a single feed.. how on earth is this anything to do with the end user using click to reveal on their own sites?

The majority of sites which use click to reveal did so long before iCodes was created, the only difference is they use our feed instead of manually inputting the codes.

When we provide the site we don't include click to reveal.

Lee

[dougs]

You are part of the problem as you are making it easy for people to build click to reveal sites.....effectively you sell people sub machine guns, not your problem they use them to kill people.

If you disagree so much how people use your feed then stop supplying it to anyone who does click to reveal. You were the one who got on your moral high horse now do some action that effects your bank account.

As you have so many people using your feed you can dictate the rules by which they use it.

Action speaks louder than words.

Doug

[Leeky]

lol, Doug, you really are losing the plot.. get some sleep mate

Lee

[dougs]

I am sure in the morning you will find more than just me commenting on this and your hypocritic stance

If Icodes stopped offering codes to people many sites would not exist and hence the ctr problem would not be as big, so I suggest you change your T's and C's and tell people they must not do ctr if using your feed.

Obviously this may hurt you financially but it is better for the industry so you say.

Doug
Ps Some of the partners you list on the front page of icodes as example sites are using some funny ctr....you better talk to those guys Leeky
Pps http://www.pagerank10.co.uk/ is owned by Leeky - go and click on those featured merchants, you didn't not even tell me you were going to drop a cookie.

[Leeky]

Do the words.. drowning, grasping and straws mean anything to you?

I wouldn't care if the thread doubled in size with people sharing your views, it would just show a complete and utter desperation in a last ditched attempt to try and rescue the dying click to reveal, by trying to invalidate what I have contributed to the thread.

Unfortunately for you, its not just me who wants rid of ctr, and its not going to be forgotten about just because you try and paint a false picture of me.. some people will fall for it, but those who matter won't.

Lee