Discount Codes - What's the Etiquette?

[Sendmediscounts]

Running a voucher codes site is not as easy as it looks.

The best way to ensure you are not stepping on others toes is to only add codes that are published here or sent to you by the networks, agencies or merchants.

[Matthew Wood]

I wonder if it would help if we built a proper voucher code database on affiliates4u that people could gather via an XML feed or similar??

[Barry]

Hi Matt

it would certainly be something that I would contribute to and use

Ta

[befuddle]

No thanks. I don't want all codes published in one file for all affiliates to use including yourselves. Such a page would also be very popular on the search engines removing traffic from affiliate sites that rely on SEO and not PPC.

[ian]

excellent idea. maybe include a javascript/php/asp call to return a list of codes based on a merchant name parameter.

[renegade]

Originally Posted by Matthew Wood I wonder if it would help if we built a proper voucher code database on affiliates4u that people could gather via an XML feed or similar??

Would you then have to take responsibility for publishing those codes - it could be a minefield. I would stay clear.

[renegade]

Originally Posted by befuddle In return I have also shown you the designs of the brand spanking new Shop Codes

Ah, yes, that's true - and it's looking great too.

[ian]

Originally Posted by renegade Would you then have to take responsibility for publishing those codes - it could be a minefield. I would stay clear.

Maybe the merchant/agency/network would be able login to maintain their own codes.

Seems a sensible cross-network solution. As long as it was easy to use for the majority of publishers, I guess take up would be quite high and a great way for merchants to publish codes for the masses.

[accelerator]

Originally Posted by Matthew Wood I wonder if it would help if we built a proper voucher code database on affiliates4u that people could gather via an XML feed or similar??

This sounds good to me. I would like to post discount codes on my sites, but the amount of time it would take to do this manually puts me off. If it could be automated in some way I would look seriously at using it.

Rgds

Accelerator

[befuddle]

Originally Posted by accelerator I would like to post discount codes on my sites, but the amount of time it would take to do this manually puts me off. If it could be automated in some way I would look seriously at using it.

That's the reason I do not want this. Once it's in a feed you've got a spawn of sites all including the same content where the only requirement is knowing how to injest an xml file.

Having a site full of codes should not be given to you on a plate.

Or maybe "easyshopcodes" may come to fruition after all

[drivetowin]

Agree with befuddle on this one - once every man and his dog can produce a voucher code site in five minutes those of us who have spent years building ours may as well pack up and go do something else.