Voucher Codes. Merchants Read This.

[Markup]

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Thanked her earlier on in the thread... keep up

I'll try - original Mr slow me. Apologies Jason...

[Supercod]

I have commented on this issue before in this forum and on blogs, happy to deal with new points of views or indeed “last time did you consider this”, as sometimes you don’t consider every angle, however hard you try.

I personally have nothing against “click here to reveal offer code” if they exist. I don’t think it’s great practice to put up a page for codes that don’t exist however I have no problem with someone who had a page with a code and the code expired and on that page it said something like “sorry no code a present but click here to visit the merchant anyway” as lets face it removing a page you worked hard to get in to SEO listing to only have to relist it a month later is not the best way to keep you hard earned listings, as long as you don’t claim the user will see a code that doesn’t exits I don’t have a problem.

Like everything in Affiliate Marketing it takes a majority to say if something is wrong and they won’t work with a network or merchant if they don’t change their ways. The thing is this issue is not black and white like spyware, what we are talking about here is some people don’t like the way some people have set up a site, however what is not on is misleading customers i.e. lets take for example if you claim a sale is on at a merchant and no sale exists, that’s a matter that Trading Standards will soon have words with you about and probably the Merchant will boot you from the program.

Right now my view point is that Merchants can pick who they want to work with, if the say no voucher code sites than sorry guys, if they say you can not claim to have a voucher or list an expired one or one from an offline campaign, again that’s up to them if you don’t like it, well find another merchant to promote.

So basically unless something illegal is going on, it’s hard to start telling people you must only say the following when promoting a merchant, however you can soon expect to see individual Merchants terms saying what you can or can not say when promoting them.

As ever I keep reading all the posts, blogs and will consider, fix, work towards new and improved terms and systems for dealing with whatever the future of Affiliate Marketing brings.

Paid On Results have been monitoring how the cookie changes hands, we have for years and I can tell you that voucher codes hardly show up, the people who have cookies changing hands the most are the PPC guys and bizarrely cash back sites are starting to suffer from customers clicking on the links at different cashback sites and then claiming the commission didn’t register yet it did for one of the cash back sites they clicked on, sneaky and basically a raising pain for Network and Merchants to deal with.

If more merchants used our Voucher Manager the most advanced system around at present then half of what is talked about here wouldn’t be a problem, the issue is many merchants are scarred off voucher codes right now because of huge threads like this and that’s a shame.

Anyway I will keep reading as always

[Barry]

Paid On Results have been monitoring how the cookie changes hands, we have for years and I can tell you that voucher codes hardly show up

Cheers for that nugget of information Clarke and also your balanced opinion on the subject.

Ta

Baz

[BFG 9000]

I accept your point in as much as my argument was over simplified - the point I was trying to make is that perhaps there is a deeper reason his customers not buying.

By 'his' I take it you're refering to me & by 'deeper reason' I take it you mean the pricing?

I'm not going to bore you (or risk getting sacked) by revealing internal pricing strategies, but I can say that being a multi billion dollar company who does 99.99% of business through existing distribution (i.e. not on our own transactional site) then we don't want to undercut our main customers by selling below RRP. As we clearly state on the front page of 3M Select - we're offering new to market products & special offers (think - end of line etc) - with these we have more leeway on pricing & also have the opportunity to learn what works & what doesn't - we can then use this information to assist our main customers with their on-line strategies.


As an aside.....
This thread was aimed at Merchants - so I fail to see why you initially saw the need to attack me?


TTFN

BFG

[fizzbird]

This thread was aimed at Merchants - so I fail to see why you initially saw the need to attack me?

You said 'what's not to like?' as if voucher codes were the best thing ever!

My point was that merchants who like voucher codes are usually the one's offering worst value without them.

Anyway, apologies for any offence caused - life's to short and all that!

[Markup]

As an aside.....
This thread was aimed at Merchants - so I fail to see why you initially saw the need to attack me?


TTFN

BFG

Actually It wasn't, it was aimed at some very hard working affiliates (voucher coders) BY A MERCHANT!!

[BFG 9000]

Hmm - I guess I was confused by the thread title - reproduced below in all its glory :-

"Voucher Codes. Merchants Read This"


TTFN

BFG

[adamski]

I think you just have. You don't have to "tar" anyone. Just update your T&Cs.

Ta ta.

I wish updating T&Cs made all problems disappear. The reality of the situation is quite different.

Loquax - Click to reveal when there's no code present is, in my opinion, deceiving the user and therefore forcing a click. This goes against the 'Code of Conduct' set out in our affiliate terms and conditions (https://www.affiliatewindow.com/docu...liateterms.pdf). Specifically, clauses 1.5, 2.2, 2.3 and 2.7.

The question for us is whether we clamp down on click to reveal as a concept or whether we try and tackle the problem by penalising voucher code sites who generate sales where no code or invalid codes were used.

Supercod - I don't have the research in front of me now but from what I can remember we found voucher code cookies did change hands quite a bit. I'll hopefully add a bit more clarity to that comment tomorrow.

[befuddle]

The question for us is whether we clamp down on click to reveal as a concept or whether we try and tackle the problem by penalising voucher code sites who generate sales where no code or invalid codes were used.

What a horrible statement to hear from a network. You're PENALISING ETHICAL AFFILIATES who GENERATE VALID SALES for MERCHANTS WHERE NO CODE IS INVOLVED

That's me promoting merchants such as
B&Q, Boden, Boots Kitchen, Firebox, Hamleys, Kitbag, and hundreds more.

That doesn't tackle 'click to reveal' one bit. It just drives merchants off sites with the word 'code' in the domain onto mirror sites.

[loquax]

Ray I think Adamski is referring specifically to click to reveal...

i.e. clamp down on it's use by affiliates (which may be tough to monitor) - or if affiliates are going to use it penalise them for doing so commission wise.

In other words reward affiliates for not using it.

That's how I read it.

I doubt you'd have anything to worry about.

Jason

[adamski]

What a horrible statement to hear from a network. You're PENALISING ETHICAL AFFILIATES who GENERATE VALID SALES for MERCHANTS WHERE NO CODE IS INVOLVED

That's me promoting merchants such as
B&Q, Boden, Boots Kitchen, Firebox, Hamleys, Kitbag, and hundreds more.

That doesn't tackle 'click to reveal' one bit. It just drives merchants off sites with the word 'code' in the domain onto mirror sites.

I think we might have some crossed wires here. I'm talking about sites that advertise the presence of a voucher code, encourage the user to click to reveal the code (which opens the merchant site and drops a cookie), yet have no voucher code present at all. There's nothing ethical about that. It's misleading the user.

If you're not encouraging the user to reveal a code that isn't there, I don't see an issue.

[befuddle]

I think we might have some crossed wires here. I'm talking about sites that advertise the presence of a voucher code, encourage the user to click to reveal the code (which opens the merchant site and drops a cookie), yet have no voucher code present at all. There's nothing ethical about that. It's misleading the user.

If you're not encouraging the user to reveal a code that isn't there, I don't see an issue.

Thanks for clearing that up, so I'm glad I made my point too. As the author of this thread said

If the referrer is a voucher site and a valid code is not used - 0% commission, and reward the prior referrer. Better yet, don't credit voucher sites with sales at all. Ban them.

[Markup]

This might well be a conversation that needed to take place. But what we are doing is giving grist to the mill of a couple of merchants (morph_ is not alone whooooooooah) that want to cut the commission of their best earners.

At my last count (and yes I may be out od date - but voucher code sites have got even stronger since I was last counting) there are a couple (to my knowledge) of merchants out there who would lose 40 to 50 percent of their affiliate sales without voucher (type) affiliates.

I reckon all who feel affected by this issue should do a cards on the table approach and sign up to this Midlands based events? and have a FACE TO FACE CHAT on the issue cause at the end of the day it's only business and commission isn't it mate...

[befuddle]

Google show that 'voucher codes' are increasingly searched for

Google Trends: voucher codes

[Barry]

Wow that google trends rock man - love the site comparisons thing.

I def know who the biggest players are now on the voucher front.

Ta

Baz