Next Voucher Code Ts and Cs revised

[mattb811]

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Hi Everyone,

In order to enhance the consumer journey for Next customers, we will be implementing new terms and conditions for voucher code sites as below.

The two main points to consider are as follows. All voucher code sites must negative match against brand terms in all search engines to prevent appearance on broad match against [Next voucher code] terms etc. We feel that this leads to an unsatisfactory customer experience as consumers may assume that Next voucher codes are available, when none are issued to the affiliate channel.

Secondly we would like to prevent voucher code affiliates using “click to reveal” when there are no codes available. Again this is due to the fact that Next do not currently issue voucher codes for use in the affiliate channel and click to reveal leads them to believe that a code will be issued.

The new terms and conditions are now live in the network interfaces so please can you update your sites accordingly. We have tried to contact the majority of affiliates directly so apologies if we’ve not been able to get in touch. Please see the full revised voucher code Ts and Cs below.

If you would like to discuss this further, please do not hesitate to give either Fiona or I a shout.

Best regards,

Matt

• A discount or voucher code in this instance is defined as a specific code that can be placed into the “Optional Promotion Code” box on the Next site (see below). Offers available to anyone who visits the site are not classed as voucher/discount codes.
  
• Publishers may only use discount codes which have been supplied to them by the affiliate network on behalf of Next. Voucher codes distributed by Next through any other channel may not be published by affiliates of Next.
  
• Under no circumstances are publishers allowed to surreptitiously use i-frames to set the affiliate network cookies onto a user’s computer.
  
• Discount code publishers with websites that encourage users to “click here to reveal offer / code”, thus setting an affiliate network cookie, can only use this function if a voucher code exists for the Next programme. If there is no voucher code available for the Next programme publishers must not use this method, as it leads to a poor user experience for potential Next customers and can cause customer service issues. This also applies to redirecting a customer through to the site for an offer available to all. This must be made clear to customers before they click.
  
• If a discount code has been issued to publishers and it has an expiry date the publisher must clearly display on its website(s) the expiry date of this discount so that the user can decide whether they want to go ahead and click the publisher’s link.
  
• If publishers wish to maintain expired discount codes on their sites for search engine optimisation reasons, they must display clear notification to the user that the discount has expired. This notification must be located right next to the expired discount code. The font size must be no smaller than the site(s) body text and the colour use must contrast clearly with the background It is not acceptable for the notification to be displayed a significant distance from the expired code.
  
• All voucher code sites undertaking any PPC activity must negative match against Next brand terms including misspellings.
  
• Protected terms are as follows: [Next], [Next Directory], [Nextdirectory], [Next.co.uk], [Next.com], [Nextdirectory.co.uk], [Nextdirectory.com]
  
• Misspellings include, but are not exclusive to, Nex, Bext, Enxt, Ext, N ext, N3xt, Nect, Nest, Netx.

[Barry]

I have now implemented this and do not have a click to reveal but list 'offers' in plain view.

As broadmatch goes 'I bet almost (and I say not all) voucher site you see using PPC are blaming broadmatch for their ads appearing for (merchant + voucher code phrases) and its something merchant and network can never find out for sure - unless of course the voucher site tries to be clever (or is a numb nuts) and redirects it to the merchants final destination page on their site (like one ad is currently doing for next) or uses the keyword insertion tool so the merchants name appears in the ads.

The most interesting thing I find is that the person who is obviously bidding on 'next voucher code' (because it redirect to an internal page advertising next) is way down the list of supposedly 'broad matching site'

Anyway blaming broadmatch is easy for affiliates to do and the ppc market is rife with it.

Ta

Baz