DRL - moving away from Voucher Code sites

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Hi,

I don't know how many other affiliates this affects, but I have been given 5-6 days notice to remove all my DRL links to Sainsburys Kitchen Appliances, Appliances Online, Appliance Deals, Next Domestic Appliances and Boots Kitchen Appliances.

The reason for removal is that DRL are "moving away from Voucher Code sites". Those against Voucher sites, might be cheering now .

Whilst I fully appreciate that Merchants can alter their acceptance criteria of affiliates, is it acceptable to give such a short notice period when no T&Cs have even been broken? Even if it is an acceptable timeframe, it does present a negative impression of DRL's (and AW in some way) attitude to their affiliates, some of which may have worked hard promoting them in the past.

Is anyone else in the same boat?

Cheers,

Nick

[Shane]

5-6 days notice is like a month compared to the notice we used to get of program changes (and even sometimes closures) which often were with immediate effect across most networks so I don't think 5/6 days is short notice, 30 or 15 would be wicked but to be fair 5-6 should be enough for most to comply with without problem.

Not sure it's a negative impression !? with my objective head on it sounds reasonable enough to me, it's up to DRL and how they wish to market themselves, no doubt it's been done after some thought, so whilst it may annoy the voucher code boys & girls DRL are working to a marketing plan and for now at least it's not going to include voucher sites (as they currently operate)

Be nice to see if they up their commissions for those that are driving non voucher sales now they aren't giving away free cash here and there to punters

[befuddle]

I've not received this email but would be disappointed if so. I've generated over £50k in sales this year and it's not via any underhand methods.

I use Affiliate Window widgets, banners and highlight the monthly customer offers such as 'free pans with selected cookers'.

Wasn't even aware that these sites had a voucher code facility.

[ash]

I've not had this email either, although i do promote some of the merchants on non code sites too...

[retrolink]

Hi,

Thanks for your replies.

I agree - 5-6 days is better than the immediate termination that sometimes occurs!

Having sent over £100,000 of sales their way in 2008 (achieved, like Befuddle, in a non-underhand way), I am looking at which Merchant(s) to redirect the bulk of the traffic to - Kitchen Science, Laskys, etc. I don't mind losing the business too much, as these things happen, just need to work out which Merchant/Network is the best converter for Kitchen Appliances...

Often, my sites do seem to get singled out early on. The same thing happened when Thomson dropped their commission rate to £5/holiday late last year and I got the new T&Cs imposed much earlier than others seemed to...

It will be interesting to see if it's just a select group of affiliates, or the entire voucher site network that are affected...

Cheers,

Nick

[Mogga]

Merchants can see URLS driving the sales now can't they?

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Merchants can see URLS driving the sales now can't they?

Hi Mogga,

I am not quite sure what you mean by this as merchants can obviously see the referring URLs.

One thing I certainly won't be doing is to 301 redirect of all my DRL traffic to alternative merchants. It will be a more ethical approach, suggesting alternative merchants to my users and removing all external links to DRL.

Cheers,

Nick