MyVoucherCodes - How Ethical Are They

[greenfingers]

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The Ethical Practice of MyVoucherCodes.Co.UK and CouponCodes4u.com

Having read some concerning posts on this forum about myvouchercodes.co.uk I decided to try them and their sister companies for myself to see what information and response I got to price enquiries to try and determin how transparent and ethical they are.

MyVoucherCodes.Co.UK

Myvouchercodes.co.uk offered to advertise my site on their site and their following sister sites for £3000 per month or individually at £500 per month.

codes4u com
myretailcodes co uu
mydiscountcodes co uk
mybargainfinder co uk
monstervouchers co uk
freediscountcodes co uk
findvouchers co uk
discountcodes org uk

Nine days later they came back without me asking and offered me the same for £200 per month.

Couponcodes4u.com

I also got two different quotes from their other sister company coouponcodes4u.com who first offered me advertising rates at $250 per month or $2000 per year. Six days later a different representative offered me the same ad for $150 per month or $1200 per year.

These seem to be massive inconsistencies and make me feel very untrusting of their services and lacking in confidence.

Does anyone else have any thoughts or experiences?

[aotagain]

Normal advertising telesales behaviour imo. If you phone up any magazine for ad quotes and sound like you might be going to spend quite a bit over a longish period, they'll quote you xxxx. Have a good chat to the person who is on commission, then put the phone down and wait. When they phone back, the price will be xxxx minus 30%. Especially now.

I buy insulation sometimes. List price to a walk-in visitor £100. Price to me with a very small account: £25. Don't ask me why though !

[befuddle]

Greenfingers, are you the same Greenfingers that is a merchant on the Webgains network?

If so, then MVC would add you for free. They probably assume you've not got an affiliate scheme.

[ContentBoss]

voucher sites, IMHO, are on the way out. Merchants are getting wise that 'not owning the customer' isn't actually very smart.

[dougs]

Voucher sites and discount sites are far from on their way out. I have spent months talking to lots of large merchants and they are all looking at it. The future will be more strategic use of codes/vouchers/offers with controlled distribution...ie control of which sites can use what and who will get paid for the use.

Doug

[ContentBoss]

You could be right, of course.

However, the merchants I know seem to have woken up to the fact (thanks to finally getting round to some statistical analysis) that most customers they get from voucher sites are already customers of theirs, so they are repeatedly paying for the same customer.

As voucher sites are always going to have a massive serps advantage (for obvious reasons) I can foresee a time when the merchants get together and take some sort of collective action. As I said, just an opinion.

What I DO know is that the first major court case is brewing re a voucher site that is ranking for a merchant's trademarked terms, and because they were dumped from the programme, are diverting traffic to a rival offer. 'Protection Money', anyone?

Depending on which way it goes, it could alter the playing field, in the UK at least.

[dougs]

Content Boss - I think we are both saying the same thing.

Merchants want control of where the codes/voucher appear and with better analytics from the networks they should be able to see that.

Obvioulsy the networks need to track and show the data

Doug

[hpops]

Just to return to the original posters point. Although MVC has pursued some (ahem) "negative" avenues of promotion. In my mind, all pricing (and sales) issues are the perogative of the company. This isn't really a transparency issue as pricing is commercially sensitive, reactive to an audiences need and (usually) flexible.
I'm 99.9% sure that most prices (set-ups, management fees, agency fees etc) are negotiated and would vary from the rate card.

[Azam.net]

What I DO know is that the first major court case is brewing re a voucher site that is ranking for a merchant's trademarked terms, and because they were dumped from the programme, are diverting traffic to a rival offer. 'Protection Money', anyone?

Depending on which way it goes, it could alter the playing field, in the UK at least.

Had same thing happening here with one of our clients who, when the voucher code site - one of the biggest in the UK - was kicked off the affiliate program three separate times via three networks because of forbidden practices, started diverting traffic to their biggest rival. So, if you clicked on the advertiser's logo or name, it went to their direct competitor.

I had to struggle to stop the furious client suing the voucher code site, because I don't like strife in this industry, but will be interesting to see how the court case you mention goes.