Are 'type in a code' voucher codes any use?

[tim_lb]

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I look after www.hscplus.com we've started using money off or discount voucher codes on our conventional mail outs.

We'd also like to use them as part of our affiliate scheme, but are waiting for advice on how to do that best. I'm assuming that we need to sort it so that affiliate banners/links can automatically pre-load the customer with the relevant voucher code, so that they don't have to type anything.

In the meantime, is the existing system of any use to anyone? It would mean that the customer would have to be told by the aff site to type in the magic code (eg PC1 will get you 10% off any order over £20). Does that ever work?

It seems very clumsy to me.

[Tom Gould]

Hi Tim,

I look after Go1Better and we have an affiliate exclusive voucher scheem offering 10%off normal prices to coustomers who visit the site through one of the affiliate links be it a banner or a text link.

The way we do it is that the banners link to a dedicated page that gives the visitors a code, It's up to them if they use it or not but most do.

Here's a link adress without the image so you can see where it goes


http://go1better.at/tomgould?CTY=1&CID=1314


I hope thats some help !

[tim_lb]

That's very interesting Tom. It's useful to hear that in actual experience most people DO use the code on line. (In our case, with the printed equivalent/ phone orders we sometimes get people ringing up after they've received the order and saying that they forgot to mention the code when ordering...)

It could even be that doing it this way has a better effect: it somehow confirms the idea that the customer is being given special treatment.

If we went down the route of pre-loading the voucher perhaps we should still give them a customised welcome message...

Tim

[Tom Gould]

the only real drawback of it that i have noticed so far is that I cant deep link adds to specific products or pages, i designed an html I page with a search box and as many individual products as you like on there, I would have liked to have all the products linked to their specific pages within the site and have an active search box which did actualy search but because of this voucher thing all the links even the search box drop on the voucher page...


If you find a better way of doing it I would be very interested to hear about it.