Monday, June 23rd, 2008 Affiliate Stuff, Debate 1 Comment »

Well, it looks like there’s another great debate about discount codes with comments spilling out onto the blogosphere. As a merchant who will soon be distributing codes and as an owner of a discount code site, I obviously have some opinions on the matter. I have no answers, merely some more thoughts.

I think the biggest issue here is that there are so many issues surrounding discount sites.
Unethical practices

Probably the most prominent complaint is the ‘click to reveal’ dispute. Should code site owners be allowed to hide the codes until users put an affiliate cookie on their machine? Or rather, who else should be allowed to use ‘click to reveal’? Can a price comparison site tell users they must ‘click to reveal the cheapest price’? Should review sites have one paragraph, then a ‘click to reveal the rest of this review’?

It seems most affiliates agree this method is OK, as long as there is a valid, working and in date code behind the ‘click to reveal’. But the grey line appears again when the code happens to be a sale, a free delivery depending on spend offer or other offer that doesn’t require a code.

Savviness of customers

We have to face the fact that customers are getting more savvy. I’m sure, just like me, you have used a price comparison site to quickly find the lowest price for a particular product, used a cashback site to get money back / points and used a discount code site to get a discount. Thanks to the phenomenal expansion of the internet and it’s users, you’re guaranteed to be able to find a product in many different online stores and therefore there is a cheaper product somewhere.

Discount code functionality

It’s pretty clear that most discount code sites are catering for users who get to the basket, see a box saying “voucher code” and then decide to search Google for “brand + voucher code”. I’d hazard a guess that the vast majority of merchants who offer discount codes only do so by adding a box during the checkout process to enter a code, therefore enticing customers to go find one. After all, why spend 100% when there are other customers who are utilising this box?

So should this box be removed or used in a different way? For example, a cookie based solution where users must come from a particular code site in order to have that discount code activated, or maybe we should have less generic codes that take X% off the basket and more codes that are only for particular categories/products?

Merchant marketing

If merchants are going to put a box during the checkout process for a discount, surely they expect the vast majority of customers to go on the hunt for a code, so why not apply a blanket discount to all products, rather than giving out discounts?

Discount codes are a marketing tool, a psychological ‘trick’ for consumers to believe they’re getting a better deal, just like they price products at £9.99 rather than £10.

Last referrer wins

And here’s one of the core issues at the heart of the debate - are voucher code sites overwriting cookies previously set by affiliates? The content affiliate persuades a customer to buy a TV, they’re at the checkout and ready to buy, see a code box, go to a discount site, click to reveal and buy the TV. The code site owner gets the commission. Should the code site get the commission for what was effectively the content owners’ sale?

Perhaps, but then if we rewarded everybody for the sale, there would barely be any commission to go around. There are so many points in the marketing chain, how do we know who really made the sale? I sees a videogame on a TV programme, then watch a TV advert of merchant selling the videogame, go on Google and click PPC advert which is just an Adsense site about the videogame, click on a link to a content site, I chat to someone else about the site, read a review in a magazine, do a price comparison, get a discount code then get some cashback… who sold the videogame? Which point in the chain was the point that truly persuaded me to buy the game from the merchant I bought it from?

Finally

And on a final note, it seems a shame that despite all the whinging and debate, that this post on the forums was overlooked.

Posted in Affiliate Stuff, Debate | 1 Comment »

Saturday, January 12th, 2008 Affiliate Stuff, Debate 10 Comments »

 Like my dabblings with a different industry before it, I was surprised to find the affiliate marketing industry a ridiculously friendly arena. As a member of the UK’s biggest affiliate forum, it’s easy to see that affiliates big and small, merchants and networks all come together to share ideas, discuss projects and even self regulate problems that occur. It’s a fantastic thing to be part of and I love the fact that despite affiliates are all, essentially, in competition, they still come together and offer advice to others.

However, there has been one particular issue that has been discussed time and time again at the forums concerning one affiliate (who we will call Mr. A) who fails to even adhere to common courtesy. Mr A has a fantastic website; very well designed and extremely successful and for that they deserve hearty congratulations. However, he is using methods that are disrespectful to other affiliates by listing their URLs in the footer with statements that are belittling, amongst other things. These URLs don’t contain a hyperlink and used partially for the purposes of SEO in that anyone searching for a competitors URL may, in fact, land on Mr A’s site and be told that Mr As site is much better.

I’ve not really got involved with this discussion as I’m not in the position to, but my opinion is that I am disgusted at the lack of courtesy and ignorance to polite requests for the removal of these unfounded and disparaging statements. Mr A has a brilliant and successful website and is in no need whatsoever to use this, or any other unethical methods to get visitors to his site.

The trouble is, like I said earlier, affiliate marketing is not really regulated. Affiliates work hard, they share their knowledge and in the end, are careful not to break the rules that are in place or tread on each others’ toes. There is noone to stop Mr. A from breaking the rules, and the networks and merchants certainly won’t because they will lose a lot of money just to please what they might consider whining affiliates who are making less than Mr A.

But I was pleased to see one affiliate fighting back. This affiliate, Mr B, is also quite successful, but like many others, is irritated at the lack of action taken against Mr A and so has decided to belittle Mr As website on his own (new?) site. Hurrah! I love to see a vigilante in action.

So what does this mean? What does Mr B hope to achieve by, what one could call sinking to Mr A’s level? And will this trigger the start of other potentially childish attacks by affiliates who are all competing in the same sector, but irritated because Mr C is not playing by the rules?

I’m not putting down Mr B by any means; in fact I’m really pleased that someone has taken at least a small amount of action against Mr A.  I’d also be interested to know if any interesting search results or other actions come from it. But I want to know what this means for the future of affiliate marketing. Will rule breaking become more common and what will happen to the rule breakers? Is this is a job for the new IAM Affiliate Marketing Council? I’m new to the game, so I’m interested to know your thoughts.

However, if you’re just confused by all the Mr As, Mr Bs and my nonsensical warbling then feel free to just ignore me!

Tags: Competitors, Future, Industry
Posted in Affiliate Stuff, Debate | 10 Comments »

Monday, January 7th, 2008 Affiliate Stuff, Debate 1 Comment »

I’ve just commented on Azam’s post about the future of affiliate marketing but I realised afterwards I a bit more to say. Read his post then pop back. I’ll still be here. To summarise, Azam talks about the future of the affiliate industry or rather the death of it, thanks to cashback, comparison and coupon sites. This makes for gloomy reading, particularly for new affiliates like me. Is there a future for me? Can I squeeze some money out of customers who aren’t yet loyal to one of these sites? Will a small minority of sites within these categories kill off the rest of the affiliate industry? Well, maybe, but let’s consider a few things.

A strong point was the rise of the cashback site. Sure, affiliates may sell a product to a customer, but this customer will go to his/her cashback site and purchase the product through there. With cashback sites growing in popularity and users, how many potential customers are lost because they have a cashback account?

After initially being concerned, I decided it’s not that scary after all. Firstly, how many people actually have cashback accounts? I certainly don’t, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t really know about them until I got into AM. Secondly, do those with cashback accounts religiously use them for every purchase? My guess is that an impulsive purchase doesn’t involve logging into the cashback site and seeing if the retailer is featured, so they can go through the whole process again.

And what would happen if affiliate marketing were ruled only by the cashback sites? From a merchant’s perspective, I might get a little annoyed that my product isn’t actually being sold and distributed to a wider audience. If I wanted to give a reward with a product, I could do it myself.

Lee pointed out that content based sites are still in huge demand and I agree with him. These sites also have loyalty, but in a different sense. A lot of affiliate sites have communities, large mailing lists and returning visitors.  Niche, content based sites will be in high demand in 2008 but I want to throw in an extra ingredient into the mix: originality.

Original content like videos or games improve the value of a site and I believe that affiliate sites of the future will need stickiness. Product feeds and merchant supplied copy just doesn’t excite the customer. Connected to this is the inevitable fact that social media will simply grow and grow and I believe it’s not the amount of pence you get back from a product that will persuade a customer to buy, but it will be the content behind it and the viral factor.

I don’t think affiliate marketing is dead just yet. For my fellow affiliates and my sake, I sure hope I’m right.

Tags: Future, Industry
Posted in Affiliate Stuff, Debate | 1 Comment »