Comments on: Confusion reigns as merchants go on banning spree of discount code sites

By: Srihari Padmanabhan

Srihari Padmanabhan — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:13:45 +0000

It is true that there are discounts and offers being given all our the internet. This even hides the negative factors of a website or product. Buyers sometimes only look at the offer and get tempted to buy it as they include a disclaimer saying that the offer is only for few more days.

By: Meeting rooms

Meeting rooms — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:57:01 +0000

On thing I strongly agree is improvement in communication across the network.I think that the sites that spend the time looking into the details of the sites they show will reap rewards in the long run – the value of quality can never be under-estimated. But who knows what their obj is?

By: Barry

Barry — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:44:24 +0000

It must be easy for networks to spot voucher sites (the profiles with the massive EPCs!) and filter them out or ‘tag’ them internally. Its good to hear from Helen that a system is developing.

By: Ruby Web

Ruby Web — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:23:42 +0000

Hmmm, never really thought of the harm behind this act before. There’s nothing as terrible as making a bad call that ultimately brings down your business. Thank you for sharing

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:15:22 +0000

I think we as affiliates need to be less sensitive to THEM not paying enough attention to US. Part of the nature of being an affiliate is that most of us have taken ourselves out of corporate life and out of concensus decision making, committees, half-day meetings etc. etc. thank goodness. But that can make one very sensitive to and out of control of decisions that are made in good faith by others.

We’ve all had a merchant close suddenly, when we thought we were giving them good new customers; ‘why didn’t they tell me ?’. Then later ‘why didn’t they tell me they were going to open up again on another network – I’ve just trashed all the pages’. Is that actually a realistic expectation ?

Put it the other way around and there’s plenty of us complaining when a merchant says ‘fill in this form to let us know how and where you intend to promote us before we let you on the program’. We haven’t got the time – why should we – you should just trust us.

There was optimistic talk late last year about AM being in a good position to withstand a recession because with a measurable ROI, it would be logical for merchants to continue to value their programs and affiliates. But logic often does not dictate how marketing and financial decisions are made in any sizeable company. Thats why we don’t work there any more isn’t it ?

By: gadget

gadget — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:13:49 +0000

Yet again, more blanket knee-jerk reactions to a pub-type conversation from narrow-minded, just out of school idiots. How on earth is our industry going to mature into a respectable business when there are far too many people who work in it that just don’t understand business?!

By: john ayres

john ayres — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 07:59:17 +0000

If the networks had in the past policed the abuses of the large VC sites (no need for names) this subject would possibly never have arisen, codes would be effective in bringing incremental sales rather than the cannabalisation of existing sales by those same large VC sites.
If you were a network, would you now take action to cut off 30-40% (rough guess) of your overide income? or would you just pay lip service to some new rules which could easily be circumvented?

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:36:00 +0000

Perhaps merchants should employ affiliates as program managers and then they would handle it exactly right first time

It may well be that faced with the recession at the same time as the voucher code problems, some merchants have decided to just take action quickly in some form.

If you’ve seen the merchant interfaces on networks, its not actually that easy to go through and pick out what sites do what, so starting from scratch could be the only practical option. Obviously, irritating big affiliate sites is a bit of a blunder (well all of us actually).

So theres a risk of course that they will muddy their own program, but on the other hand they might take the view that if they lose some affiliates, there are always going to be a load more to take their places – particularly in gadgets, electronics and phones, where the net is awash with affiliate sites.

Perhaps in some areas its almost inevitable that sales will take place through an affiliate code link ?

So what would everyone do if it were YOUR business ?

By: childrensbeds

childrensbeds — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:45:03 +0000

I think that the sites that spend the time looking into the details of the sites they show will reap rewards in the long run – the value of quality can never be under-estimated (IMO)

By: Chris Dalrymple

Chris Dalrymple — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:41:38 +0000

KirstyM, I think I’d agree with you to some extent there – certainly some merchants are in a flap over their affiliate campaigns as well as other marketing channels. No doubt for many they’ll be looking at how many voucher codes they’re circlating overall, so customer coming through vc’s *and* resulting in an affiliate comission payment will be the first to be looked at – they’re the most obvious culprits.

I suspect some merchants might have more mileage looking at the effeciency of their PPC or email activity first, rather than affiliate channels. Or even stopping distributing voucher codes altogether – at least then customers are shopping with you due to loyalty/price not a short term incentive.