Posts Tagged Voucher Codes
Toys R Us Make Changes To Their Voucher Code Policy
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on August 20, 2011
Voucher codes are back in the spotlight this week with the news that vouchercodes.co.uk has been acquired by Whaleshark Media for a tidy $40million. Congratulations go to Duncan Jennings and his team. The work these guys have done in this sector is phenomenal and no doubt they’ll go on to bigger and better things.
For the rest of the affiliate world it’s business as usual though and that means fantastic merchant emails – like the one from Toys R Us who have announced “changes to their voucher code strategy”. From now on they will be working with a selected voucher code partner. That partner has already been selected!
This decision aims to strengthen their programme in the long run and aim to “reduce the amount of discount messaging on the Toys R Us brand”. It will also enable them to better manage the discount sector.
The email goes on to say that “voucher code sites will be removed from the programme on the 1st September 2011″ And that Toys R Us are happy for you to remove yourself before this date. Nice!
The suspension will apply to websites with the words “voucher”, “Coupon” or “Code” within their url and websites who’s primary function is to publicise and communicate discount codes.
What a load of utter nonsense!
This is what will happen! The SERPS for “Toys R Us + Vouchers” and similar connotations will remain pretty much the same. The affiliate, lets call him Billy Top Dog Voucher Code Dude, with the discount code will be laughing their heads off, whilst all other affiliates will be redirecting their traffic to other toy retailers, perhaps using Skimlinks (or similar) or adding adsense (or similar).
Content site affiliates will still lose out because when you go to checkout on Toys R Us you are invited to enter a coupon code. The savvy shopper – especially as we get into that Christmas Toy Shopping period – will possibly go off and look for a coupon code and perhaps get the one from Billy Top Dog Voucher Code Dude. Lucky them, eh!
One way for other affiliates to combat voucher codes is to actually include them on their sites. But if you’re for example a toy blogger you no longer have that luxury in your arsenal. I guess that could mean less focus for Toys R Us from those affiliates? Good news for other toy retailers perhaps?
On the plus side Toys R Us do say that they “will be sending a separate communication to all those sites currently on the programme that we deem to fall into this category and will be willing to review this with individuals”. I guess if you’re generating a lot of sales then Toys R Us aren’t going to pull the plug?
And with that in mind it’ll also be interesting to see whether the cashback sites get culled! After all they’re offering a discount in the form of cashback. One even ranks in the top 10 for “Toys R Us Vouchers” which probably means they’ll be Toys R Us Vouchers Happy unless they get Geoffrey’s hoof up their backside alongside other code, coupon and voucher sites!
A simpler solution?
Give Billy Top Dog Voucher Code Dude his extra special voucher code to promote – as many merchants do – and give all others a basic code to use (if available). Or ask voucher sites to take a dropped commission, no, actually a better idea offer non-voucher sites (e.g. bloggers) a higher commission.
Or perhaps merchants could drop the coupon boxes altogether and just indicate the current offers that are available to shoppers so that they can take advantage of them. Or perhaps something even more radical – offer the products at the discounted prices to start off with! That’d be novel!
Whatever is done though is doesn’t change one frustrating issue…
The focus on affiliate marketing these days seems to be one of “you can’t do this” and “you can’t do that” alongside restricting current affiliates and making it impossible for new ones. There’s often very little to encourage people to make any effort with merchants and these kind of culls just make affiliate marketing a less exciting proposition.
Put simply, the door can’t keep shutting on opportunities for all affiliates – large and small – within this industry!
Hmmm – Merchant Mailer Musings
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on October 18, 2010
As it’s nearly Christmas it’s right that the old chestnuts of voucher code and content sites should make a reappearance on One Little Duck! Over the weekend Peter Dickenson wrote about A4UExpo and some of his comments were quite interesting, especially about customer hijacking.
In short there’s no value for “brand + voucher code”, there are only three decent code sites and they’re brands in their own right, merchants are worried about only having code/incentive traffic and network/agencies want merchants to supply codes.
A fairly good summary – albeit it’s a world self created by those now concerned by it – perhaps!
The in/outs and rights/wrongs of the various code sites is something we could debate for eons and we won’t get anywhere. What can be done about it and how things change however, not only needs to be debated but also acted upon.
The fact is this – if merchants are worried about codes then surely the key is to stop using them? That won’t happen, but what can be done do to make content sites and those people who would be happy to try and add value or advertise them, actually do something?
Are they doing enough and are they doing it already?
To try and answer this I decided to look through some recent merchant/network emails to see what they say. Are they dominated by codes or is there something in them that jumps out to help me help them?
Sadly the answer was no… for the most part there wasn’t.
In some I get just a list of products. One for example is simply “Check out the iPads that are available at…” – but no reason why? A list of links to iPads – whoopee do! In my opinion there’s no point to this email. No start, no middle and no end. Pointless, useless and deleted.
Another is “Merchant brings you 3 more excellent offers” – and I get a voucher code too. Perhaps they are excellent offers, I don’t know. The good news is that the commission percentage is shown. I can make 23p per item if I promote the first of these offers. I’m not sure, from a content affiliate point of view, that this is worth a go!
Sales they’re usually pretty good and may be worth a punt… except the email I get at 7.30pm on the 15th October, tells me that the sale ends on the 18th October. As it’s a fairly niche merchant a few people might look at it, but content for SEO wise it’s a tad short notice.
Thankfully we’re not getting short notice on Christmas! Some merchants have got organised and are sorting out creative. But what do I find in this merchant’s email? Yes “Don’t forget to promote our Christmas Early Bird discount code” and a “product of the week”. How about some video content? A search box? Something tangible?
The fact is, just looking briefly through a handful of merchant mailing communications is that they’re geared towards the voucher sites – or at least offer sites that can quickly post up a link or two and perhaps add “don’t forget your cashback”.
By the way, I fully understand why the above is as it is. At the end of the day it’s business and the easiest track to the pound coins is the sensible one to take.
However, If merchants want to get away from being reliant on the same old channels, then they need to start looking at themselves for the solutions. Innovation does need to come from affiliates, yes, but innovation needs to come from merchants too.
It can be basic from a simple explanation of “why the hell are you sending me a list of products” through to the more complex content units, videos, search boxes etc. Make it easier for affiliates to promote you! Fill in the gaps, explain and inspire.
And when you’ve created lovely tools for affiliates to use – keep them up to date and make them resizeable! There’s nothing worse than some clever creative or lovely content unit that’s been neglected because a manager has left their post or forgotten about things.
The problem is if the message in affiliate land is that it’s the code sites that earn the big money and are favoured by merchants, networks and agencies, then that’s the bandwagon people will get on board. Doing something different to “add value” is a pointless exercise if it only going to make you 23p.
A Red Letter Day For Affiliate Links! Will It Be a Good Experience?
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on March 19, 2010
There’s a touch of irony that in the week one merchant was caught out increasing prices when a user clicked an affiliate link that another launched an innovative system to sort out some of the many discount code issues. Red Letter Days have come up with a clever way of dealing with discounts and promotional code boxes whilst holiday firm Vivastay have possibly got themselves in a bit of a pickle.
In fact Vivastay could have trumped Red Letter Days had they just reversed what ever system they had in place. According to this post on Affiliates4U when an affiliate went to the site direct the prices shown were cheaper than if they went via an affiliate link. Not a good practice at all and potentially damaging to the industry. Having done some tests this morning it does seem this issue may be fixed. A price check on Barcelona’s NN 1898 on different computers and clicks all gave the same price. Good news if true.
Possibly better news for affiliates is the innovation that Red Letter Days have introduced. They have come up with a multitude of clever coding that means if a user clicks from an affiliate site a discount is applied if that affiliate has one and an add discount box is removed if they don’t (full details). There are also some fail safe systems in place so that Affiliate X can’t nick Affiliate Y’s code either. Codes can also be applied site wide or to specific products.
For example if a customer wanting to buy a relaxing eco break in Wales and they head to Red Letter Days via an affiliate without a discount code they get this…
However, if the customer goes via an affiliate site who have an agreed discount promotion with Red Letter Days, say 10%, they get this…
The idea is to try and get the consumer to not go wondering off in search of codes and discounts – something many affiliates are concerned about, especially when a prompt is made at the checkout stage to complete a discount code box. It’s a massive step forward and Red Letter Days, Affiliate Window and Affilinet should be congratulated for making this a reality.
It does away for the need for codes, the pesky promo box won’t be seen and a consumer can see straightaway the price they’re paying.
But new innovation always brings questions!
Firstly how much difference will it actually make? If Red Letter Days affiliates were losing a fair proportion of sales at the checkout stage then removing the code option is a significant step forward. The data from this innovative step could be the catalyst for other merchants to adopt a similar approach.
A slightly bigger concern though comes in the light of the Vivastay issue and that’s the public perception of affiliates and pricing. Even if one customer says “I get charged more clicking from your site than if I click from another” an affiliate (who hasn’t got a discount in place) may quickly lose the trust and goodwill of their users.
This means how discounts are reported at the merchant site is incredibly important. Whilst I appreciate it’s early days, the line through the price (above) perhaps isn’t quite enough for me. Although I guess drawing further interest to the price differential (e.g. “special offer” or “exclusive deal”) may not be favourable either.
Anyway all minor quibbles and shouldn’t disguise the fact that a massive step forward has been taken. For more details and examples about RLD’s innovation head on over to Affiliates4U. The affiliate managers are on hand to answer any questions.
Ask Jeeves For Voucher Codes – Good News for Affiliates?
Posted by Jason Dale in Affiliate Marketing on September 7, 2009
The battle for voucher code territory continues with the news that search engine Ask Jeeves has introduced voucher code results on it’s SERPS. If a user, for example, searches for the likes of Argos, Jessops and Pizza Hut, they get shown on the right hand side voucher code results from a partnership wih Bview, “an online community whose mission is to help others find good businesses and save money”.
It’s an interesting move from Ask, but the initial implementation is fairly basic.
For example a search for Argos, Argos Vouchers, and Argos Discount Codes will generate a code result, but a search for a Sony TV voucher code (as that’s the offer currently being promoted from Argos) and you don’t get a result.
According to Hitwise apparently food vouchers are quite popular! So what happens with a search for just a “Pizza”?
Well, you can find a Pizza Hut voucher code under a search for “Pizza Hut” on ‘Jeeves but if you just want a “Cheap Pizza” then they don’t tell you they have a code on offer. Most surprising though is if you search for “Voucher Codes” you’d never actually know that Ask Jeeves have their own code system implemented.
Perhaps that will change in time?
From an affiliate perspective any movements in the voucher code arena are not always good news. It’s going to be tough as it is with the PR campaigns of the big voucher codes sites gearing up for Christmas activity. Already MVC are planning an offline promotion whilst Vouchercodes.co.uk seem to be becoming the Jordan/Katie Price of the VC world as they’re in every newspaper we pick up these days (e.g. The Sun).
The one good thing we’ve noticed about the Ask Jeeves codes is that you don’t need to click to reveal any of them, so a user searching for a code whilst at checkout may not feel the need to click around and reset their cookies? It’s a small crumb of hope if nothing else.
Obviously the natural question is can we expect the same from the likes of other search engines?
Given their desire to earn revenue and the fact that voucher codes are a huge online business, both here and abroad, it wouldn’t be a massive surprise to see a similar feature roll out. Something similar from Google or Bing before Christmas and that certainly could put a cat amongst the presents this year!
