Posts Tagged Voucher Codes
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!
