As I was searching the web to see if a particular merchant offers coupons, I came across numerous affiliate sites which by optimizing their webpages accordingly make it look as if that merchant may have coupons when, in reality, they do not. It got me thinking in two directions: (1) how ethical is such a [...]
Continue reading about Pseudo-Couponing: Deceptive & Zero-Value-Added Technique
As I was searching the web to see if a particular merchant offers coupons, I came across numerous affiliate sites which by optimizing their webpages accordingly make it look as if that merchant may have coupons when, in reality, they do not. It got me thinking in two directions: (1) how ethical is such a [...]
Continue reading about Pseudo-Couponing: Deceptive & Zero-Value-Added Technique
Got a message from a client this morning: I’d like to disapprove this affiliate for illegal use of coupons. I don’t know how they get proprietary coupons but Next Jump is a private program. Another is for cart abandonment. The other two are expired… Went to the affiliate’s site, took a screen shot: Dear affiliates [...]
Continue reading about Affiliates Get Banned for Stealing Coupons
…at least within one particular affiliate network, within one particular country. Stolen coupons have been a long-standing problem for affiliates that are receiving exclusive deals from merchants. The essence of the problem is as simple as this: You run an XYZ affiliate website A merchant gives you an exclusive coupon code (e.g. XYZ-TWENTY) for a [...]
Continue reading about Stolen Coupons May No Longer Be a Problem
Yesterday Yahoo! has launched a renewed website, Yahoo! Deals (where they feature “deals and online coupons from around the web”), and resurrected their Twitter account @yahoo_deals to push the coupon offers published on Yahoo! Deals [source]. I went to the Walmart coupons page (titles and meta tags of all pages are well-optimized [no wonder why, [...]
Continue reading about Yahoo! Deals – New Affiliate Coupons Aggregator
Yes, I know, the title of this post may sound nonsensical to mainstream marketers, but give me a minute to explain what I mean a bit further. Over the past two days I have been looking through hundreds of affiliate applications into the DaySpring’s affiliate program, and I’ve been noticing that surprisingly large numbers of [...]
Continue reading about Coupons & Discounts Are Not Incentives
No month passes without me returning to the question of coupons and how they do/may affect merchants’ brands. Not too long ago, a colleague of mine, Chris Bishop of 7thingsmedia, addressed this very question in an excellent post on how to “protect [a] brand whilst competing on price and protecting [one's] product margin” in the [...]
Continue reading about Using Online Coupons Without Compromising Brands
This is the question which every merchant who gets into affiliate marketing has to answer at some point. I have seen merchants perceive coupons and promos as variables that make one look “like a discount shop”, bringing the brand value down and hurting the image of the company. I disagree with this position. Back in [...]
I have come across a blog post where the author states that “discount vouchers will destroy affiliate marketing” because consumers look for discount coupons “at the point of sale” and “not while researching retailers.” To support the claim (at least partially) the Father of Advertising, David Ogilvy, is quoted, who wrote in his “Confessions of [...]
Continue reading about Will Coupons Destroy or Save Affiliate Marketing?
Largely due to the current economic climate, and partly because of the very psychology of humans, coupon websites (majority of them – affiliates) are rapidly multiplying — new ones springing up every week. But how could a new coupon website stand out? First, let’s look at the commonalities of coupon affiliates. Most do everything that [...]
Continue reading about 7 Things A Coupon Affiliate Can Do To Stand Out
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