Voucher Codes THE solution
There has been alot of talk of inappropriate voucher code use, click to reveal voucher codes and general affiliate abuse of voucher codes.
Well here is the solution for merchants.
It will nullify voucher code fraud, it will mean that any non affiliate vouchers are not abused, it will mean that voucher code fraudsters who display non existant vouches will not get commission after another affiliate has done the pre sale.
ONLY display the voucher code box at the checkout when a visitor has used a URL specific to the vouchercode. This may be a magazine or TV advert, PPC advert, flyer or other. It is your right to have this URL / voucher combination IGNORE the affiliate tracking code from the network.
Many merchants already do this on their PPC campaigns. If the PPC campaign is the last referrer for the sale the sale is not reported to the affiliate network.
So if a user sees your advert and discount code in a magazine /catalogue/on tv or whatever and uses your link - something like merchant-name.xxx/offer a cookie would be triggered to show the vouchercode box on your website. The same cookie would deactivate the affiliate netwrok tracking code. Customer gets the discount, the sale is trackable and the merchant doesnt fork out commission when the user searches for a discount vocher for the product.
When the affiliate link is clicked no voucher code box is shown so customers will not abandon the shopping cart looking for a voucher.
Also the merchant wouldnt lose the sale to a competitior selling the same/similar product when searching for a discount code.
we used to do the variable urls at a merchant I was working at, so as to measure response rates and attribute visitors - utter failure. People don’t type in the full url they see in an ad, they just type the default url. If you have tied in the url with whether the code box is displayed - you have lost the customer and they will not come back to you.
Also in your scenario - How long before the affiliates notice that only specific urls trigger the box and start using them?
I was wondering if you could comment on your statement “Many merchants already do this on their PPC campaigns. If the PPC campaign is the last referrer for the sale the sale is not reported to the affiliate network”. Is this something you agree with?
thanks
Comment by hero | November 23, 2008
Hi Hero
My scenario stipluates that use of the offer URL (in print ads for example) de activates tracking code for affiliates AND activates the code box. So there is no benefit to the affiliate for using a code they are not permitted to.
I am interested by your findings about the response rate, I have not carried out any experiments to this end personally.
Regarding the PPC - it might be that my wording was confusing.
Accepted practice when a merchant uses multiple traffic streams - mixing affiliate networks, mixing in house/agency PPC with affiliate sales etc is that they only pay on last referrer/cookie. So in the case of a PPC generated sale via in house or an agency the affiliate tracking code will not trigger when this other traffic stream is the last one to referr the sale. I agree with this as a paid advertising campaign is run along side an affiliate program why should the merchant have to pay twice for one sale?
Comment by admin | November 25, 2008