22 Aug, 2007
Keep your website close and your offers closer
Posted by: Mercury Thread In: Affiliate Marketing| IMJUK| Internet Marketing
One of the great things about the Internet is that it allows us all to exchange information easily. You and I can exchange emails, we can surf the web, have discussions in forums, argue in blogs and chat in real time over messenger services. With this right their is a responsibility – understand that everything becomes public almost anything you say or do can, and may well, become public property. Once you put something online it becomes viral, it can spin out of control and once you lose control of your information its hard to recover from this position without damaging your position online in some quarters – someone will be offended by the way you try to limit their access and use of this information.
Affiliate marketing is a prime area where information will be distributed as far as possible. Any way an affiliate can drive traffic to a merchant to make a sale - they will do.
Voucher Codes - the new pariah in Affiliate Marketing
One affiliate marketing technique was to publicise merchants sites by providing with ‘voucher codes’ - so when you go to a booking form or booking engine you input a code and get a discount. These help you get more sales as they reduce the level at which ‘price anxiety’ kicks in. You know that sensation when you think that paying £35 for a toaster seems too much but paying £100 for a pair of up to the minute sneakers is worthwhile. The value a consumer places on an object is unique to them but pricing is based around finding your true value and promoting at it. So the 20% you could get at your regular hotel chain is no longer an expense - it’s a bargain.
Affiliate websites, on occasion, have been publishing these discount codes on their site and driving traffic to merchants where said codes are used. Merchants see this as a double hit on their online profitability - discount & affiliate commission. So they get the sale but their return on investment for that sale is reduced.
Voucher Codes - Good or Bad
The main part of me is that the merchant may well not have made the sale in the first place and the use of the promotional code made them a sale, a sale that didn’t go to their competitors and is all money into the revenue pot. Another part of me feels that if a small affiliate can reach consumers and promote offers on a merchant’s site how bad is their internet marketing! If you cant connect with your appropriate online market it’s about time you got yourself a new online marketing agency and addressed the core reasons why your strategy is failing.
To stop this they’re now tightening up the terms and conditions on many programs to limit the ability of affiliates to use voucher codes within their material.
The voucher code is just the latest target by merchants in affiliate marketing: First it was brand in the domain being disallowed, then it was brand bidding restriction, then it was no direct PPC traffic to a site, then it was brand mentions in URL and now we have voucher codes. At every stage merchants want affiliates to make them money but reduce the affiliate’s ability to actively promote these products online.
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