A Very Big Loop-Hole In The Affiliate Model

Before I've mentioned that merchants can mitigate the ability of Voucher Code sites to affectively steal commissions by appearing high up for their own sites for their own voucher codes ...

... the idea was that if content affiliates sent merchants a visitor and they were just about to buy and then decided to try and find a voucher code in the search engines they'd hopefully find the merchants own site again with a code - no other affiliate's cookie will be dropped and my hard work would be rewarded with a commission.

All well and good!

But now we're at the situation where merchants are launching voucher codes that attract 0%. I thought "fair enough" if people want to steal codes and use them then that's fine.

But yesterday I had a couple of transactions come through for Hawkins Bazaar on Webgains that attracted 0% commission. I couldn't work out why so I raised it with Webgains and got this reply:

Hi Lee,

Unfortunately, it looks as though the user has used a discount code which has been specified in our system as attributing 0 commission.

While I can appreciate that you haven't actively advertised this code, Hawkin's have specified that they aren't paying commission on transactions recorded as using their offline codes.

Which is fair enough. Some site has listed a code somewhere and my visitor has gone off and found a code (even though I've mentioned one clearly on my site!)

But what's stopping merchants publishing codes on their own sites that attract 0% commission? I'll be spending that hour that Loquax mentions (and yes sometimes I do spend an hour researching and writing a post) and won't receive a jot for sending the merchant the sale.

But it goes even further. Those two transactions show explicitly that content affiliates are suffering substantial leakage with merchants that offer voucher codes! The proof is there.

So how am I going to change my business next year? Well I'm definitely going to stepping up my content, making offers more explicit and changing how I send traffic to merchants.

What I ask from merchants, networks and agencies to do next year is to have a real good think about if you're really interested in the long term future of the industry and you want a massive percentage of your sales to be CONTROLLED by a few voucher code sites? I'd also like you to think about how much you value content affiliates?

I'd like agencies and networks to really think if you're doing the best for your merchants - who's top of your list of priorities?

Hopefully, we'll get the balance right next year and not let those that have a vested interest in not allowing an unfettered debate to get away with it.

p.s. I'd like to thank Webgains for their quick reply! Its not their fault!

for feck sake! There's another bloody 0%er!! 12 minutes ago! I'm getting fed up with this!