Do coupon codes hurt?
- Thread starter affearner
- Start date
Do coupon codes hurt? On a good site that keeps coupons up to date, adding a coupon can increase your conversion rates.
Coupon sites that are well managed do very well and are typically some of the top earners and are often times the award winners at CJ and LinkShare. I know some that are really good like Connie over at Flamingo World.
But then again there are lots of coupon and deal sites that don't keep coupons up, post fake coupons, stuff cookies and do other types of unethical marketing. So as with anything there are good ones and bad ones.
Coupon sites that are well managed do very well and are typically some of the top earners and are often times the award winners at CJ and LinkShare. I know some that are really good like Connie over at Flamingo World.
But then again there are lots of coupon and deal sites that don't keep coupons up, post fake coupons, stuff cookies and do other types of unethical marketing. So as with anything there are good ones and bad ones.
1) Only shop on good honest coupon sites (although the consumer may not know which ones are honest.)
2) When the coupon code does not work in the cart you know you got scammed
or someone just didn't keep their coupons updated.
2) When the coupon code does not work in the cart you know you got scammed
or someone just didn't keep their coupons updated.
Offering up to date coupon codes is a great way to convert sales on your site. It is very effective. In fact, some people don't buy unless they have one of these secret codes (which are not all that secret).
You mentioned, "usually personal home pages and they don't maintain their lists". Of course, if the site is unprofessional and the coupon codes are expired it is not going to convert. There are many professional and up to date coupon / deal / cash back sites and yes there are many mom and pop web pages listing the same deals.
You mentioned, "usually personal home pages and they don't maintain their lists". Of course, if the site is unprofessional and the coupon codes are expired it is not going to convert. There are many professional and up to date coupon / deal / cash back sites and yes there are many mom and pop web pages listing the same deals.
Some unethical (that's my nice word for them lol ) coupon sites go and steal or have their members go and do their dirty work for them (who may or may not know that they're stealing) from other very hard working, very ethical and very honest affiliates (hmmm and extremely very frustrated at this point rrrrrggggghhhhh affiliate) sites.
These bad coupon sites go and post every coupon code or promotional code, etc. that they can get their grubby little hands on
and their members will use those coupons. Meanwhile the poor teeny little very hard working and ethical affiliate who has that coupon site that this very nasty other affiliate stole from or ummm accidentally just happened to take her coupon codes off of her site and never realized they were doing it won't get credit for any of those sales. rrrrggghhh.
This nasty site who's stealing the coupons doesn't care if they post codes that have expired or neglects to post any restrictions, etc. that the coupon may require and then the poor unsuspecting member of that nasty site (who if they're unsuspecting doesn't realize the things that mean ole nasty site is doing) goes to use that coupon and it'll be no good. (which then if they ever see the good little affiliate's coupon site they'll blame her for that when she didn't have anything to do with that bad experience. )sniff, sniff
Not all sites are able to update all of their coupons all the time but the good ones will include expiration dates and any type of restrictions to the offers so that their visitors aren't caught using a coupon that has either expired or they may be trying to use but didn't follow the restrictions.
So, if you go to a site and see a whole bunch of coupons posted with no expiration dates at all included with any of their offers....this may be a sign that they're one of those very nasty sites.
You mentioned home pages. That definitely is a sign that they may not be an honest coupon site. I can't speak for all but generally you won't get approved to work for a merchant if you have a free hosted site or just a homepage site like you may get from aol, yahoo, etc. The networks or individual merchants want their affiliates to own their own domains so if you see a site that doesn't own their own domain name (like it may have aol dot com/ whatever nasty affiliate site) that's a real good sign that they probably aren't an honest affiliate and shouldn't be posting those coupons.
These bad coupon sites go and post every coupon code or promotional code, etc. that they can get their grubby little hands on
and their members will use those coupons. Meanwhile the poor teeny little very hard working and ethical affiliate who has that coupon site that this very nasty other affiliate stole from or ummm accidentally just happened to take her coupon codes off of her site and never realized they were doing it won't get credit for any of those sales. rrrrggghhh. This nasty site who's stealing the coupons doesn't care if they post codes that have expired or neglects to post any restrictions, etc. that the coupon may require and then the poor unsuspecting member of that nasty site (who if they're unsuspecting doesn't realize the things that mean ole nasty site is doing) goes to use that coupon and it'll be no good. (which then if they ever see the good little affiliate's coupon site they'll blame her for that when she didn't have anything to do with that bad experience. )sniff, sniff
Not all sites are able to update all of their coupons all the time but the good ones will include expiration dates and any type of restrictions to the offers so that their visitors aren't caught using a coupon that has either expired or they may be trying to use but didn't follow the restrictions.
So, if you go to a site and see a whole bunch of coupons posted with no expiration dates at all included with any of their offers....this may be a sign that they're one of those very nasty sites.
You mentioned home pages. That definitely is a sign that they may not be an honest coupon site. I can't speak for all but generally you won't get approved to work for a merchant if you have a free hosted site or just a homepage site like you may get from aol, yahoo, etc. The networks or individual merchants want their affiliates to own their own domains so if you see a site that doesn't own their own domain name (like it may have aol dot com/ whatever nasty affiliate site) that's a real good sign that they probably aren't an honest affiliate and shouldn't be posting those coupons.
I'm a little confused about that too. Typically all affiliates get the same coupon code. If a company issues special codes they are usually issued to the big name brand affiliate sites and super affiliates.
A "poor teeny little very hard working and ethical affiliate" would not normally get custom codes but would get the same ones everyone else gets. Maybe I misunderstood purplebear or she's referring to something I'm unaware of.
A "poor teeny little very hard working and ethical affiliate" would not normally get custom codes but would get the same ones everyone else gets. Maybe I misunderstood purplebear or she's referring to something I'm unaware of.
Sorry for the confusion...didn't mean to do that.
Nope, definitely am not a super affiliate or one of the big guys.
Will try to explain it better this time. Yeap, even tho I'm not one of the big guys I do have a few sites that do give me my very own little exclusive code. (It's not worth anymore than the offer everybody else gets) I'm able to have it tho and the code can be what I want it to be and I choose to have it related to my site. I was offered it..... so I thought awwwh that would look really nice to have my very own little code and my visitors, since it has my name on it would like it so I took em up on it. So...the offer's no different but guess it just looks nice.
At first I thought it was great. Big sites have em just like Linda said, so thought it was nice. But....now I'll explain to ya what the nasty site does. There are probably a bunch of em that do it but I'm aware of just this one nasty one, which I'm reaaallllly getting frustrated with. I was checking the other day and they've got coupon codes all the way back to January listed on their site. (I can tell cos a lot of the offers will just have the codes like 20JAN and he has 20FEB, 20MAR, 20APR, etc. ) I would assume not only are the people trying to use these expired codes getting annoyed cos they're not valid but they're probably blaming either the merchant for it or the poor little hard working ethical affiliate (like me ) but also the bigger ones too cos they post their codes their too. They don't discriminate against just the little affiliates, they'll get their grubby little paws on any codes that are out there that they find.
Brings me to another warning sign. If you see a site that has a whole bunch of coupon codes (or promotional codes, etc.) say like maybe (this is just an example)
15% off - code 123 Use now
15% discount on $75 purchase - code 456 Use now
15% off $75 order - code 789 - Use now
15% off $75+ - code abc - Use now
15% discount on any purchase of $75 or more - code def - Use now
well....think ya get the point. They're all the same discount but they're coming from different sites who are wording them a little bit differently and they've all got their own exclusive codes(well, were supposed to be)
A visitor goes there and thinks to themselves....hmmm this is a really impressive site, just look at all those offers they've got and I guess the search engines think the same since they're optimized for that now, too.
Don't know for sure what they're doin but I know I get searches for specific merchant coupons in my stats for how they arrived on my page but I don't get those clicks (nope, I don't know of an ethical way to keep people from just copying and pasting or even just writing down on a piece of paper what my coupon or promotional code, etc. is)
I was first alerted to this actually for offers that weren't exclusive to my site by my affiliate manager cos I had more impressions for his merchant than any other but no sales. So, I researched my stats and found people making the searches for the merchant's coupons - what I explained above) but they weren't clicking my links. But....getting back to my exclusive code. I know that it's happening cos this nasty affiliate actually has my code posted on his site (along with other poor little or bigger affiliates, too)
What I assume he's doin is putting his own links for each of the merchants on his site but in the wording for the offers he's substituting all the wording from the other sites he's either copying and pasting or writing on a piece of paper. It looks like he's got lots of coupon offers. Which he does, they're just from other sites, but they have his links on them not the other poor affiliates or not so poor affiliates. lol (He's just changing the wording....he's not including the affiliate links from the codes he's stealing, just the wording for the codes)
So, nope I'm not getting any offers that are better than others, just my very own code for my site. They just must put in any generic type link, never have to worry bout updating any of em since expired ones are on their site....so hardly have to do any work .....but they'll get the sales and in the process the others like me won't and all that hard work they've done trying to update their site and all the work they've done to try to rank well enough to come up in the search results high enough to be on people's radar was all for nothin.
Hope I made it easier to understand this time.
Nope, definitely am not a super affiliate or one of the big guys.
Will try to explain it better this time. Yeap, even tho I'm not one of the big guys I do have a few sites that do give me my very own little exclusive code. (It's not worth anymore than the offer everybody else gets) I'm able to have it tho and the code can be what I want it to be and I choose to have it related to my site. I was offered it..... so I thought awwwh that would look really nice to have my very own little code and my visitors, since it has my name on it would like it so I took em up on it. So...the offer's no different but guess it just looks nice.
At first I thought it was great.
Big sites have em just like Linda said, so thought it was nice. But....now I'll explain to ya what the nasty site does. There are probably a bunch of em that do it but I'm aware of just this one nasty one, which I'm reaaallllly getting frustrated with. I was checking the other day and they've got coupon codes all the way back to January listed on their site. (I can tell cos a lot of the offers will just have the codes like 20JAN and he has 20FEB, 20MAR, 20APR, etc. ) I would assume not only are the people trying to use these expired codes getting annoyed cos they're not valid but they're probably blaming either the merchant for it or the poor little hard working ethical affiliate (like me ) but also the bigger ones too cos they post their codes their too. They don't discriminate against just the little affiliates, they'll get their grubby little paws on any codes that are out there that they find.Brings me to another warning sign. If you see a site that has a whole bunch of coupon codes (or promotional codes, etc.) say like maybe (this is just an example)
15% off - code 123 Use now
15% discount on $75 purchase - code 456 Use now
15% off $75 order - code 789 - Use now
15% off $75+ - code abc - Use now
15% discount on any purchase of $75 or more - code def - Use now
well....think ya get the point.
They're all the same discount but they're coming from different sites who are wording them a little bit differently and they've all got their own exclusive codes(well, were supposed to be)A visitor goes there and thinks to themselves....hmmm this is a really impressive site, just look at all those offers they've got and I guess the search engines think the same since they're optimized for that now, too.
Don't know for sure what they're doin but I know I get searches for specific merchant coupons in my stats for how they arrived on my page but I don't get those clicks (nope, I don't know of an ethical way to keep people from just copying and pasting or even just writing down on a piece of paper what my coupon or promotional code, etc. is)
I was first alerted to this actually for offers that weren't exclusive to my site by my affiliate manager cos I had more impressions for his merchant than any other but no sales. So, I researched my stats and found people making the searches for the merchant's coupons - what I explained above) but they weren't clicking my links. But....getting back to my exclusive code. I know that it's happening cos this nasty affiliate actually has my code posted on his site (along with other poor little or bigger affiliates, too)
What I assume he's doin is putting his own links for each of the merchants on his site but in the wording for the offers he's substituting all the wording from the other sites he's either copying and pasting or writing on a piece of paper. It looks like he's got lots of coupon offers. Which he does, they're just from other sites, but they have his links on them not the other poor affiliates or not so poor affiliates. lol (He's just changing the wording....he's not including the affiliate links from the codes he's stealing, just the wording for the codes)
So, nope I'm not getting any offers that are better than others, just my very own code for my site. They just must put in any generic type link, never have to worry bout updating any of em since expired ones are on their site....so hardly have to do any work .....but they'll get the sales and in the process the others like me won't and all that hard work they've done trying to update their site and all the work they've done to try to rank well enough to come up in the search results high enough to be on people's radar was all for nothin.
Hope I made it easier to understand this time.
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