 | How Easy Is It To Get Discount Codes? |
Discount codes! We all want them! In fact judging by the number of requests on Affiliates4U every affiliate is now running a discount code site and is in desperate need of acquiring those codes! But, just how easy is to get hold of these codes? Generic ones are pretty easy, they tend to come in the never ending stream of merchant newsletters, but exclusive ones - that seems to be a whole different ball game!
Webgains: Probably the most proactive network for getting information about their merchants out into the public domain. They’ve also just launched a brand new blog to help affiliates stay up to date too. When we asked for codes - they sent them to us too!
Affiliate Window: They have a useful section on latest merchant offers and promotions in their CMS. It could be easier to use (some sort of date ordering, alphabetical ordering etc) but it’s a useful resource. Plenty of information (and links) in the emails though.
Paid on Results: So far have only relied on merchant updates and newsletters for codes.
Affiliate Future: The same as POR. Nice to see AF tidying up their merchant directory though (just sort out the product feeds to include affiliate links!).
Buy.at: There’s a Marketing Toolkit, but most information so far is gleaned from their newsletters or emails. Not sure if they offer exclusive codes?
Tradedoubler: Again it’s mainly from newsletters, but you can pick up some codes from information on site.
There are codes around, but the easiest way it seems to get them (especially exclusive ones) is to post on A4U. Unfortunately if you’re a newbie site then you might not get the response that other established affiliates get (in fact if you’re an established affiliate you often find you don’t get the same response either, and if you’re an established affiliate you might find your thread gets hijacked as well!).
Quite disappointingly the Vouchers & Offers community at A4U is quiet and lacks merchant/network involvement (other than Webgains anyway). There’s loads of affiliates wanting to work with merchants in this area but the limited involvement is a mystery.
I’m not sure if there’s a concern about doling out loads and loads of discount codes (exclusive or non-exclusive) to every affiliate, but there’s a lot of sites doing similar sorts of things with codes and perhaps that’s not a good thing (and yes our own Hot UK Offers is in the same vein to others - how it develops though is something that will happen organically).
Anyway - here’s our discount code lonely hearts request to any merchants or networks reading:
Wanted - Discount Codes & Offers |
And if you drop us an email, we’ll be happy to explain how we intend to work with them!
Popularity: 1% [?]
on July 27, 2007 at 11:08 pm Jeff Molander wrote:
Or you could just dial up Linkshare. They’re an affiliate now too!
http://affiliatetip.com/news/article001337.php
How do affiliates feel now? First, CouponCabin partners with Yahoo and now Linkshare itself partners with MSN. Not to mention buying Traffic Strategies (an affiliate) and CJ’s parent, ValueClick, buying affiliate giant Mezimedia (couponmountain.com, smarter.com).
on July 28, 2007 at 4:42 pm Richard wrote:
Hi Jason,
We’ve adapted the LoveHoney RSS feeds so you can add your Affiliate Future ID and the RSS feed will automatically turn all the LoveHoney links into Affiliate Future links with your ID.
Drop me or Jess @ Affiliate Program Advice if you’d like more info.
David’s used it here…. http://www.diydildokit.co.uk/ - just about SFW!
on July 30, 2007 at 11:40 am Chris Frost wrote:
“you might find your thread gets hijacked” - you referring to me and a thread on A4U by any chance?
I thought instead of there being 25 threads being started, all containing exactly the same request, it would make sense to point merchants and networks to the Community as well as asking for codes for my site. Personally, I would hate to see the A4UForum suddenly turn into a request website from merchants. I dunno, you can’t please some people :p
Anyway, as for networks - I couldn’t agree more with you Jason. Webgains far surpassed my expectation of unique discount codes, and I just need a bit more time to start ramping up the results. AWin are also proactive however, on the rest of the front, all appears quiet.
I think over coming months this will change somewhat as other merchants become a little more pro-active.
on July 30, 2007 at 12:02 pm jason wrote:
“Personally, I would hate to see the A4UForum suddenly turn into a request website from merchants”
I would too, but given the limitations of the network’s CMS for affiliates to explain what is they do, would like, looking for etc. then there’s not much else you can do!
I posted on A4U about a kind of affiliate/merchant “dating agency” - but the response to that was one reply. Makes me wonder where the proactivity is in the industry or if PPC/Cashback are just so big now that there’s no need for merchants to try and develop relationships with affiliates?
Jason
on January 25, 2008 at 1:16 pm Joe Connor wrote:
Hi Jason,
The network blogs are another easy way to keep up to date with the latest generic discount codes, certainly a lot easier than trawling through hundreds of merchant emails.