From my own point of view I think amateur “content” site owners such as myself need to consider the demographics they are targeting. Through my day job I have access to research that suggests users of voucher code sites fall into very specific Acorn demographic groups (http://www.caci.co.uk/acorn/). So by targeting different groups, the less net savvy, those looking for advice, the non-penny pinchers etc, there is still plenty of space to operate in.

I slanted my site towards “beginners” who might be more inclined to just click through to Amazon and buy. Clearly the Amazon brand provides a little more than just “best price” and attracts people like my parents who have no idea what a voucher code is! What it does offer is a trusted name, convenience and choice. Plus great cross sell for us associates!

I noticed early on that Amazon converted much better and thanks to the ease of using their content I will probably just gear my site towards these people. Perhaps a site like mine (3000-4000 UVs) won’t be much of a loss to the other merchants but if more sites start thinking like me and chase the mainstream traffic perhaps they’ll start to notice.

Has consumerism got to a stage where the bulk of buyers must have a code to purchase? Is it the economic climate? Is the merchant just crap unless they discount stuff? Is it that actually the rest of AM (non-VC sites) aren’t actually that good a channel? Or are there simply not the affiliates in place to inspire more sales via a non-VC route?

Each of those questions has got to be a concern – unless you’re a VC affiliate – and if you’re not, it’s surely a case of all aboard the skylark?

Enjoy t’pub!

Off to pub now, catch u later!

It either means the merchant’s offering wasn’t good enough or attractive enough for consumers without codes (or was being out-competed because of competitor deals), or that non-VC affiliates weren’t attracted to the merchant (why? did they do enough to work with non-VC affiliates? are there even the affiliates around to work with them and improve sales?).

VCs affiliates are here and a huge AM proposition and fair enough your example is good from a point of view… but analyse it flipped over and ask why this merchant could only do their sales this way? How is knowing a merchant can only do serious affiliate business through a VC encouraging to affiliate innovation and invention of anything other than more VC sites?

What you’re saying is different to the above… you’re saying “by introducing codes we started to generate more sales”.

If you take the first quote as being exactly what it says – i.e. 80% of sales come from code sites… that means only 20% come from elsewhere, therefore that says quite clearly the points mentioned above.