If he didn’t promote the cashback sites offline, then most internet users would never know they exist and continue to earn money for content affiliates.

By promoting a select few sites offline (on TV, radio and newspapers) he is encouraging people to avoid affiliate links or going directly to the merchants.

As much as he denies it, he can’t possibly be doing all this advertising for free. His “Cashback checker” only really checks against the same sites he promotes elsewhere. What idiot would promote these multi million turnover companies for nothing? He is definitely in the pocket of quite a few.

Another thing to consider is that some sites play “by the rules” whilst others flaunt them. Voucher codes are a good example. As an affiliate we have access to certain codes, we can use them to promote someone… yet other sites will promote codes they’re not supposed to promote AND offer a cashback route too. That’s a double whammy on the merchant involved.

It’s all well and good “getting one over” on say Tesco, but when it’s a small business that perhaps has missed a loophole it could be quite damaging to them.

What annoys me re: 100% cashback is that no one is told what it actually means to the rest of the internet. If you visit Site X who offers you a free service and their site is based on earning from affiliate marketing, imo you should support it… by going via 100% cashback you’re often taking revenue away from a site offering you a service.

If you put that in real terms, it’s like Tesco setting up a hypermarket next door to a village store… whether Martin Lewis realises this I don’t know?

Now you could say “why not compete”? In our position we run a free service, develop tools for our users, and have a whoppingly big server bill and wages to pay… we can’t offer 100% cashback – it’s not viable for us to do or manage.

We can (and are about too) launch a normal cashback site (not offering 100%) – but competition is fierce in the sector and let’s face it, if you can get £100 off insurance vs £50 off insurance… what would you do?

I’d personally like to see Martin and other promoters of 100% cashback qualify how exactly it effects websites – because if people don’t start to realise, then good quality independent sites will fall, new sites (like in the late 90s) starting up from people in their bedrooms won’t be able to become established, and the internet will be awash with corporate based stuff.

Cashback will always exist, but support for your “favourite sites” shouldn’t be overlooked.

People often launch sites related to their experiences/knowledge in the hope that by putting a few adverts on there, and a few links to related sites, that they will make enough money for the site to pay for itself (and to perhaps make a little more, if the site is good enough). If everyone uses cashback sites, then it may not be worthwhile for people to do this any more.

I’m also growing slightly sceptical of Martin Lewis’s “impartiality” – Although I do agree he does generally suggest good solid ways for people to save money.

(e.g. Home Phone calls – Martin recommends going for Primus Talk 1, via Uswitch as the cheapest standalone phone option (and he gets a referral fee from uswitch). But a cheaper option that he doesn’t even mention anywhere is to go for Madasafish Talk – Cheaper calls, cheaper line rental… …).

I don’t know how many other examples of this exist, maybe many, maybe none…

Unfortunately it seems that Martin has started down the path of affiliation i.e. (he gets paid for products / links he recommends).

All sites need some form of income and running a site the size of his obviously costs a few quid.
I’m sure his sites advice is more independent/impartial/trust worthy than the average, but it doesn’t feel the same when you click on an affiliate link to get a quote for a loan.

As David says, free trials are free trials – they are trials of a service. If the commission is being paid for the free trial then it should already have been factored in.

With regards to gaming merchants, I expect most people can plainly see the loophole and personally I think if gaming merchants are so worried about it then they should close the loophole by tightening their terms and conditions.

Vikki, I appreciate where you’re coming from, but you cannot say that you are sceptical of the quality of players from cashback sites. The quality is exactly what you allow it to be: people who have no intention of becoming regular players, they just sign up to get the cashback.

Free trials are exactly that – trials of a service. If affiliates are rewarded for a free trial signup, then it doesn’t matter whether they continue to use the service or not as the merchant would have factored that into the commission payout.

Loopholes (e.g. profiting from opening and closing a bank account) is poor management by the merchant. There should be a minimum term that the account has to be open for or a minimum balance for a minimum period before the reward is released.

Merchants should be reversing affiliate transactions where a loophole has been exploited or the quality of the lead is sub-standard and in turn the cashback site should penalise the user. If i ran a cashback site, that’s how I would do it and that’s what I would encourage the merchants to do.

As for Martin Lewis setting up a cashback site, unless it was free to use and offered 100% commission (beating MSE’s favoured Quidco), it probably wouldn’t do all that well. MoneySavingExpert is full of affiliate links so t’s probably not worth his while as he’s bound to be making a wad of cash from that anyway.