Personally I think they’ve missed a massive opportunity with their “safe” TV ad!

Imagine the impact they could have with an advert featuring The Mighty Alan Partridge complete with ragga soundtrack…

… back of the net!

One could be forgiven in thinking that Affiliate Window have a bit of a penchant for the 100% cashback site Cashback Kings and are moving swiftly to push them forward as a viable alternative to the soon to be exiled Kings of Cashback. The King is Dead (at least with one network) – Long Live the (Cashback) King!

But Can They Really Rule?

Google Trends is a nifty little tool and it can be used to compare “daily unique visitors”. So if we compare the 100% cashback sites we see quite clearly the domination of the one over the many!

Seeing how these trends change after September 1st will certainly be something worth revisiting! Of course there’s question marks about the accuracy of the data but it paints a pretty interesting picture.

For other non-cashback sites it also paints a pretty gloomy picture! As mentioned above Submission Technology have new white-label site cashback partners – DLG, UKNetguide and Answerback. However, what chance do they have of being successful?

Let’s go back to those trends!

This time we’re looking at some of the most well known non-100% cashback sites!

Is there a decline? It does certainly look that way, at least for some of the sites featured. Perhaps this could be attributed to cashbackers moving to 100% sites or users moving to new sites like our own CashQuack (which in all honesty needs a miracle of biblical proportions to get going)?

Regardless, the trends aren’t upwards like Quidco (and to a smaller extent TopCashBack) in the top graph!

This does raise the question whether non-100% cashback sites have a future and whether big names looking to jump into the space are only doing so because their marketing manager has heard about them, heard that MSN are doing something cashbacky, and thinks it’s a great idea.

How the cashback landscape will change after September 1st remains to be seen, but it’s going to take a monumental effort from the pretenders to the throne to get the crown – at least based on the above – whilst new, and even established, non-100% sites have a serious battle on their hands to compete full stop.

According to the press release “John Lewis has a long tradition of treating all customers equally, regardless of circumstance or shopping channel. The business model of ‘cash back’ sites is at odds with this ethos, as they offer a permanent discount to online customers that is not available to department store customers”.

This statement is effectively true for all retailers, and presumably other’s will now be watching to see if this decision impacts on their online and perhaps even their offline sales where relevant. Given the volume of sales generated by cashback sites, if more retailers follow suit, then this could result in a major shift in sales patterns across affiliate marketing.

The only question mark surrounding this situation is “how many sales do John Lewis get via cashback”?

If it’s substantial, then this could be some much needed good news for content sites, who can now safely promote John Lewis products online without fear of a customer heading off in search of cashback deals!

In my Affiliate Marketing – 2008 – The Year Ahead I suggested that a “new cashback site is launched called the 110percenters”, well it seems that it’s already been created in all but name. According to Wepromiseto from Greasypalm they’re going to be paying out the “additional bonuses other 100% cashback sites keep for themselves”!

Rpoints version, called Cashback Kings guarantees to pay the highest cashback rates – but if Wepromiseto are offering out their bonuses that surely means Rpoints must have to pay out more to maintain their guarantee?

Another issue that’s been bothering me is this – how many of you signed up to Greasypalm’s revshare program? Now let’s say your users are now cashback savvy but like the service GP offer… do you think they’ll stay put or move to the new 100% service one they get wind of this new site? Will GP be advertising the new cashback to their current and subsequent new users? If your revshare referrals move to a 100% offer, that doesn’t leave much lifetime revshare for the affiliate does it!

So what’s next? Will these cashback giants be paying out the interest they earn on the accumulated commission they receive? Or perhaps they’ll offer the commission that never gets claimed? It will be interesting to know just where things will go next and how much they impact on each other and non-cashback affiliates.