Everyone loves a bargain, there’s no denying it. Few of us can resist the lure of money off. Merchants recognise this and have been issuing voucher codes and offers in ever increasing numbers over the last few years. Affiliates, never slow to recognise an opportunity, have either added vouchers and offers to their existing web properties or have created sites specifically designed around vouchers and offers. Whilst some of these have turned into highly profitable businesses, others have struggled to achieve decent search rankings. Moreover, a number of high profile vouchers sites have attracted a fair bit of hostility from merchants and affiliates alike, some allegedly adopting grey or even black hat SEO techniques. The controversy and debate surrounding voucher codes is unlikely to disappear overnight: if anything, the discussion is becoming ever more heated. So what are the factors to consider?

Recession elevates demand
Rarely does this hold true but in tough economic times, consumer purse strings tighten and more time is spent hunting for the best possible deal. This is true even for categories that may have historically been less price sensitive, which in itself opens up an opportunity for new and existing affiliates. We are seeing merchants that wouldn’t have considered voucher codes two years ago, now enthusiastically pushing them via the networks and AM firms. Voucher code searches have risen dramatically over the last 12 months.

Vouchers – a win-win?
From a merchant’s point of view a voucher code is usually produced in order to rapidly promote and make sales. This may be to push a new product, drive new business in times of economic slowdown or simply to shift old stock. Voucher codes can also be advertised by merchants offline for online use, making them a pretty powerful marketing tool and giving the consumer some sense of exclusivity. However, this means that voucher codes are largely viewed as quick fixes by merchants rather than a lasting element of the online marketing mix. From an affiliate point of view, a voucher code may help in both attracting new customers to your site and in hopefully converting traffic into commission. A voucher code can be the pot of gold at the end of the content rainbow, offering incentives and at the same time improving the perceived value of your site to the customer. This sounds just dandy for all parties involved, but things aren’t all that they seem and there is a darker side to the voucher code party.

Pure play voucher code sites
The problem with pure-play voucher code sites is that there is something of a history of unethical dealings from certain elements in the market, to the detriment of merchants and content affiliates alike. Whatever the degree of truth in this, there is an inevitable knock-on effect in that pure-play voucher code sites all end up being tarnished with the same brush. Whilst the IAB released a set of worthy voucher code guidelines a few months ago which have been adopted by the major networks and merchants, many sites continue to push the definition of validity to the boundary. This has, in no small part, contributed to the number of merchants now stating that they will no longer work with pure-play voucher sites and more are expected to adopt a similar policy in the coming months. In reality, entering the market as a pure-play site is unlikely to be workable unless you have extremely good social media optimisation skills. From an SEO perspective, virtually all voucher code terms with any sensible level of traffic have seen fierce competition and are extremely hard to rank for. There may be some longtail keyword and niche sector opportunities but even these are becoming fiercely contested.

Playing the game the right way
For those of you with well established web properties in relevant sectors, the addition of voucher codes and offers may well drive both additional traffic and conversions / commissions if handled ethically and if correctly implemented. If you choose to add vouchers to your existing (or new) content, SEO or SMO based affiliate sites, make sure that what you’re describing as a voucher code is indeed a code rather than just a deal or an offer from the merchant, and that there’s a clear difference between the two. Also ensure that the codes you promote are legitimate in the affiliate channel: many an ethical affiliate has accidentally used codes that were designed solely for the merchant’s own newsletter or promotions via nominated sites only.

The data management challenge
Merchants and networks have not always helped affiliates in ensuring the validity of codes and offers. Even today, many codes and offers are issued with no expiry dates and in some cases no clear indication that the scope or validity of a code is restricted to certain forms of promotion. The data for codes comes from a diverse set of sources: blogs, forums, networks and merchant data feeds to name but a few. Some codes and offers require specific landing pages and you will need to add the relevant tracking ID to ensure you are credited for the commission. There are a growing number of code aggregators who will provide you with human reviewed feeds of codes but, again, costs and quality vary widely. The key message here is that voucher codes and offers data requires at least the same degree of careful management as mainstream product data and is in many ways of lower quality. You will need to factor this into your costs and time planning and offset these costs against any additional revenue generated.

Conversion or commission loss?
Talking of additional revenue, one of the main questions here is whether a voucher code used in conjunction with good content will actually increase conversion rates and overall commission levels or will it have an adverse affect? Many merchants issue voucher codes but associate them with specific landing pages and offer reduced commission percentages. You may make two additional sales but if the commission rate is halved, would you have been better off directing those clicks to another merchant at full commission levels? This is something that only you can assess over time, based upon commission data, refining your approach accordingly – but it is vital that you consider it.

In conclusion
In some ways, the whole industry has taken a bit of a credibility nose dive over recent months through poor implementation of vouchers and offers — although public interest is still intense. With a bit of common sense, integrity and intelligence, you should be able to leverage the value of vouchers and offers. One of the more valuable approaches is to organise your site in such as way as to promote the relevant vouchers and offers against the relevant products and merchants, rather than forcing the poor old visitor to find both separately and combine them themselves. Easy to say but often hard to implement.

Assuming that vouchers and offers actually make any sense in your target sector, make sure that you implement them as accurately as you can; stick to the IAB rules and monitor the costs of so doing versus any additional revenue (or indeed reduction!) in revenue. Whilst vouchers and offers look set to become a long term component of online strategies, it is worth keeping your finger on the pulse as to when the current bandwagon begins to slow: this will continue to affect your revenues directly. If you’re already a successful or fast-growing content affiliate you should also recognise that going for overkill with vouchers and offers could dilute the focus of your site which may reduce visitors’ time on site and, worse, dent some of your hard-won SEO victories to date.

Ultimately it all comes down to the focus of your affiliate business. The balance between positive and negative is specific to each case. As with most other things in this industry, try it slowly and carefully and monitor the results before diving in headlong!

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