David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

Around a month ago I locked myself away and immersed myself in airport parking. The result is something I’m very happy with, listing all affiliated car parks around the UK. It was all hand crafted including the data that powers the site.

It wasn’t long before my first sale rolled in. And it wasn’t long before it rolled back out. I checked the network a couple of days later to see the sale cancelled, with the reason cited as:

"Dear Affiliate we were unable to process some of your transactions due to voucher code use. We are unable to accept unauthorised voucher codes. Please contact xxx @ xxx if you wish to discuss this further. Kind regards, xxx"

(The merchant shall rename nameless as it’s an industry wide problem. As confirmed readers of this blog, they know who they are.)

Naturally, an email address invites an email so I fired one away.

The one returned enclosed a copy of the merchant’s voucher code policy:

"xxx makes voucher codes available strictly for certain groups such as the airline industry. Affiliates are prohibited from adding these to their websites or promoting them via other means such as in their newsletters. This is actively monitored. If an affiliate has promoted a voucher code, all their commissions will be revoked.

xxx would like to emphasize that if any affiliate transaction is found to have used a voucher code, no matter from which source the voucher code has been acquired, whether it is the affiliate site or not, that transaction unfortunately cannot be paid for."

The overall vibe I get from this is that no voucher codes can be promoted by affiliates whatsoever. All good and well, I tend to avoid voucher codes like the plague.

So it turns out I get penalised for following the rules, and as the result of someone else out there breaking them. If a couple of codes exist for small minority groups, these must have somehow found their way into the mainstream.
 
Is It fair?

I can understand why the commission has to be reversed but I certainly don't agree with it. Rather than go after me for following the rules, why don't they go after those that are publishing these rare gems of codes? Surely that makes more sense?

The Solution

Various solutions exist. Later in the terms, it reads:

"While other merchants would delete these bookings automatically before they even showed in the networks' systems, xxx does not have this implementation set-up yet, and so the affiliate transactions which also have a voucher code used are deleted manually on a weekly basis."

This doesn't solve the problem, it just hides it. By deleting it before it reaches the network, surely that constitutes a degree of fraudulence and mistrust? Surely affiliates have the right to know about every transaction they generate, not just the successful ones?

Another solution is to revoke all voucher codes. The purpose of a voucher code is to make a sale by offering a more attractive price. Why not just make prices a little cheaper across the board or rely on non-price related USP's to get the sale. How about relying on those humble affiliates you've got working their socks off for you? Ah, but the chances are the mighty airlines and voucher code sites account for a large share of sales, hence why affiliates get kicked from all angles.

The third idea is to go and penalise the offender who has published said code in the first place. A Google search for the code itself would be a nice and easy start. In fact, the terms state:

"Affiliates are prohibited from adding these to their websites or promoting them via other means such as in their newsletters. This is actively monitored.

It can't be monitored that actively for this to happen. If consumers have a voucher code, they would go directly to the merchant, not to me then to the merchant.

In all likelihood, the consumer has found me, decided to buy and then looked for a code. A look at my logs and it took just under 2 hours between landing and buying. Plenty of time to search for and try out a few codes.

Out of sheer curiosity I did a quick search for the merchant name plus "discount" and on page 1, found what appear like valid codes that would save me between 15% and 20%, and are quite niche. For example, one was issued by RAC to its members but appears on a top 10 site. So much for monitoring.

The offending voucher code sites are affiliated with the merchant so whilst I'm happy in the knowledge that they will be losing money too, I'm not happy that they are losing me money.

Will This Ever Be Resolved?

I suspect not. I imagine us small affiliates will be kicked by both larger affiliates running consumer driven sites (words like "fight", "revenge" and "anarchy" spring to mind) as well as several merchants who rely on such sites to bring them volume. And if they are cancelling such sales, then that (in my mind) equates to free affiliate traffic.

Luckily there are some retailers out there that either don't distribute codes or who actually value the work affiliates do for them.

But this issue does raise several issues. How many merchants are hiding such sales, deleting them before the networks get hold of them? How many sales does this actually account for and how much are affiliates really losing? Finally, will there ever be a resolution that satisfies affiliates of all sizes as well as the merchants and key partners?