All affiliates know what the problem with voucher codes are. If you aren’t a voucher code affiliate then these codes provide an opportunity for your cookie to be overwritten by a voucher code affiliate at the point of sale.

I’m always very wary of promoting merchants that have a large coupon box at their checkout process.

Voucher codes are also often far from beneficial for merchants because it creates the opportunity for the customer to become distracted:

• When customers leave the checkout process to search for a voucher they may not find a valid one, in which case they’ll often think “I’ll have a look later on”, delaying and potentially never completing the purchase.
• Clever competitors target those people who are looking for voucher codes with a better offer of their own.

This is before we even mention the lower margins that voucher codes cause.

So, what’s the solution?

Red Letter Days may well have developed it. In their own words:

“Red Letter Days has developed a system which either hides or displays the voucher code entry box based on the referring URL, which removes the potential issue of sales leakage for non-voucher code sites in the final stages of the purchasing process. This enables the box to be shown for traffic from sites which have a code, but hidden for those who don’t.”

“We’ve added an extra parameter in the affiliate inbound URL that enables a ‘deal ID’ to be passed in. This deal ID is recognised by our website in combination with the affiliate ID, and agreed special offer/s are then displayed throughout the entire customer journey.”

What does this mean? In short:

• The voucher code box is now hidden when the affiliate doesn’t have a voucher code assigned to them.
• When a voucher code is available a site-wide discount is applied throughout the buying process. Click here to see it in action.
• Individual product discounts can be applied in the same way.
• Customers no longer have to enter a voucher code at checkout.

I think this is a massive innovation in this area. As an affiliate I’d be much happier promoting Red Letter Days and they should also see a significant improvement in their sales as commissions are now being assigned correctly based on who generated the sale, not those jumped in at the end and stole it.

What do you think?

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