3 ms·

In what way were they scamming retailers?

55555 10y ago
They pretend (or pretended) to have coupons that you needed to click in order to reveal. Often upon clicking, the coupons were invalid. Perhaps some were never real. But upon clicking, a pop-under would launch which would drop their cookie. So a user who was already committed to buying, and in the process of doing so, who simply checked for a coupon while going through the checkout process, would end up generating an affiliate commission for RetailMeNot even though RMN provided no value to either the customer or the merchant. This is basically a scam that pretty much all coupon sites pull, which is why many companies ban coupon sites from joining their affiliate programs.
- rcarrigan87 10y ago
  It blows my mind how many companies still eagerly work with coupon sites given this has been true for over a decade.
- ipsum2 10y ago
  What you're describing is cookie stuffing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_stuffing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_stuffing). People have been prosecuted over this: http://www.businessinsider.com/ebay-the-fbi-shawn-hogan-and-brian-dunning-2013-4?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/ebay-the-fbi-shawn-hogan-and-.... I'm surprised about your claims that a public company would be doing this.
  - dangrossman 10y ago
    I run affiliate programs for my businesses, none of which have a box for coupon codes when you sign up. Despite that, nearly every day new coupon sites sign up for the affiliate program. They usually have a webpage full of "coupon codes" offering discounts that don't exist made up, ready to add the referral link to. I remove all these sites from the program, some leave the pages up anyway. Even coupons.com has a page for my business with several "Click to Save" buttons that do nothing. They're publicly traded as well.
    - rcarrigan87 10y ago
      Some of the sneakier coupon sites will put up other, competing products that do have affiliate programs to try and flip people into a product where they get paid.
chipperyman573 10y ago
They don't actually refer anyone (usually you don't look for coupons before you're at the checkout window), but in order to view a coupon you need to click a link that gives you the RetailMeNot referrer cookie, giving RetailMeNot a cut for doing basically nothing.
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  Especially when, more often than not, the coupon code was invalid.
knownothing 10y ago
The scam back in the day* was that they would bid on their retailer's own keywords. Their ads would send that traffic through their own affiliate links and get paid on any revenue generated. The ads looked legit and appeared to point to the retailers so most folks never even knew. So they cannibalized their retailer's own paid traffic and made it more expensive to bid on their own keywords. *Back in the day was nearly ten years ago. Things may have changed. I see other folks have already explained what I would call the "pop-under" approach where a new window is opened from RMN's site to the retailer in question. This is nefarious but in a slightly different way than the above.
- alanfalcon 10y ago
  Most affilite programs forbid this, but you can find that some clueless program runners allow it... usually because of site owners who are too cheap and clueless to bid on their own keywords anyway.

55555 10y ago

They pretend (or pretended) to have coupons that you needed to click in order to reveal. Often upon clicking, the coupons were invalid. Perhaps some were never real. But upon clicking, a pop-under would launch which would drop their cookie. So a user who was already committed to buying, and in the process of doing so, who simply checked for a coupon while going through the checkout process, would end up generating an affiliate commission for RetailMeNot even though RMN provided no value to either the customer or the merchant. This is basically a scam that pretty much all coupon sites pull, which is why many companies ban coupon sites from joining their affiliate programs.

rcarrigan87 10y ago
It blows my mind how many companies still eagerly work with coupon sites given this has been true for over a decade.
ipsum2 10y ago
What you're describing is cookie stuffing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_stuffing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_stuffing). People have been prosecuted over this: http://www.businessinsider.com/ebay-the-fbi-shawn-hogan-and-brian-dunning-2013-4?op=1 http://www.businessinsider.com/ebay-the-fbi-shawn-hogan-and-.... I'm surprised about your claims that a public company would be doing this.
- dangrossman 10y ago
  I run affiliate programs for my businesses, none of which have a box for coupon codes when you sign up. Despite that, nearly every day new coupon sites sign up for the affiliate program. They usually have a webpage full of "coupon codes" offering discounts that don't exist made up, ready to add the referral link to. I remove all these sites from the program, some leave the pages up anyway. Even coupons.com has a page for my business with several "Click to Save" buttons that do nothing. They're publicly traded as well.
  - rcarrigan87 10y ago
    Some of the sneakier coupon sites will put up other, competing products that do have affiliate programs to try and flip people into a product where they get paid.

chipperyman573 10y ago

They don't actually refer anyone (usually you don't look for coupons before you're at the checkout window), but in order to view a coupon you need to click a link that gives you the RetailMeNot referrer cookie, giving RetailMeNot a cut for doing basically nothing.

FireBeyond 10y ago
Especially when, more often than not, the coupon code was invalid.

knownothing 10y ago

The scam back in the day* was that they would bid on their retailer's own keywords. Their ads would send that traffic through their own affiliate links and get paid on any revenue generated. The ads looked legit and appeared to point to the retailers so most folks never even knew. So they cannibalized their retailer's own paid traffic and made it more expensive to bid on their own keywords. *Back in the day was nearly ten years ago. Things may have changed. I see other folks have already explained what I would call the "pop-under" approach where a new window is opened from RMN's site to the retailer in question. This is nefarious but in a slightly different way than the above.

alanfalcon 10y ago
Most affilite programs forbid this, but you can find that some clueless program runners allow it... usually because of site owners who are too cheap and clueless to bid on their own keywords anyway.