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How are online retailers ok with this? Surely this violates referral kickback ToS or something? Doesn't seem fair to not pay the _real_ referrer that leads to a

How are online retailers ok with this? Surely this violates referral kickback ToS or something? Doesn't seem fair to not pay the _real_ referrer that leads to a purchase.

jartelt 7y ago
I imagine the retailer just cares about getting the sale and doesn't really care who they pay the 2% (or whatever) commission fee to? Shouldn't make too much of a difference whether they pay the commission to Honey or to some random blog. It certainly sucks for the blogs and websites trying to fund their content with affiliate links though. Someone like Wirecutter can spend time and money on reviewing items and then can lose out on the referral commission in the end.
- zten 7y ago
  They do care. Some affiliate rates are far higher than that. Affiliate comes out of retailer marketing budgets. They set the rates thinking they're paying for certain types of customers from certain participants. Honey is getting paid what the retailers think it's worth - they're skeptical, but it seems to be driving incremental conversion for especially price-sensitive shoppers.
  - patd 7y ago
    Coupons affiliates typically get a lower rev share than others. It may be cheaper for retailers to have them if they don’t care about pissing off their others affiliates (most are too small to get their voice heard)
    - wongarsu 7y ago
      But if the other affiliates are more valuable then merchants do care if they piss them off. After all they want those high value affiliates to continue doing what they are doing
      - patd 7y ago
        90% of affiliates are very small players that don't have any bargaining power. In most modern platforms, all the referrers are tracked. I'm pretty sure that big players do complain and they'll get a "first cookie" or at least partial attribution for the sales they make.
        wongarsu 7y ago
        They have no individual bargaining power, but that doesn't mean they can be ignored. The more you ignore them the more go to greener pastures, the more you do for them the more resources they focus on your business.
        patd 7y ago
        In theory, yes. But that's not my personal experience (I'm mostly active in Europe).
    - zten 7y ago
      I think we're in agreement. The numbers through Honey probably look good, and the other affiliates probably don't have a good handle on how frequently they're getting scooped by other affiliates.
sturgill 7y ago
Rewards and coupon websites are notorious for leaching off the affiliate process without driving much incremental revenue. In the heyday of ABestWeb.com they coined the phrase ParasiteWare for places that stuff cookies like this. The overall affiliate channel has become increasingly challenging to manage profitably from a merchant perspective. But it’s very easy for a “manager” to see all of the sales affiliates “drive” and assume that it’s making them money. If you let affiliate sell for you, you had better invest in a professional affiliate manager that you can trust. If you source it to an intern you’ll lose a ton of money to leeches and fraud.
- Flenser 7y ago
  What about services like revlifter[1] where you put their script on your basket page and they give customers offers based on their basket contents? [1] https://revlifter.com https://revlifter.com
  - treebornfrog 7y ago
    This seems very similar to yieldify.com
  - sturgill 7y ago
    I don’t know anything about revlifter. But I’ve been in this space long enough that I’m skeptical of most claims. I usually try to build flows now that don’t ask for coupon codes at checkout (because that leads to deal searching right at the last moment). I prefer dedicated URLs with embedded offers as much as possible. If you need to go the coupon code route, I recommend how Namecheap does it: they registered a unique domain (namecheapcoupons.com) that publicly list all coupon codes. They rank #1 in organic search results. But, as a general rule, I encourage you to avoid working with deal sites and coupon affiliates. This is a general rule, but they tend to drive very little incremental revenue. You should also disallow any PPC campaigns using your branded terms.
- mmanfrin 7y ago
  > that stuff cookies like this. It should be noted that cookie stuffing is a term for a specific process where a site will inject cookies for thousands of sites with their own referral code on pageload of a landing site they control. It is highly illegal and people have served jail time for it, as it is considered fraud. What coupon sites do is they tend to hide codes behind a button that onclick will load the retailer's site with their affiliate code, then show the code.

How are online retailers ok with this? Surely this violates referral kickback ToS or something? Doesn't seem fair to not pay the _real_ referrer that leads to a purchase.

jartelt 7y ago

I imagine the retailer just cares about getting the sale and doesn't really care who they pay the 2% (or whatever) commission fee to? Shouldn't make too much of a difference whether they pay the commission to Honey or to some random blog. It certainly sucks for the blogs and websites trying to fund their content with affiliate links though. Someone like Wirecutter can spend time and money on reviewing items and then can lose out on the referral commission in the end.

zten 7y ago
They do care. Some affiliate rates are far higher than that. Affiliate comes out of retailer marketing budgets. They set the rates thinking they're paying for certain types of customers from certain participants. Honey is getting paid what the retailers think it's worth - they're skeptical, but it seems to be driving incremental conversion for especially price-sensitive shoppers.
- patd 7y ago
  Coupons affiliates typically get a lower rev share than others. It may be cheaper for retailers to have them if they don’t care about pissing off their others affiliates (most are too small to get their voice heard)
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    But if the other affiliates are more valuable then merchants do care if they piss them off. After all they want those high value affiliates to continue doing what they are doing
    - patd 7y ago
      90% of affiliates are very small players that don't have any bargaining power. In most modern platforms, all the referrers are tracked. I'm pretty sure that big players do complain and they'll get a "first cookie" or at least partial attribution for the sales they make.
      - wongarsu 7y ago
        They have no individual bargaining power, but that doesn't mean they can be ignored. The more you ignore them the more go to greener pastures, the more you do for them the more resources they focus on your business.
        patd 7y ago
        In theory, yes. But that's not my personal experience (I'm mostly active in Europe).
  - zten 7y ago
    I think we're in agreement. The numbers through Honey probably look good, and the other affiliates probably don't have a good handle on how frequently they're getting scooped by other affiliates.

sturgill 7y ago

Rewards and coupon websites are notorious for leaching off the affiliate process without driving much incremental revenue. In the heyday of ABestWeb.com they coined the phrase ParasiteWare for places that stuff cookies like this. The overall affiliate channel has become increasingly challenging to manage profitably from a merchant perspective. But it’s very easy for a “manager” to see all of the sales affiliates “drive” and assume that it’s making them money. If you let affiliate sell for you, you had better invest in a professional affiliate manager that you can trust. If you source it to an intern you’ll lose a ton of money to leeches and fraud.

Flenser 7y ago
What about services like revlifter[1] where you put their script on your basket page and they give customers offers based on their basket contents? [1] https://revlifter.com https://revlifter.com
- treebornfrog 7y ago
  This seems very similar to yieldify.com
- sturgill 7y ago
  I don’t know anything about revlifter. But I’ve been in this space long enough that I’m skeptical of most claims. I usually try to build flows now that don’t ask for coupon codes at checkout (because that leads to deal searching right at the last moment). I prefer dedicated URLs with embedded offers as much as possible. If you need to go the coupon code route, I recommend how Namecheap does it: they registered a unique domain (namecheapcoupons.com) that publicly list all coupon codes. They rank #1 in organic search results. But, as a general rule, I encourage you to avoid working with deal sites and coupon affiliates. This is a general rule, but they tend to drive very little incremental revenue. You should also disallow any PPC campaigns using your branded terms.
mmanfrin 7y ago
> that stuff cookies like this. It should be noted that cookie stuffing is a term for a specific process where a site will inject cookies for thousands of sites with their own referral code on pageload of a landing site they control. It is highly illegal and people have served jail time for it, as it is considered fraud. What coupon sites do is they tend to hide codes behind a button that onclick will load the retailer's site with their affiliate code, then show the code.