Removing yourself from Voucher Code Websites

[tecniltd]

Dear all

I am new to the board but I wanted to find out if there were any others in the same situation as us. Voucher websites continually create vouchers and discounts for our website from old social media posts and create them on their website as a working code - all of these codes are deactivated on our system and I seem to have to send about 10 emails every 3 months when customers complain the code they are using doesnt work. This is causing stress to the sales team and a fair number of unimpressed customers. Does anyone else have any experience with this and if so what have you implemented to combat it?
Many thank
Naomi

 

[mattk]

No experience, but a few ideas spring to mind.

Firstly, when a customer complains I would suggest they not use voucher sites and instead subscribe to your newsletter and follow your social media accounts directly in order to get the latest discount codes.

Secondly, you can identify and block voucher code sites from your social media accounts.

 

[tecniltd]

Hi Matt

Thanks for the swift response - agreed we do try and explain that we dont often use voucher codes and we certainly dont use such websites, at the moment we dont have a newsletter although this is something that can be used in the future when we have launched the new website (our previous opt-ins were not as concrete as i would have liked).
I will certainly look into blocking these websites from social media, the only good thing I suppose is that they arent setting up codes for our new website which would definitely cause some problems. It would still be interesting to hear if we are not the only ones.
Many thanks
Naomi

 

[fisicx]

Don’t post the codes on social media sites.

Link from the post to you site for the code. Then once expired edit your site to say just that.

 

[deniser]

WE have never used any discount voucher sites but we have the same problem as you. We have implemented a note next to the Discount Code box to say that codes are only issued directly by us occasionally when we run specific promotions but we do not use any discount voucher sites. This has stopped all those emails.

 

[tecniltd]

WE have never used any discount voucher sites but we have the same problem as you. We have implemented a note next to the Discount Code box to say that codes are only issued directly by us occasionally when we run specific promotions but we do not use any discount voucher sites. This has stopped all those emails.

Hi Denise
Thank you for the reply I am pleased we arent the only ones who suffer, thats an excellent suggestion I will see if the message can be added to the new website and hopefully it will reduce the problem
Naomi

 

[marcus_bond]

This seems to have become an epidemic over the last 3 months for us. We don't have a voucher code entry box on the site, so I'm guessing we're less affected than other retailers who do. Customers can hardly complain they didn't get the discount from us, when there was nowhere for them to enter a discount code.

Never-the-less, these discount sites have morphed somewhat recently, and are now claiming the discount will be applied automatically at the checkout, if visitors simply click through. I haven't clicked through to check exactly what the voucher process scam is, in case something gets loaded into memory

But I'm intrigued by why this is being done, or what these sites expect to get out of it? There are literally hundreds of these clone discount voucher domains doing pretty much the same thing, and more appearing all the time. I'm guessing these sites are all linked together in some way as they seem *extremely* similar is style and content, indeed the content almost look s automated.

Is it to harm other legitimate discount code sites by obscuring them? Is it to damage the reputation of online retailers in some way, by giving new customers a bad experience? Is it to track customers, or gain information from them? Are these sites loading something into memory...

 

[Darren_Ssc]

But I'm intrigued by why this is being done,.

Many retailers have affiliate schemes and, in the most part, it's done to drop a cookie in the customer's browser so they can be awarded commission for the sale. The big retailers, in general, are wise to this and either don't pay commision on these sales or, if they do, pay a nominal sum of 1% or less. The wisdom of such practice I'll leave you to consider?

Also, some will simply aim to rank in search results for any 'merchant + voucher code' term because even if you don't have an affiliate scheme now, you may do in the future?

You also mention a few other malicious reasons, and there is an element of this also.

You are already doing the best thing possible by not having a voucher code box in the checkout. Another tactic is to create your own 'voucher' page because it's going to be hard for any other site to outrank you for a page on your own site.

You can use this to list your current vouchers or to explain why you don't have any.

For those who do have vouchers, simply use a unique and distinctive code. Then if you see it on one of these sites process a complaint to their host citing breach of copyright. It can be very effective if the site is hosted in the UK, not so much elsewhere though.

I would also resist the urge to contact the website owners since they can be petty and spiteful people and you're more likely to get a bad reaction than a good one.

The reason you see so many lookalike sites is that there are templates available that are pretty generic and the content is mostly uploaded automatically via data feeds from various affiliate networks. Obviously, in your case, some content will be added manually but that is just a small part of the process. There may even be rogue feeds available that contain illegitimate data also - nothing would surprise me.

One of my clients uses vouchers quite successfully (much to my disappointment) by posting any such deals on each and every page, including at the checkout. It works and they get very few complaints because there is simply no reason to go looking elsewhere.

 

[Graham Tyers]

Dear all

I am new to the board but I wanted to find out if there were any others in the same situation as us. Voucher websites continually create vouchers and discounts for our website from old social media posts and create them on their website as a working code - all of these codes are deactivated on our system and I seem to have to send about 10 emails every 3 months when customers complain the code they are using doesnt work. This is causing stress to the sales team and a fair number of unimpressed customers. Does anyone else have any experience with this and if so what have you implemented to combat it?
Many thank
Naomi

I created a search-engine friendly voucher code page and pushed that above the rest of the noise to the top of the search engine results with some chosen codes. If you google [ my brand ] voucher/coupon/discount code etc my page comes first.

That worked nicely for me.

 

[Inva]

I don't understand where the problem is. When the client enters the code in the box, if this code has expired then obviously it should say the code is invalid. If you don't have this then it's on you.

 

[Graham Tyers]

I don't understand where the problem is. When the client enters the code in the box, if this code has expired then obviously it should say the code is invalid. If you don't have this then it's on you.

A customer having error messages in the checkout isn't what you want. We want the checkout process to be slick and seamless - customers get a good impression that way and a nice feeling about the product right from the beginning.

These scammers are stealing traffic by intercepting customers mid-purchase to land them with their cookie. It's not good, so the only option is to remove any voucher code option at checkout or make sure they find a genuine voucher code directly from you.

If you are buying affiliate traffic from Tradedoubler or Awin or some other then you'll be paying through the nose for traffic that you generated yourself and then goes off and gets a code and a cookie from the affiliate.

 

[Inva]

A customer having error messages in the checkout isn't what you want. We want the checkout process to be slick and seamless - customers get a good impression that way and a nice feeling about the product right from the beginning.

No

 

[House of Silver]

A customer having error messages in the checkout isn't what you want. We want the checkout process to be slick and seamless - customers get a good impression that way and a nice feeling about the product right from the beginning.

These scammers are stealing traffic by intercepting customers mid-purchase to land them with their cookie. It's not good, so the only option is to remove any voucher code option at checkout or make sure they find a genuine voucher code directly from you.

If you are buying affiliate traffic from Tradedoubler or Awin or some other then you'll be paying through the nose for traffic that you generated yourself and then goes off and gets a code and a cookie from the affiliate.

Hi, could you explain more in detail about affiliates, please. We tried to join Awin, but they said our traffic was too low (around 50 visitors a day). They said to come back when traffic goes up to around 20K a month. The idea to join Awin was to increase traffic to our website in the first place, so we were left wondering why would they want us to have our own high traffic especially if it wasn't coming from them.

 

[Graham Tyers]

no problem, will DM sthg. in a mo. slightly off topic here.

 

[DRDR]

"Hi, could you explain more in detail about affiliates, please. We tried to join Awin, but they said our traffic was too low (around 50 visitors a day). They said to come back when traffic goes up to around 20K a month. The idea to join Awin was to increase traffic to our website in the first place, so we were left wondering why would they want us to have our own high traffic especially if it wasn't coming from them."


Because AWIN's monthly cost is very expensive. At 50 visitors a day, they don't believe it would be worth it for you to join so they don't want to tell you the setup and monthly fee they charge since it is above what you will earn back in sales.

Most of the affiliate publishers are voucher and cashback websites that wants commission for a sale you will make anyways. Rarely do you make a sell from an actual content publisher so I would suggest you focus on other parts of marketing before considering affiliates.

 

[DRDR]

Dear all

I am new to the board but I wanted to find out if there were any others in the same situation as us. Voucher websites continually create vouchers and discounts for our website from old social media posts and create them on their website as a working code - all of these codes are deactivated on our system and I seem to have to send about 10 emails every 3 months when customers complain the code they are using doesnt work. This is causing stress to the sales team and a fair number of unimpressed customers. Does anyone else have any experience with this and if so what have you implemented to combat it?
Many thank
Naomi

This shows there are interests in promo codes and that it works. You should spend more time on your social and try to offer more discount offers. Even if you don't want to do this, it would just be a template response to your potential customers if you don't have any new codes anyways so it is not a big problem. Steer them towards signing up to your newsletter where you will have lots of offers and discount for subscribers.

 

[menetworkjadaltd]

If it was my website I would add some script that recognises out of date voucher codes, mention it is out of date but as goodwill apply a similar but smaller discount, and point people in the direction of a valid source (your email list) of promo codes.

 

[Graham Tyers]

If it was my website I would add some script that recognises out of date voucher codes, mention it is out of date but as goodwill apply a similar but smaller discount, and point people in the direction of a valid source (your email list) of promo codes.

That's a good idea, I may have to steal that one.

 

[House of Silver]

"Hi, could you explain more in detail about affiliates, please. We tried to join Awin, but they said our traffic was too low (around 50 visitors a day). They said to come back when traffic goes up to around 20K a month. The idea to join Awin was to increase traffic to our website in the first place, so we were left wondering why would they want us to have our own high traffic especially if it wasn't coming from them."


Because AWIN's monthly cost is very expensive. At 50 visitors a day, they don't believe it would be worth it for you to join so they don't want to tell you the setup and monthly fee they charge since it is above what you will earn back in sales.

Most of the affiliate publishers are voucher and cashback websites that wants commission for a sale you will make anyways. Rarely do you make a sell from an actual content publisher so I would suggest you focus on other parts of marketing before considering affiliates.

Thanks for advise, it does make sense. Since we are here, what about affiliate software/app that involves only merchant and a publisher, cutting out affiliate (middleman) companies? I haven't done any research on this, however heard it exists, but is practised at all?