Quidco Ate My Cookie!
The Cookie War
As many of you know, most merchant sites operate a "last cookie wins" policy. It doesn't matter that it was you that initially sold the customer on the idea of the product, if they ultimately purchase it through someone else's link that other person gets the commission.
Right or wrong, that's just the way it is and you have to deal with it.
My Great Big Cookie
My main niche site is in the "child safety product" field and one of my main products at the moment is child car seats. Since I have at least 6 of them in my house (old and current) I find it easy to write about this subject and my background as a personal injury specialist helps.
Yesterday, I modified one of my reviews.
Sadly, the product is not yet available at Amazon so I have had to direct customers to other online merchants that are charging pretty much full RRP. I am on page 2 of Google for this keyword :)
So, I duly tweeted my revised review and was delighted to see that a "hardcore mummy tweeter" with about 6,000 followers had retweeted it and I had received a response from someone looking for this car seat. The mum-to-be thanked me for the information and I engaged her in a very relaxed and friendly dialogue about the seat. She was hesitant due to the price (understandably since it costs £340 ($500)!) I quite properly advised her that if she didn't need it immediately it might be sensible to wait and see if the price falls when the product becomes available on other sites (I invited her to sign up for my RSS feed as I would be posting updates on price/availability in the future). Probably not an approved affiliate marketing technique but I have to sleep at night too and (despite not being religious) I quite like the idea of Karma!
She had clicked through to Kiddicare and so my 10-day cookie was set.
She Bought the Product from Kiddicare - Good News?
I later received a tweet saying that she had bought the seat from Kiddicare.
Good news right? Well no - she also told me that she had saved 10% by going though a cashback website called Quidco. Ironically I know all about cashback sites since I promote them on my other "bootcamp" website - Booo.
So, it's good news for her and I certainly can't blame her for saving $50 on a car seat (especially since she said she would need 2 eventually). Of course, she may have to beg for her cashback as these transactions don't always run smoothly.
However, I have a slightly bad taste in my mouth that my cookie has been eaten by Quidco when they have done nothing to earn it. I am also slightly annoyed that one of my affiliate merchants is offering such large sums to these cashback companies who actually add little (if any) value to their business. Why don't they just offer this discount to their customers directly - I do wonder if they have really considered the value of cashback sites in getting traffic. i use them but I only ever go there after I have decided to buy the product - so they don't generate extra sales in my household.
The New Enemy (to me anyway) & How to Deal With Them?
I hadn't even considered this problem before yesterday.
Happily. most of my products remain cheaper at Amazon even when cashback is accounted for. Further, many still remain skeptical and suspicious of these sites.
However, it seems to me that these sites are a real threat to affiliates.
Good Old Amazon
I understand that Amazon has deliberately withdrawn from the cashback website market since they value their affiliates very highly. They obviously appreciate the little value that these sites offer in terms of promoting their products and the greater value that good content affiliate sites offer to their business.
Some Other Positives
I suppose I should be pleased that my social media strategy is working and that some relatively sophisticated parents have derived some value from my reviews. I am also pleased to discover this issue at an early stage so that I can amend my strategy to account for it.
I got a few new twitter followers.
Update: I also just got a retweet from Britax (the manufacturer of the seat).
The Lessons
1. When choosing a niche, I need to consider this issue - try to avoid widely available products that are freely available on the high street (since they are more likely to be found on cashback sites). Also check cashback sites to see which relevant merchants are using them.
2. Be careful to review products that are cheaper on Amazon or only available at more specialist merchants that are unlikely to use cashback sites.
3. Don't be so quick to sign up with affiliate merchants without checking out their full range of marketing strategy - the chances are that if they use content affiliates they have probably at least considered using cashback sites.
4. Stop banging on about the benefits of cashback on my other website!
Feedback and Discussion
I am still trying to get my head around the full implications of this problem and would love to hear from others about their experience / knowledge of this issue and any other available techniques to defeat the "evil cookie thieves"!
i couldn't find any training or other blogs at WA about this issue so I hope that this blog provokes a little discussion.
Recent Comments
9
Thank you for sharing this but I am sure you have gained more Karma in exchange for that cookie. You have more cookies coming!
This is a good point you're making and I wish I knew an answer to this. I haven't recently used any cashback sites, since I don't know which are trustworthy.
The one time I did use one for a discount, I thought it was a lot of hassle to go through, and being the mistrustful person I am, it made me nervous wondering if I'm going to end up owing money instead of saving it, lol. It turned out all right in the end, but I'd rather avoid all the hassle.
It's good to know social media is working well for you, but sorry to hear you got your cookie stolen, BTW. Honestly, that really stinks...sorry, can't think of a better way to word it. Anyways, it sounds like you have someone following you that values your opinion, so who knows...maybe next time :) -Sherry
You have brought up a very interesting point...Ebates is getting big here in the States and I have been guilty of pulling out of a site and going back to the site through Ebates for my % back check. I'm going to have to consider this too.
I don't know what you can do about that, but Amazon and other stores have apps too. If they download an app, then who gets the commission?
Thank you for this advice for I had not even considered cash back sites, but good to know social media is working well
How ironic that this happened to you, who understands about cashback sites and promotes them.
I used to go through my Nectar account to get to Amazon but then Amazon stopped using Nectar.
Your lessons - especially choosing which affiliate merchants to sign up with - are very valuable. Sorry, can't really make any helpful suggestions.
Yes, I read about the Nectar toolbar problem. I understand that some merchants including Amazon are blocking them or refusing to recognise them as valid affiliate referrals.
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I'm sure I've inadvertently done this to affiliates myself-sorry if I have- I'm definitely the type to research a product to death before I take the plunge and that includes price-my opinion is that most programs will only use those services temporarily-but this is a great topic to keep in mind, one (as you stated) hasn't been brought up much out there.