Comments on: Hoseasons stops cashback and voucher code sites

By: Matthew Wood

Matthew Wood — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:43:27 +0000

Interesting decision – I would certainly like to know more about the research conducted in relation to the travel industry.

The same argument exists though cashback and voucher code sites are becoming a destination site in their own right with great power to influence the consumer and ‘switch’ brands where the customer is most price concious.

By: Matt Bailey

Matt Bailey — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:43:56 +0000

Diane, I presume you’re referring to MVC. I have to disagree with your point about them causing damage to the rest of the industry. To answer your question on what would happen if MVC fell from favour with Google: the answer is quite simple, they would be replaced by someone else immediately.

I think the Hoseasons actions set an interesting precedent. I’m certain that they’ve done their homework on this but from my point of view, the levels of traffic that go through cashback and voucher code sites continues to grow. Therefore is it not more prudent to investigate the best way with which to work with these sites instead of withdrawing from them?

At i-level, we’ve carried out a great deal of research and analysis on customer journey and we have found that journeys vary quite a lot by merchant and I expect that travel is more complex. However our research showed that a lot of journeys start at cashback and voucher sites as well as them coming in and “stealing” the last click.

I’ll be really interested to see how this develops and whether content affiliates do see any uplift in sales.

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:22:43 +0000

Well I should have put money on which site comes up number one for “hoseasons voucher” because I would have guessed right.

The high level of google status that particular site has continues to damage the rest of the affiliate industry.

If it suddenly fell from favour with google would that solve the problem?