David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

I stumbled across an article about how voucher codes can be causing more abandoned shopping baskets rather than more sales yesterday. Ironically, it was also the day that Red Letter Days revealed their latest baby - intelligent affiliate links.

It's a move that sets the company apart from others but also, in my opinion, takes the game to a new level.

I can share (exclusively I might add - my first bit of breaking news!) that this innovation has indeed been submitted to the A4Uawards and together with Joshna's nomination, Red Letter Days may scoop a few prizes that night.

I was fortunate to be involved in the testing stage so I've had a chance to play around and look at various scenarios. I also submitted a bit of text for the award and would like to share my own opinions on the new developments (which seem to be echoed by those that have tweeted and posted on the above forum post.
 


There are three aspects to the new types of links.

Hiding the voucher code box when an affiliate does not have a voucher code allocated to them

Hiding the discount voucher box on the checkout page of the Red Letter Days website for traffic driven by affiliates who have not been allocated an exclusive voucher code will undoubtedly reduce sales leakage. It is a real concern for many affiliates when they have done a lot of hard work to drive traffic to a merchant only to find they lose out on valuable commission at the last hurdle.

Also, deliberate and accidental voucher code theft amongst dedicated voucher code sites is now a thing of the past as exclusive voucher codes can be tied to a particular Red Letter Days tracking link. If the exclusive voucher code is re-published by another affiliate, their users cannot claim the discount unless they go through the original affiliate's tracking link.

It should be noted that the discount code box will appear for all affiliates if a generic voucher code is distributed amongst the affiliate community.

By hiding the code box, you remove the trigger that many users now have that says to them "can I get this cheaper if I used a code?". It stops them from abandoning the cart either briefly to find a valid code or permanently if they find a better offer elsewhere in the process.

From a voucher code site perspective, an exclusive RLD code is now tied to your tracking link so other sites can only steal it if they steal your tracking link too. Voucher code theft is clearly common practise for some (not all) given the various threads on A4U so this move is very interesting for both these affiliates and content affiliates too.

Offer specific affiliates tailored product and category voucher code-less discounts

The development of being able to offer specific product and category voucher code-less discounts to particular affiliates is definitely an interesting concept. Discounts are tailored to a particular affiliate-specific tracking link and so cannot be re-distributed by other affiliates. There are several benefits to this.

Firstly, it enables affiliates and Red Letter Days to work closer, with mutually agreeable outcomes. Two way communication is vital for a successful affiliate-merchant relationship and by offering affiliate-specific deals is a great way to foster a bond.

Secondly, it means that affiliates can promote an offer highly targeted to their users. A website such as digger racing (believe it or not, it does exist!) will undoubtedly benefit from running a specific JCB experience day offer than a generic Easter promotional offer.

Thirdly, a minimum spend amount can be set in order to claim a discount, thus the affiliate is able to drive larger baskets as a direct result of running this tailored promotion. For example, the offer of 10% off could be tied to a minimum spend of £200. Just 5 sales of this size in Q1 of 2010 is enough to win a prize in the Red Letter Days 2010 Q1 incentive scheme.

Voucher code-less discounts

The problem with voucher codes is that they can be tricky to remember, especially ones like "Save £1, use code DGH456ABS". Granted most of us affiliates would copy and paste but do customers?

The development of a voucher code-less discount is highly innovative as it starts to change the playing field as we know it. From a customer perspective, it can be difficult remembering or using voucher codes. By automatically applying a voucher code to a shopping session is a positive step forward for all affiliates.

Discounts are linked to specific affiliate tracking links and so the discount cannot be used by another affiliate with their tracking link. This is in effect a protected exclusive voucher code - without the hassle of having a code! A minimum spend can again be specified and specific products can be excluded from the promotion which means offers can be tailored to each affiliate individually.

Future Developments

As far as I'm concerned, this is the start of something big. I've already suggested a few ideas on how I'd like to see this be moved forward and I'm sure Red Letter Days would love as much feedback and suggestions as they could get.

I'd like to see something like buy A and get £x of experience B or even something like buy A and get B free, rather than a 10% off or something similar. This technology allows Red Letter Days to offer affiliate-specific deals that other experience day retailers cannot at this stage. Sure, most can offer blanket deals and can try to offer affiliate specific deals but tracking and limiting these to specific affiliates may prove difficult for them.

I've also suggested that automatic creative to show the special offers for that affiliate (or best sellers if nothing has been attributed to them) may be useful although quite technically challenging to set up!

Thirdly, intelligent landing pages might be useful based on the above. If affiliate A has 4 offers running, these could be displayed on the landing page whilst affiliate B's page could display the best sellers as they have no special codes associated to them.

Just ideas but I think what we have seen released yesterday is just the start of it.

Overall Thoughts

The latest set of innovations from Red Letter Days are definitely a positive step forward in my view. They open up a new world of possibilities as well as redefining current standards in the affiliate industry. They can be the foundations of future internal developments and should be considered as a new standard within the affiliate marketing industry which all merchants should aim to reach.

These developments are a positive step forward especially for content affiliates who can now work closely with Red Letter Days to create niche offers and discounts exclusive to them. Voucher code sites benefit too with protected exclusive codes tied to their own tracking links. This is not the end of the developments either as this technology can be built upon to create even bigger and better functionality to benefit affiliates and help drive more traffic and sales to Red Letter Days.

Congrats to the entire Red Letter Days. From my perspective and from that of many comments I have read thus far, you're onto a winner. Good luck with the Awards too :-D