Hi, I am founding a coupon site. I was thinking that those networks are not enough. I need to contact companies for the coupon deals. How to do it? I should get money from them unlike with networks as they pay for me. That's the problem as well. Thanks!
Well if the companies aren't registered with your networks how are you going to make the coupon system work for them? Are you going to develop an in-house platform? How are you going to track everything? I guess the simplest option would be to contact them directly (through email, LinkedIn, website contact form) and explain how this can benefit their business. But I doubt that this will be worth the time and effort as you now have 2 major tasks: to find prospects and sell them the idea, and then to run a successful coupon website (drive traffic to it and convert it). So why don't you just stick with the networks and the companies which are already registered there? VeniVidiVici
Thanks for your reply. For example retailmenot is doing it as they have a massive sum of coupons. I think that those networks don't include the best offers at all. All coupon sites have same offers. I am not sure what to do.
Most of the coupon codes on RetailMeNot are fake. Fake deals bring people to the site where they end up clicking on the real deals.
I totally agree... that's why I would recommend always clearing your cookies after their redirect because at the end of the day, they have wronged you and they've done a disservice to you by wasting your time and playing on your nerves with fake deals.. Nevertheless, this strategy works very well for most because most of the people visiting coupon sites don't even understand how affiliate marketing works. @Affltr I guess this boils down to ethics in business. Make no mistake, their business model works pretty darn good. It is legal I agree, but is it ethical? You can earn lots of money with such coupon sites, but are you really providing any value to customers? Maybe 20% of the time with only a couple of working coupons... You can decide to do something different - for example, to position yourself as the ONLY coupon site that provides only real, legit, working, unexpired coupons, and I believe people would appreciate that. I would if you ask me.. VeniVidiVici
A coupon site that added anything of value would have real coupons that it verifies itself. Something like RetailMeNot where people post their own fake coupons is a disservice to all. I'm an affiliate for a number of web hosting programs and if they have a sale, they will often email affiliates a day or two in advance to let them know of the sale and what any coupon codes are for it. So when a host says they are having a 50% off sale and you go to RetailMeNot and gee, there's a 60% off deal which is fake, that's the one people will click on and not get the 60%. I hate RetailMeNot. Largely because Google is part-owner of it. Still, I hate it.
Thanks for your answer. I am not going to open it for coupon submission. There are many reasons for it. I try to give as much as possible value for my customers.