It wasn't long after the birth of affiliate
marketing that cashback sites started to appear. These are sites which
offer consumers a refund on what they purchase, through the use of
affiliate schemes. For example, if a merchant were to run an affiliate
program, offering affiliates a 10% commission on all sales, a cashback
site could offer consumers anywhere up to 10% off their order value.
From the merchant’s point of view, it is still worth paying a
commission in the form of a refund to the buyer, if it results in a new
sale. At first glance, this appears to be a system which benefits
everybody. Merchants get extra sales, affiliate networks get extra
commissions, and consumers get a better deal. The person who loses out
is the affiliate who might have already referred the customer.
If a review site funded by affiliate revenue advertises by PPC to get
traffic, then they would not be out of line to expect that if any of
their visitors went on to make a purchase based on the reviews, they
should receive a commission. However, if at the point the visitor was
about to make a purchase, they went through a cashback site; this would
overwrite the most recent cookie set. This means that the affiliate has
gone to all of the work of getting the customer to the point of sale,
for the cashback site to take the credit. There is evidence to suggest
that people just use cashback sites at the point of purchase. The EPC
for some merchants is up to 5 times higher for incentivized traffic,
suggesting that they only go through the cashback site when they are
intending to make a purchase. Is it right that affiliates are being
denied commissions because of cashback being a more attractive
incentive to purchase?
Read more at http://www.thinkaffiliate.co.uk
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