Europe 2010

1. Voucher Codes:
Understanding the Metrics
18th May 2010

2. The growth of the
‘maximising consumer’
Voucher code search
traffic is maturing
Growth of longtail
searches shows
growing sophistication
of consumers

3. Awin’s Top 20 Affiliates

4. Voucher Code Trends – AWin
Top Two Voucher Code Affiliates - Revenue
Revenue Xmas
Xmas
Xmas

5. The Data (thank you Hitwise)
Jul 08
34,200 search term variations
Jul 09 8,300
0 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000
With a year granular search terms featuring
the word ‘voucher’ had quadrupled

6. RetailRetail site share of‘voucher’ traffic
site share of 'voucher' traffic
45.0%
40.0%
% of searches direct to
VC sites, dropped by 5%
35.0% 41.5%
30.0%
25.0%
28.2%
20.0%
15.0%
10.0%
5.0% Jul 2008 Jul 2009
0.0%

7. Merchants’ Reacting

8. Current Situation
Merchants are reacting differently:
• doesn’t allow any paid search ads
to appear for brand + generic code terms
• has banned an affiliate based on
brand misspells & impact on SEO strategy
• allow a voucher affiliate brand rights
when codes are available

9. A merchant’s considerations
• Impact on other affiliates; latency
• New vs. Repeat customer
• Setting commissions
Value of Traffic
• Type of code
• Distribution, monitoring & tracking
• Just voucher code directories?
• Paid Search & SEO T&Cs
• Testing & optimising Value of Code

10. Value of code: How to define
Any merchant needs to understand the
importance of any affiliate’s traffic
Value System
Average Contribution in Sales New Customer Conversion
Order Value the sales journey Volume Acquisition Rate
Intelligent commission setting

11. Who Overwrites Content & Codes?
• When True Content is last referrer voucher code sites
are more likely to be second to last referrer more
than any other affiliate
• BUT this amounts to a very small number of sales
and amount of commission
• Voucher Code & True Content affs gain equally when
multiple referrer voucher code sale occurs

12. Latency – Click to sale speed
10
Voucher Code Sites
9
Other Affiliates
8
Percentage of Sales
7
6
• VC sites convert sooner
5
• Other affiliates convert later
4
3
2
1
0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29
Minutes

13. Latency – Click to sale speed
10
Voucher Code Sites
9
8 True Content
Percentage of Sales
7 • Big similarity between TC & VC
6
• Minor variance, inconclusive
5
4
3
2
1
0
1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29
Minutes

14. Latency – Electrical code (general)
12
Voucher Code Sites
10 Other Affiliates
True Content
8
Percentage of Sales
6
4
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Minutes
• 16% sales’ increase for code
• 2% increase in multiple ref sales
• Most 1st click VC sales lose to VC sites

15. Setting the parameters
• What type of code?
– Bespoke code?
– Stretch and save code?
• What tracking is in place?
• Which affiliates are you giving the code to?
• Think ‘affiliates who use codes’ NOT ‘voucher
code affiliates’
• Set yourself clear objectives

16. The power of an exclusive
• M&S issued exclusive code to one affiliate:
• Sales increase during the peak Christmas period
for the three days was 5,000%
• What we don’t know: impact on rest of prog.

17. Vodafone e-voucher
• Uplift in orders; maintain Gross to Net?
• Strength of the e-voucher for affiliates?
• More exposure for Vodafone?
• Did it increase upsells (longer term contracts)?
• How cost effective was it to run the e-voucher?
• What was the feedback from affiliates?

18. Vodafone e-voucher
• Value add proposition; bundles, extras, freebies
• Opportunity to upsell or build affinity deals
• Vodafone saw a 12 fold increase
in clicks
• Offers helped create significant
buzz, but conversions dropped
• 28% uplift in contracts
• 60% overall sales uplift

19. Driving customer acquisition
• Shop Direct ran with three affiliates, £15 extra
off for new customers
• Sales increased 75% for the three affiliates
• New customer numbers increased 37%
• Indicates code drove both additional buzz and
exposure and new customers
• Further analysis showed higher than average
repeat customers driven by code

20. Increasing your basket value
‘Stretch and Save’
• 3% increase in overall programme AOV
• 41% increase in voucher code AOV

21. Monitoring & Reporting
• Voucher code tracking

22. Monitoring & Reporting
• Address affiliate concerns about overwriting
of cookies in the final stages of buying cycle
• Enable every affiliate to provide compelling &
exclusive deals to customers, without
disadvantaging any particular affiliate type
• Reduce sales leakage

23. How does it work?
• Display/hide voucher code entry box in the checkout
• Enable affiliates to pass in an extra parameter in the
inbound URL called a ‘deal ID’
• Corresponding promotion is applied automatically
• Deal IDs are exclusive to individual affiliates
• Deals are session-based, providing a powerful call to
action – ‘you must click on this link to get this deal’
& ‘you must start your journey from this site to get
this deal’

24. How does it work?
• Types of deals - £ or % off:
– Individual product
– Product Category e.g. Driving
– Product Subcategory e.g. Driving > Ferrari Driving
– Site-wide
• Additional functionality:
– Individual products can be excluded from any
category, subcategory or site-wide based deals
– Set a minimum spend before customer receives discount
• Affiliate can have multiple deals running

25. Codes in action

26. Codes in action
• Promotion running from 9-16 April: Exclusive
15% off Champneys Express Manicure or
Pedicure, promoted via VoucherCodes.co.uk
• Regular 10% discount code also offered on the
VoucherCodes.co.uk website
• Compared to same period in March:
– Traffic increased by 212%
– Number of sales doubled
– Sales value increased by 68%

27. End-to-end analysis
Issue Code
Which affiliates?
Just VC sites?
What type of
code?
Inform Decisions Sale strategy?
on Future Codes: Monitor Sales:
Which affiliates? Volume?
Commission setting? Distribution?
Impact on other Control?
affiliates? VC tracking in place?
Analyse your
Data:
New or repeat
custom?
Incremental Sales?
Impact on other
affiliates?
AOV go up?

28. The IAB’s Code of Conduct
• Sets standard for promotion of codes
• No click to reveal
• No attempt to mislead
• Separation of codes from deals
• Protects exclusivity
• Voucher Code of Conduct

29. The Future
• Better reporting; increased scrutiny
• More automated solutions
• End to end monitoring & ‘intelligent’ commission
setting
• Tracking of mobile codes
• Mobile opens opportunities for localised codes

30. Voucher Codes:
Understanding the Metrics
Kevin
Edwards, kevin.edwards@affiliatewindow.c
om
020 7553 0354, 07974 810 547