I think the voucher system I have had the most success with is a free postage one, based on getting discounted or free insured postage on items when they buy a certain set.

Well when I was an affiliate manager I am given the max I am allowed to give out for coupons and do add it into my cost of advertising.

Personally I back discount codes for selected products or Free Delivery codes when you have a minimum spend. Promotions and discounts are nothing new for marketeers but it does seem a lot of merchants have fallen into the trap of thinking it always needs to be a blanket discount.

I have been implementing product based voucher codes for Stand-Out.net and Great Little Trading Company and clients in the past. I agree if you are new to online retailing a ‘first customer’ blanket discount code can help your entry to market, but you should enforce a minimum spend.

Selected products/lines will mean more work for voucher/discount sites as codes will usually be issued more frequently than say a blanket discount.
Although it’s more work for the affiliate I think they certainly benefit from the variety of codes. Varied and frequently issued product based promotions create a much more ’sticky’ site for affiliates. Users no longer know that this is the place just to come for a 10% off everything code but to check back regularly to see what the latest offers are. If a merchant has set up a promotion correctly they should upsell/cross sell full price products which increases AOV for the affiliate. Most retailers have products with higher margins, and these are perfect to focus on.

I think networks do need to step up a gear on this. I personally believe all networks should be reporting any voucher codes in conjunction with a sale. This will help merchants see the leakage of offline codes used through affiliate sites. It certainly helps consultants like myself identify affiliates who do not have permission to use offline codes.

Another issue for merchants is the cashback sites where users are getting codes direct from a merchant through email and then buying through the cashback link using the voucher code. One solution for merchants is to consider lowering the commission to cashback sites to combat loosing out on repeat sales and users using voucher codes in conjunction with the cashback trackabale link.

Just my 2 pennies