What is a coupon website?
A website which collects and publishes offers, vouchers, promo codes and deals of other merchants / brands is called a coupon website. Typically, coupon websites do not sell anything of their own. They only convey the offer to their site’s visitor and then direct them to merchant / brand store to make a purchase.
How do coupon websites earn?
Short Answer: Through Affiliate Marketing.
Long Answer: They redirect their website visitors to merchant / brand websites through ‘affiliate URLs’ which ultimately help them earn commissions if the visitor completes a pre-decided action on merchant / brand store e.g. making a purchase or creating a new account. Such redirection happens on a coupon website mostly at the time when offer is revealed – typically on clicking the ‘click to reveal’, ‘activate offer’, ‘get coupon code’ or other similar button.
How much do I earn from a coupon website?
That depends on the category of product or service you referred. But here are the industry averages for some of the product categories:
| Category | Commission Earnings |
| Flights & Hotels | 5% – 10% |
| Fashion | 10% – 20% |
| Web Hosting | 30% to 35% |
| Food Ordering | 5% to 10% |
| Books | 8% to 10% |
| Electronics | 2% to 5% |
| Home Furnishing | 7% to 13% |
Having shared our industry averages, you must note that there may not just be exceptions to that but also significant variations in niche markets. For example, a luxury fashion brand may give commissions as high as 35%. And a travel brand may increase commissions to 15% during holiday season.
What is an affiliate URL?
Affiliate URL unlike normal URLs, contains parameters (usually followed after a question mark) which helps merchants / brands identify as to who exactly referred them the shopper. So if you are signed-up on Amazon.com’s affiliate program, your typical affiliate URL will look like “https://amazon.com?tag=xxxx” – where ‘tag’ is your unique identification. Such parameters and tags helps merchants / brands to attribute the sale to you thus earning you commissions.
Will I have to sign-up with each store to earn commissions?
No. There are plenty of affiliate networks globally where you will be able to sign-up as an affiliate for multiple stores. Some of the biggest names include CJ (CommissionJunction), Awin, Linkshare (Rakuten), Admitad, Shareasale, Pepperjam, Impact, Tradedoubler and Webgains. Just a single subscription of any of them will let you earn commissions from hundreds of stores if not thousands. On the other hand, signing-up directly with stores will be of great advantage on an advanced stage of affiliate marketing when you are delivering significant number of sales.
Where will I get coupon codes from to list on my coupon website?
There are many sources for collecting coupons. You may find them on:
- Merchant / Brand’s websites
- In their newsletters
- In their social media posts
- Within different affiliate network panels
- In app notifications and SMS
- In their blog posts
- By integrating their coupon API (if available)
- And many more
So collecting coupons, formatting them, uploading them on website and then finally validating them at regular time intervals can indeed be a tough job especially when you host more than 10 merchants’ / brands’ coupons on your website. To solve this issue and focus your time and effort on bringing new users to your website you may use coupon feed services such as LinkMyDeals or CouponAPI. You may like to know more about difference between those two services on https://linkmydeals.com/blog/2020/08/linkmydeals-com-vs-couponapi-org/.
How soon will I receive my affiliate commissions after referring a sale?
This varies a lot from merchant to merchant and from industry to industry. But in general, you receive your commissions within 75 days from the end of the month in which the sale was made. Commissions are delayed to accommodate for returned or canceled orders and other such order related disputes. This also means that stores offering non-refundable and pre-paid products and services tend to pay commissions faster – typically within 30 days from the end of the month in which the sale was made.
Is a working website / app needed to get approval for affiliate programs?
Yes – with few rare exceptions. Most affiliate programs not just have a requirement of a working website / app but also may have several conditions for it. Such as:
- Non pornographic content on website / app.
- Clear visible ownership details of website / app.
- No cloaking of affiliate links.
Can a single coupon be used by multiple users?
Yes. Almost all affiliate programs support usage of single coupon by multiple users.
What if my visitor clicks on my affiliate URL and then on someone else’s URL before finally making the purchase? Who gets the commission?
Almost all affiliate programs work on ‘last cookie’ basis. Which means that the last referrer takes the sale. Also because the sale is tracked using cookies which are stored in browsers, technically the sale will be attributed to the last referrer in the browser in which the sale was completed.
