Following on from a look at Doug’s promotions.co.uk and vouchers being a very hot topic at the moment I had a look at Lee’s voucher code system at www.iCodes.co.uk and asked him a few questions.

I signed into my sub domain at iCodes.co.uk and found the back end interface uncluttered and intuitive to use, it’s layout is simple and logical and does what it’s supposed to so setting up a site is super easy. I selected Affiliate Future and with the click of one button added 533 merchants to the site, a few clicks later I added 643 Affiliate Window merchants too, the time saving element is huge, it would have taken someone weeks to add all the UK merchants yet it takes a few clicks with iCodes.

Updating affiliate Id’s is simple and all done on one page, adding a merchant manually is also as quick as filling in a form, if you wish to remove any particular merchant that’s just a case of selecting them from a menu, adding any previously disabled merchant is done the same way, so all in all it’s a very easy system to use and capable of saving many hours/weeks! of work.

The site design is easy to update colour wise and very configurable text wise too although I’m non too creative so it would be nice to have a few templates already done in there to choose from, but it’s only a minor point and just a visual issue, the actual design itself is functional and has good call to actions so should convert traffic, updating the text on site is simple and very configurable, it’s evident plenty of thought has gone into this side of the systems functionality.

I asked Lee some questions about how he got into affiliate marketing, iCodes and the voucher scene in general :

What’s your background and how did you get into affiliate marketing ?

I have been interested in computers since my father purchased a BBC Micro in the 80’s. After school I took a course in ‘Computer Aided Art and Design’ and received a BTEC National Diploma although never used it to my advantage. The only ‘real job’ I have had was working for my father in his mini supermarket for years until it was sold in 1999 due to not being able to compete with the big stores.

Things were not looking good until I went to a car boot sale in 2000 and saw what started off my love for computers… an old BBC Micro!, I purchased this for around £2, took it home and did some research on the net trying to find its true value, this is when we discovered ebay, which is where our (me and my father) Internet business started off (buying old computers for a couple of pounds from car boot sales and selling them on eBay for£40 plus).

We built a successful business out of this and registered a domain name www.vintagecomputer.co.uk to take it further, I suppose this is how we first started in affiliate marketing as we included a few banners on the site.

Our real leap into affiliate marketing was when we (and 90% of other affiliates) started to promote ‘Crazy Frog’ from one page on vintagecomputer.co.uk which got very high in Google and made around £300+ a day from just that one product.

How did iCodes/ the idea of voucher code network come about and didn’t the size of it all and volume of work required to make it happen put you off ?

The idea of iCodes came about after I read about the problems being highlighted about voucher code sites on various blogs and forums, more I read into voucher code sites I realised the whole voucher code system was unorganized and unfairly taken advantage of by some well known voucher code sites. So if we could develop a way of giving the merchants more control over their voucher codes, and at the same time making the whole running of a voucher code site not so time consuming, we knew we would be onto a winner.

The most difficult part of building iCodes was figuring out the way to do it, the way it works is far simpler than you would imagine, at first the task appeared impossible, but with the right formulas it all just fell into place.

How do you see the voucher landscape evolving over the next year and will iCodes play a part in shaping it or focus more on responding to scene and developing solutions as it evolves ?

The way voucher codes are distributed and used has to evolve over the next year, otherwise the problems will get worse for everyone involved. From what I can see the only real way forward is for the networks to incorporate such a system which distributes voucher codes in a more controlled way (like our voucher code ads) for example.

I would like to believe iCodes has already started to shape the way voucher codes are going to be organized and distributed in the future. iCodes will be just one solution to the problem and other solutions will be developed or are already being developed as we speak.

How has the take up of iCodes sites been compared to how you imagined it would be?

The initial take up of iCodes sites was better than I had imagined, but then it appears most affiliates who wanted an iCodes voucher code site have now purchased one, so no its not as good as what I initially imagined at this stage, but an actual site is only one of the services iCodes can provide.

What has surprised, depressed and impressed you most whilst pulling everything together for iCodes, networks, merchants and affiliates wise ?

What has depressed me most is the fact that a lot of affiliates have just left their iCodes sites as default, even though they can personalise them as much as they like. What has impressed me most is the way most of the affiliates have actually pulled together to fill the iCodes database with merchants, codes, keywords and logos and continuing to do so. What has surprised me most is although merchants can have full control over their voucher codes, only a tiny percentage have registered to do so.

Will you be focusing on expanding the iCodes site or are there more peripheral innovations like voucher code ads to come from you ?

iCodes will always be expanding and will hopefully be unrecognizable from what it is today, the iCodes shared database has made it possible to develop many more innovative tools to make affiliate marketing as simple and effective as possible for everyone.

What’s your view on voucher code site cookies overwriting other cookies set by other channels (such as PPC or content sites) at the checkout stage once the basket has been filled ?A) do you think the voucher code site should get the full commission as is currently the case ?
or
B) should there be some sharing of commission if the actual decision to purchase was initiated as a result of another site’s input and a voucher code affiliates cookie was set at the basket stage and most likely it was due to the user seeing an “enter promotional code” text box ?
or
C) do you think there’s a valid case that even no commission should be
due for cookie overwrites within a specific time period once the
checkout is hit i.e. 10 minutes !?
or
D) do you have some other thoughts on the issue ?

Its not the cookies or voucher codes which is the problem, its the affiliates which promote non existent voucher codes is the problem…  A system should be put in place by the networks which uses different tracking for voucher codes, voucher codes should be distributed via feeds so they cannot be tampered with… if the referral was not from a voucher code feed then the voucher code input box should not display on the merchants website.

You were the sole shining star but Doug’s on the scene with promotions now with their voucher code offering, do you see more people coming into the sector and developing technology a good thing or do you think it could be counterproductive in any way ?

I think it can only be a good thing, we will all learn from each others mistakes and improve on each others ideas, I cannot see a single reason why it could be counterproductive, Doug has certainly got me moving more quickly that I normally would have done

From our past communications it’s clear you are passionate about iCodes and have a lot of work invested in it but is it something that has it been developed with a eye on selling it once it has a sizable user base and someone comes with an open cheque book or is it more a labour of love type scenario and it’d have to be a very big cheque to make you part with it ?

That’s a hard question, but at the end of the day if the cheque was BIG enough I would sell it, the site is being developed with an eye on getting a network involved to take it to the next level, and that is what is happening already, we have been to see a well known network and plans are already being made.

Thanks Lee, it’s been good to get the background to the iCodes story so far and I look forward to seeing it evolve as the voucher scene does, you can get your own iCodes subdomain for just £49 or run it on your own domain for £199 and considering how much work it can save you is a bargain! you can get more information here www.iCodes.co.uk