Building a deals/coupons site

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letmeintowf

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Apr 2, 2010
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Hi everyone,
So there are these sites that display deals in all kind of categories by pulling info from the merchants (Amazon, CJ, Dell etc). Examples include deals2buy.com, slickdeals.net, bradsdeals.com etc

I am looking at some ways to build similar site and have found following wordpress based solutions:

1. WpCoupon (WP Coupon - Turn Wordpress into a Coupon Site!)

2. CouponPress (CouponPress - Coupon Script for Wordpress)

3. Coupon codes and discounts

4. OWS Software: Deals and Coupons Website Script and Datafeed (smarty templates, PHP based)

Does anyone has experience with running a deals type site or any of the above plugins/solutions?

Thanks
 


Wohoo!! my post got approved..let me celebrate I will be back.. Glad to be a member and hoping that I won't be crushed by the WF gang :)
 
dchuk said:
Post 1 has to be approved? Where can we bump that number up?
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Yep, first 5-10 posts (if I remember from 1k+ posts ago) go into moderation of sorts before getting posted.

Anyway, in terms of coupon scripts, Couponscript.org seems the best from what I've seen, but their click to copy/pop affiliate link thing seems not to pop the link in Chrome or some versions of safari. Other similar scripts have similar issues, but probably something easily fixed with code tweaks.

I've on-and-off explored launching a coupon site (with a unique twist, since the market is so saturated, and tons of sites have locks on the best SEO for the most popular merchants), but my needs require a completely custom solution.
 
letmeintowf said:
Wohoo!! my post got approved..let me celebrate I will be back..
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Celebrations over one post approval? Don't set the bar to high bro, you remember what happened to Icarus.

kid-icarus.jpg
 
johu said:
Yep, first 5-10 posts (if I remember from 1k+ posts ago) go into moderation of sorts before getting posted.

Anyway, in terms of coupon scripts, Couponscript.org seems the best from what I've seen, but their click to copy/pop affiliate link thing seems not to pop the link in Chrome or some versions of safari. Other similar scripts have similar issues, but probably something easily fixed with code tweaks.

I've on-and-off explored launching a coupon site (with a unique twist, since the market is so saturated, and tons of sites have locks on the best SEO for the most popular merchants), but my needs require a completely custom solution.
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Agreed the coupon niche is incredibly saturated possibly the most saturated niche. Don't waste your time unless you like competing with sites like Coupon Mountain and Retailmenot. They rank for virtually all coupon related keywords.
 
Fact) Coupon sites make a lot of money.
Fact) Your coupon site will not make a lot of money.

It's too fucking saturated and fucking hard to keep the coupons up to date. If you had some actual good idea and maybe a snowballs chance in hell of implementing it you MAYBE could do something there but probably not. You'll also be damned to coupon affiliate status as well as all merchants will think your just giving out coupons and drop you to like 2% payouts forever.
 
If you can create social or email alerts tied into a coupon site, you'll have an easier job once you have a base. Emails to existing customers are one of the most effective marketing methods for companies, so if you can capture emails, and profile what sites the user is getting coupons for, adding them to an updates list about when those merchants get new offers can be golden. Done correctly, those can be forwarded on by the users to their friends,and the list grows. Diversifying from the simple SEO aspect can help a lot. At first it was cashback rewards (ebates, FatWallet) in the site, then it was forums and redirecting merchant links there (Slickdeals, Fatwallet), and then the user submitted era (Retailmenot). Build value and lists.
 
your gonna have to come up with some kick ass out of the box spin on the whole coupons thing or you most likely wont get anywhere... those sites are too big, popular, and well known for someone to just pop up and start competing
 
surfer808 said:
didn't offers.com just come out of the wood work like a year ago? feb 2009?

they don't seem like they are doing too bad
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Offers.com is run by an established affiliate powerhouse, Vertive. Vertive has had a number of offer related sites optimized for SEO, as well as PPC, and already had great relationships with merchants and networks - They've been top affiliates in tons of programs they worked with, won awards from the networks they work with, and serve on the publisher advisory board on at least CJ.

A few years ago, they were already at 20+ employees, I believe, so they have a slightly different set of resources than your average startup coupon site.
 
johu said:
If you can create social or email alerts tied into a coupon site, you'll have an easier job once you have a base. Emails to existing customers are one of the most effective marketing methods for companies, so if you can capture emails, and profile what sites the user is getting coupons for, adding them to an updates list about when those merchants get new offers can be golden. Done correctly, those can be forwarded on by the users to their friends,and the list grows. Diversifying
from the simple SEO aspect can help a lot ... Build value and lists.
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100% agree about the value add - but converting from social media in particular can be very difficult.

Here's a good article worth reading ( not a roll )
MediaPost Publications Women Seek Online Communities To Validate Purchases 05/18/2010


.
 
Thanks guys for the warm welcome :-) and your valuable insight. I agree that coupon/deals niche in general is crowded but so is make money, affiliate marketing or health and relationship niche. The arguments about the difficulty in rankings is also well taken. If a deal/coupon site is started today, it has to have a social media components to it. Look at Frugal Girls! | Facebook , they have more than 36k fans/followers. Didn't even know about offers.com, good site and well designed.
Well one has to start somewhere so it might be a simple couponpress based in the beginning and then take it from there.

I have looked at deals2buy.com since 2003 and it was nothing fancy then. Even now it hasn't been made any fancier but they get decent traffic and I'm sure making some $$. The point I'm trying to make is that some of the deals site are the best looking or have best of the navigation. If a new site can provide an easy way for users to find coupons and have them delivered to say iphone, email etc, with social media promotion, it will do ok if not spectacular. Then there are niche coupon sites, web hosting coupons, beauty coupons etc.
It's definitely a long term project but I think rewards can be huge.

I''m still all ears and appreciate all your advice.
 
Finally a topic worth posting in.

I'd focus on multiple small /niche sites or if you have money: Get a 100% optimized website with everything in it. Couponscript is always a good option, this website works well in smaller countries who just start using coupons.. (there are still quite a few of these untouched markets)

In Europe I own a few of the biggest coupon websites, combined with social media (Big fan groups of 40K+) it can be a great asset for merchants, so you don't have to worry about being kicked in the 2% sale commission. And for the SEO part: In local / smaller markets it's very easy to compete with retailmenot & couponmountain. Just keep it all a bit custom made and don't use the feeds.
 
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Back when I was 10 or 11 my very first site that I ever tried to make money with (I didn't even know what affiliate marketing was, I was just following the stupid sitesell ebook) was a coupon site. Needless to say it was a complete failure.

I think it could be a very good longterm project if you are an experienced affiliate marketer and you have $100,000 to invest. This isn't the kind of project that you kind of decide it would be a good idea to do, or that you figure out as you go along.
 
@Trader,
Couponscript.org is not wordpress based so it's custom built solution in that but it would be nice to have something based on wordpress or Joomla. I remember seeing some complaints about couponscript's poor support and lack of customer service. Have a look at this Joomla based site, it looks pretty nice. It probably is using Joomla theme (or whatever they are called in the J world) and manually entering posts/articles for individual deals: Save up to 50% on Internet Marketing Tools & Internet Marketing Services | IM Cash Saver

The coupon/deal model can include CPA or higher paying affiliate products/services and can provide additional $$ than just the measly %age that one may get from the usual coupon from the merchants.

To take advantage of social media, there has to be a story behind the site. Single dad used to look for ways to save and then create the site to collect all kinds of deals from the web for local stores ..whatnot ..you get the idea..so that would something like that would be the hook.

About not using feeds, it's very tempting to use coupon feeds and populate the site from daily deals or batches and I find it hard not to use coupon feed services. Some of them are formetocoupon.com, couponfeed.net , they are little expensive for a beginner site but I'm sure if the revenue can justify their cost, they are worth it.

WF gang, it's as bad as I though, there are some real good advice being thrown here.

@Trader said:
Finally a topic worth posting in.

I'd focus on multiple small /niche sites or if you have money: Get a 100% optimized website with everything in it. Couponscript is always a good option, this website works well in smaller countries who just start using coupons.. (there are still quite a few of these untouched markets)

In Europe I own a few of the biggest coupon websites, combined with social media (Big fan groups of 40K+) it can be a great asset for merchants, so you don't have to worry about being kicked in the 2% sale commission. And for the SEO part: In local / smaller markets it's very easy to compete with retailmenot & couponmountain. Just keep it all a bit custom made and don't use the feeds.
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If you want to get into the coupons/freebies niche prepare to bow at the altar of Quality Health.

... But for those of you saying it's impossible, too competitive, etc. That just means there is money there. If you have looked at ANY of the top freebie/coupon/sample sites outside of RetailMeNot - they are pretty much garbage.

The powerhouses of the industry have their own networks - and they still suck at monetization... and even those guys have to swing from Quality Health's dick.

The reason people say it's nearly impossible to break in is simply because it's hard to BUY your traffic and break even.
 
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