Is it ethical to sell the fact you are in the market for something to advertisers?

DataMoat

As above really. If i know that i am planning to buy a new AC unit for example, I can go on google and search "AC units", click on a few and then the ads will start to come. Every time i see an ad or click it, that company is paying Meta or google. With an AC unit, a quick bit of research says a company could pay £20-£25 to get my business. 

What are peoples thoughts on customers receiving that money or at least some of it? I know cashback is an option, but that often is limiting options to the offers they have at the time and i might not want that. I'm talking about saying, "I'm gonna buy this soon, I'll let you get on my shortlist of people I'm considering for £2 for example" 

What do people think about this? 

MyRealNameToo

DataMoat said:

As above really. If i know that i am planning to buy a new AC unit for example, I can go on google and search "AC units", click on a few and then the ads will start to come. Every time i see an ad or click it, that company is paying Meta or google. With an AC unit, a quick bit of research says a company could pay £20-£25 to get my business. 

What are peoples thoughts on customers receiving that money or at least some of it? I know cashback is an option, but that often is limiting options to the offers they have at the time and i might not want that. I'm talking about saying, "I'm gonna buy this soon, I'll let you get on my shortlist of people I'm considering for £2 for example" 

What do people think about this? 

I doubt its £25 per click on "AC Units" in the UK, in other countries where they are vastly more common maybe. 

So let me get this straight... you are going to phone Curry's, for example, and ask them to pay you £2 for you to consider buying something from them? Are you expecting to get laughed at?

I think no one will bite. Big companies you won't get to speak to the people that can make payments and a single sale isnt worth taking the time out of their day to deal with you -v- doing their day job. Small companies you still arent likely to get the right person on the phone first attempt. 

What would stop you from writing a script that goes onto random companies websites, chooses a high value item, then emails asking for £2 to be in the list of potential suppliers for this thing you really have no intent in buying?


Your better off looking for offers via Quidco etc where its paid on sale not consideration and all know that most the affiliate marketing money Quidco is paid will be passed to you.

Netexporter

DataMoat said:

As above really. If i know that i am planning to buy a new AC unit for example, I can go on google and search "AC units", click on a few and then the ads will start to come. Every time i see an ad or click it, that company is paying Meta or google. With an AC unit, a quick bit of research says a company could pay £20-£25 to get my business. 

What are peoples thoughts on customers receiving that money or at least some of it? I know cashback is an option, but that often is limiting options to the offers they have at the time and i might not want that. I'm talking about saying, "I'm gonna buy this soon, I'll let you get on my shortlist of people I'm considering for £2 for example" 

What do people think about this? 

Use Duckduckgo as your search engine. Google's translate will tell that that "do no evil" actually means "sell your soul to the highest bidder".

DataMoat

MyRealNameToo said:

DataMoat said:

As above really. If i know that i am planning to buy a new AC unit for example, I can go on google and search "AC units", click on a few and then the ads will start to come. Every time i see an ad or click it, that company is paying Meta or google. With an AC unit, a quick bit of research says a company could pay £20-£25 to get my business. 

What are peoples thoughts on customers receiving that money or at least some of it? I know cashback is an option, but that often is limiting options to the offers they have at the time and i might not want that. I'm talking about saying, "I'm gonna buy this soon, I'll let you get on my shortlist of people I'm considering for £2 for example" 

What do people think about this? 

I doubt its £25 per click on "AC Units" in the UK, in other countries where they are vastly more common maybe. 

So let me get this straight... you are going to phone Curry's, for example, and ask them to pay you £2 for you to consider buying something from them? Are you expecting to get laughed at?

I think no one will bite. Big companies you won't get to speak to the people that can make payments and a single sale isnt worth taking the time out of their day to deal with you -v- doing their day job. Small companies you still arent likely to get the right person on the phone first attempt. 

What would stop you from writing a script that goes onto random companies websites, chooses a high value item, then emails asking for £2 to be in the list of potential suppliers for this thing you really have no intent in buying?


Your better off looking for offers via Quidco etc where its paid on sale not consideration and all know that most the affiliate marketing money Quidco is paid will be passed to you.

That's a valid point, you would not be taken seriously as individual so it would need to be more of a collective action I suppose. Maybe if it was 100 people are looking to buy that AC (appreciate your point on pricing as well, probably is based on places with more need for AC) then it could maybe work, as then it is more worth it for the company to set up a process. Basically someone acting on the groups behalf saying "these people are looking for ACs, wanna contact them" and splitting the profit between them.

You would also need a way to make sure at least some of them are following through, which could be possible but it would have to be really easy for the user to bother or the pay out would need to be relatively high.

Quidco is the safer option in most cases though but I'm not a massive fan of how it is not a route available to smaller companies (or maybe it is and i don't see it)

Interesting thoughts!

Mark_d

DataMoat said:

As above really. If i know that i am planning to buy a new AC unit for example, I can go on google and search "AC units", click on a few and then the ads will start to come. Every time i see an ad or click it, that company is paying Meta or google. With an AC unit, a quick bit of research says a company could pay £20-£25 to get my business. 

What are peoples thoughts on customers receiving that money or at least some of it? I know cashback is an option, but that often is limiting options to the offers they have at the time and i might not want that. I'm talking about saying, "I'm gonna buy this soon, I'll let you get on my shortlist of people I'm considering for £2 for example" 

What do people think about this? 

Personally I think you would get laughed at if you asked a company to pay you to be put on your "shortlist".  That's like asking for a bribe...and who know if you'd even stick to your word!
I suggest you research which machine is best for you at your price point, and then try to negotiate a discount on that item.

DataMoat

Mark_d said:

DataMoat said:

As above really. If i know that i am planning to buy a new AC unit for example, I can go on google and search "AC units", click on a few and then the ads will start to come. Every time i see an ad or click it, that company is paying Meta or google. With an AC unit, a quick bit of research says a company could pay £20-£25 to get my business. 

What are peoples thoughts on customers receiving that money or at least some of it? I know cashback is an option, but that often is limiting options to the offers they have at the time and i might not want that. I'm talking about saying, "I'm gonna buy this soon, I'll let you get on my shortlist of people I'm considering for £2 for example" 

What do people think about this? 

Personally I think you would get laughed at if you asked a company to pay you to be put on your "shortlist".  That's like asking for a bribe...and who know if you'd even stick to your word!
I suggest you research which machine is best for you at your price point, and then try to negotiate a discount on that item.

Yeah you right i think about asking to be on a shortlist as an individual. It's literally the same as just asking for a small discount. And as you highlighted, how do they know you would follow through?

So maybe for this to work (if it could) it would need to be a collective of people in the market for an item and you sell it to the company as "these are a group of people looking for washing machines, you should advertise to them before they buy and i can sell you their details" rather than rando John rocking up to Currys and asking for his cut of the marketing budget.

That's much more similar to the way that they would be use to getting info for people to market to, more like clicking through an ad. Shows intent but not commitment.

MyRealNameToo

DataMoat said:

MyRealNameToo said:

DataMoat said:

As above really. If i know that i am planning to buy a new AC unit for example, I can go on google and search "AC units", click on a few and then the ads will start to come. Every time i see an ad or click it, that company is paying Meta or google. With an AC unit, a quick bit of research says a company could pay £20-£25 to get my business. 

What are peoples thoughts on customers receiving that money or at least some of it? I know cashback is an option, but that often is limiting options to the offers they have at the time and i might not want that. I'm talking about saying, "I'm gonna buy this soon, I'll let you get on my shortlist of people I'm considering for £2 for example" 

What do people think about this? 

I doubt its £25 per click on "AC Units" in the UK, in other countries where they are vastly more common maybe. 

So let me get this straight... you are going to phone Curry's, for example, and ask them to pay you £2 for you to consider buying something from them? Are you expecting to get laughed at?

I think no one will bite. Big companies you won't get to speak to the people that can make payments and a single sale isnt worth taking the time out of their day to deal with you -v- doing their day job. Small companies you still arent likely to get the right person on the phone first attempt. 

What would stop you from writing a script that goes onto random companies websites, chooses a high value item, then emails asking for £2 to be in the list of potential suppliers for this thing you really have no intent in buying?


Your better off looking for offers via Quidco etc where its paid on sale not consideration and all know that most the affiliate marketing money Quidco is paid will be passed to you.

That's a valid point, you would not be taken seriously as individual so it would need to be more of a collective action I suppose. Maybe if it was 100 people are looking to buy that AC (appreciate your point on pricing as well, probably is based on places with more need for AC) then it could maybe work, as then it is more worth it for the company to set up a process. Basically someone acting on the groups behalf saying "these people are looking for ACs, wanna contact them" and splitting the profit between them.

You would also need a way to make sure at least some of them are following through, which could be possible but it would have to be really easy for the user to bother or the pay out would need to be relatively high.

Quidco is the safer option in most cases though but I'm not a massive fan of how it is not a route available to smaller companies (or maybe it is and i don't see it)

Interesting thoughts!

Splitting profits is very different, and is effectively what affiliate marketing is, because it's effectively contingent marketing, you advertise them for free and you get paid on the sales you generate. As the merchant has made sales its more generous than the 1p per 10,000 impressions of an ad which gets paid irrespective if it leads to a thousand sales or not a single sale. Obviously the downside of affiliate marketing is that no one may buy so you're left generating no revenue. 


Not sure about your comment on Quidco and small businesses? As in small businesses can't benefit from the cash back on their purchases? Or small businesses can't advertise on Quidco? or something else?

Quidco are just signed up to affiliate marketing networks, you can too. They put the add on their website and rather than keeping the money they pass most of it on to their members. MSE also generates much of its millions from affiliate ads, all those links in articles with a * are affiliate links that generate revenue. 

If you use a decent e-commerce platform it's not too hard to get your ads listed on affiliate network sites and if you want to include such links on your AC Buyers association website you can. Some companies vet where their adverts go and others dont care but the platforms manage the whole process. Have had affiliate marketing links on websites I've run and did ok but the skill is in choosing the ads that your visitors want rather than just the highest paying things. A friend used to run a site about betting and he made very decent money from the affiliate links (not the millions MSE makes but good for a side project)

Screwdriva

Isn't this the entire basis for the Topcashback business model? If so, we've earned just under £3K from every day purchases, from takeway meal to insurance to large appliances from John Lewis. 

DataMoat

MyRealNameToo said:

Splitting profits is very different, and is effectively what affiliate marketing is, because it's effectively contingent marketing, you advertise them for free and you get paid on the sales you generate. As the merchant has made sales its more generous than the 1p per 10,000 impressions of an ad which gets paid irrespective if it leads to a thousand sales or not a single sale. Obviously the downside of affiliate marketing is that no one may buy so you're left generating no revenue. 


Not sure about your comment on Quidco and small businesses? As in small businesses can't benefit from the cash back on their purchases? Or small businesses can't advertise on Quidco? or something else?
Quidco are just signed up to affiliate marketing networks, you can too. They put the add on their website and rather than keeping the money they pass most of it on to their members. MSE also generates much of its millions from affiliate ads, all those links in articles with a * are affiliate links that generate revenue. 

If you use a decent e-commerce platform it's not too hard to get your ads listed on affiliate network sites and if you want to include such links on your AC Buyers association website you can. Some companies vet where their adverts go and others dont care but the platforms manage the whole process. Have had affiliate marketing links on websites I've run and did ok but the skill is in choosing the ads that your visitors want rather than just the highest paying things. A friend used to run a site about betting and he made very decent money from the affiliate links (not the millions MSE makes but good for a side project)

It's a fair point that affiliate marketing is definitely proven, but it happens after the sale. A company doesn't have much chance to change someone's mind at that point as the purchase  has been completed. 

What I'm curious about is maybe there is space for something before that point of purchase. A business is taking more risk buying someone's buying intent but they also likely were not even in the running before.

As a different example which may highlight my point more, i recently bought a climbing frame as birthday present. i could go on Quidco or another affiliate/cashback site and buy it through one of their providers, like The Entertainer. However in this case, they didn't have an item that met what i wanted (a Swedish ladder to be exact). So i googled it and lots of online stores sold what i wanted. i clicked on one ad for a specific website that looked good and had a browse, but didn't purchase.

My online ads then changed drastically to only show me the item i looked at. All my Meta ads and Google ads were focused on that one product. So i see a couple of problems with that. By pure chance (or spend depending on your view) i clicked on a specific company and now all other climbing frame providers are out of the running because of how the online ad space works, unless i google it again but I'm not incentivised to do that as i have been matched with a company that offers what i want. Further to that, it cannot have been cheap for that company i was being shown to show me that many ads, considering i clicked through them several times. I don't know the exact price for that but i imagine it was at least £5 to show me all those ads over that week period, especially with me actually clicking the ads.

I had no real preference on who i bought from. all i wanted was a good quality climbing frame and the provider effectively came down to who was able to advertise to me best (often using a large marketing budget).

What i wonder is if there was a way for you to say to a platform "i'm looking for a climbing frame, budget £200, open to emails". Then some service matches me to the companies that can offer me that product. Those companies then pay, say £2, to send me offers and information directly to my inbox, at a time i am actively considering buying that product. Maybe I say I want 3 companies to email so i can compare the offers. That's £6 for me. 

i get that there is lots of things to consider like how many people convert, proof they bought it, fraud etc but the idea of being able to direct email someone who says they are actively looking for that product for £2 seems like a deal that as a company, you would likely take. As i say i don't pay for google or meta ads but the combined average they say is around £10 globally to sell a product (higher in western markets and the range is huge, but that is the average google gives). One source said cost per click is £0.40 to £5, that's for an inferred interest. This would offer declared interest, possibly at a cheaper price. 

Meta is like paying to standing in a room with 100 other companies all shouting at the one buyer, hoping they get picked. what I'm describing is like a business meeting. You invite 3 people who match your requirements to come show you there offer. It's very true you may not buy from one of them, but the chance to be in the meeting rather than shouting in the room is likely a price a company is likely to pay, and it is likely cheaper as well.

Hope that makes it a bit clearer the idea I'm wanting to explore

DataMoat

Screwdriva said:

Isn't this the entire basis for the topcashback business model? If so, we've earned just under £3K from every day purchases, from takeway meal to insurance to large appliances from John Lewis. 

I think it is similar but slightly different. i gave a more in depth example replying to Myrealnameto but i would say this is more giving a chance for brands to pay to influence your buying decision, not something they have the chance to do with things like topcashback. 

Affiliate marketing absolutely has it's place and as you highlight, £1000s can be made. This is the chance for someone to earn money during my decision making process, not after. And as in my other response, sometimes the offer affiliate sites have just might not be right for me.

I would view it as every brand thinks they have the best product and if they could only just get it in front of people, they would make a fortune and everyone would definitely buy. This gives them a chance to effectively put up the cash and deliver, and i think a lot of companies would see it as a bargain to have direct email access to customer who has said they are looking to buy for £2. Fixed cost for that opportunity.

Of course as we discussed above this would not work with just one person, it would have to be done at scale but i think that could be done!

MyRealNameToo

Those types of sites already exist at least in niche areas... you have various trades peoples site where the trades guy has to pay to be able to communicate with you after you've posted that you need a plumber to fit a new sink or whatever.  The downside is the trades are paying a price so they charge you more. 

Another model is a car buying site where you agree a maximum value for the brand new car you want and dealers bid to get you to buy from them. The maximum value is actually lowered to reflect the fee so you know you'll pay no more than a set price or you walk away without paying anything. The fee is however payable as soon as there is a quote below the price irrespective if you go with it or not and therefore more risky for those needing credit and you can't build in a PX into the deal. 

In both cases the platform has done a fair amount of work to ensure people can't bypass the system and do a deal off the platform to ensure the platform gets paid.

It doesnt need to be the person with a biggest marketing budget, it can be the one that best knows their target market. "Cheap car insurance" used to be something like £30 a click "car insurance for a ford fiesta in Cardiff" is going to be under £1/click. Thats what a business I was asked to investigate for fraud did, long search terms are vastly cheaper to advertise on but the problem is there are far fewer people searching for them so ironically though you can afford to have more wasted clicks from a budget perspective you can't because you may be waiting a month until the next search is done. 

The challenge is ensuring the customer is actually going to buy and it's not just a waste of money for the business. You know someone will post it on here and the site will get thousands of people using it with no intent to buy. Matching customers to sellers will be difficult if like yourself you want a "climbing frame" rather than something with an exact model number to match on. 


Your other option is simply collective bargaining; agree with a firm that you can have items at X% off if you can get them 100 sales. Have seen sites like it in the past, can't remember the name off hand, the "problem" is needing to find people that are prepared to wait on the purchase until you've found the required number of people. Whilst some deals did go through and they got 120 rather than the 100 they were aiming at plenty more fell short and the window of opportunity closed. With the site in question you had to prepay when ordering and then its refunded if the sale failed to hit volume but in principle you can't pull out during the process - this wouldnt work under UK law though as you have a statutory cancellation period