Almost all in the industry
suspected that the sheer volume of ads for incentive promotion sites would lead
to some form of implosion at some point in time. I don’t think anyone would have
guessed that this implosion would result in an article claiming some of those
involved in the promotions were “Fraudsters Phishing With Gift
Card Offers.” I am quite unhappy with the article and its unfounded asserterions.
Other individuals and companies will take even less time understanding the model
as the author of “Fraudsters” did, making decisions that impact not only the
company named but others in the space. To group incentive promotion sites as
“scams” and insinuate that they exist to defraud users of personal information
for illegal uses shows an absolute lack of understanding regarding the business
model and direct response advertising as a whole.
https://www.lynxtrack.com/signup.php
Incentive
sites are a victim of their own success and the fierce competition among
internet marketing companies. Just as Moore’s law speaks to the diminishing time
between chip advances, the incentive promotion law speaks to the length of time
before a particular concept gets copied and introduced by at least two other
companies. In the beginning, a new promotion might last for a month or two
before being copied and branded as another site. Today, a new offer gets cloned
within a week of its being promoted. A new model, e.g., email to zip, lasted
less than two weeks. Companies are indirectly forced to invent new ways of
attracting user attention to get seen through the clutter.
It was this struggle for differentiation that directly led to
the negative press and unwanted attention on the business model. Those in the
space started to test other concepts outside of the free site theme. One of
these other themes was a survey site. Rather than simply entering for a free
product, the promotions read as though people were taking part in a survey and
were to receive a free product as part of that survey. Those complaining were
not just consumers but other research companies that saw the survey incentive
promotion sites as compromising the integrity of true survey sites that did not
co-mingle “legitimate research activities with sales-related activities.”
The incentive marketer doesn’t appear to have done anything
illegal. This is not to say that this site or the incentive promotion
market in general is without fault and shouldn’t be looked at. A look at
advertiser activity within these sites hints that all is not perfect. Several
large advertisers that long took part in the backend earnings no longer allow
their offers to be used in incentive promotion sites. And, as mentioned
recently, when users start printing out copies of the ads and/or landing pages
in attempts to cash in on the “free” gift at a local store, that speaks to the
need for better dissemination of information, regulation, and/or best practices.
How the industry should be regulated though, with the goal of maintaining maximum
creativity and flexibility, while insuring consumer satisfaction is hard to say.
When it comes to regulation, it seems that two options exist,
internal regulation, i.e. self-policing, or external regulation. If companies in
the space do nothing, the latter will surely happen. If the former is desired,
the companies will need to either work together to set standards or involve a
trusted third party, an auditor for example. Were the industry to set guidelines
to follow, an auditor could certify that the companies were meeting the
thresholds for compliance. These thresholds could take the form of customer
service response time, gift to signup ratios, brand approval for promoting the
particular good, and/or adherence to certain standards of data usage.
While the companies themselves own the responsibility for promotion, the onus
for protecting the consumers also falls on anyone profiting from their
existence, from individual publishers to ad networks. A certain level of due
diligence should ideally be invested in insuring that the particular ads being
displayed will not lead to negative user sentiment. I place this below the need
for internal policing guidelines but mention it only to suggest that the market
needs all levels of parties to get involved.
I
have a special fondness for incentive promotion offers, as well as optimism for
the market and respect for the marketing and business savvy behind the companies
running the promotions. Mentioning that all is not perfect is not a demand for
action or a death knell for the industry. This article is just one proponent
suggesting that it’s possible for the major players in the space to do what OPEC
does for oil and regulate their space. Everyone is still in it for themselves, but
there won’t be incentive promotion oil left without some agreement on output
from the major producers.
Jay Weintraub
