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The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

andrewchen.com

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Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#131

Post by KorematsuFredt »

red_admiral wrote: post #29

The kind of people who ran coupon schemes in the pre-internet days could have told you this. Back in the day, coupon schemes were things like you had to physically cut out and mail in vouchers from newspapers or magazines, and you got a discount on something like groceries in return. The point of this was market segmentation: you want to get people who (1) otherwise wouldn't buy your product, or at least not as much…

All customers are worse customers in my opinion, and those who seek max value for their bucks are often the worst. But I am always that customer. I harassed my car dealer so much that it took 9 months but he sold me the car for the exact price I have been demanding.

Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#132

Post by pierat »

Eh, probably.

When I bought a webcam at the local best buy, I price-matched scamazon's price that was 30$ cheaper. I trust Best buy to not sell scam shit, but do NOT trust Scamazon.

But hey, I'll get the scamazon price WITH the convenience of in-person pickup.

Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#133

Post by shostack »

treffer wrote: post #74
red_admiral wrote: post #29

The kind of people who ran coupon schemes in the pre-internet days could have told you this. Back in the day, coupon schemes were things like you had to physically cut out and mail in vouchers from newspapers or magazines, and you got a discount on something like groceries in return. The point of this was market segmentation: you want to get people who (1) otherwise wouldn't buy your product, or at least not as much…

It becomes more funny once you shift online. Basically every checkout has a "coupon" field. Now you look for coupons, and some coupon aggregator of doubtful quality pops up. You find something that works. Or give up. Done. The coupon sites are usually of doubtful quality because .... Basically all affiliate networks forbid it. It's also the reason why "last click" attribution is horribly broken. Funnily enough it's n…

I used to run an affiliate program for a company and one of the top affiliates who was making a large sum annually from the program before I took over got quite hostile when I pointed out the bulk of their referrals were from coupon sites. They started trying to intimidate us about the backlash that would ensue if we took action and even brought a very physically intimidating person into a meeting for no other apparent purpose other than to be intimidating.

The data was very cut and dry and in blocking coupon sites in our terms as one of the first actions I took in taking it over they lost a very high double digit % of their revenue from the program overnight.

Surprise surprise, overall trials and subscription rates didn't change and channel ROI improved significantly. Goodbye Felicia.

Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#134

Post by ghaff »

etrautmann wrote: post #130
ghaff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though they weren't a flash in the pan thing. It's true that their allure for marketing was that a lot of people priced the rebate in and then never mailed for it or violated some term/condition. But they were commonplace for a long time.

Sending outgoing mail is more rare now though? Perhaps when it used to be common to stamp and mail letters then one more wasn’t as big a deal. Now, I’m not even sure where our stamps are or if we have any at home.

Yes, as I wrote in another comment. I know where my stamps and envelopes are but I imagine a lot of people are like "I need to fill out a form and mail it? ROFL. Like that's going to happen. Stuff your rebate. That's fake news."

Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#135

Post by antisthenes »

dazc wrote: post #28
mrweasel wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What programs like that tells me is that I can get at least a 10% discount if I talk to one of your sales people. My wife doesn't consider something a discount if it's less than 20%, because "You can always get a 20% discount" (on certain product categories). I did have to deal with a store where I almost couldn't buy something, because I refused to signup for the "customer club program discount card", which gives yo…

Not many genuine businesses have a margin of 20%, especially in retail. If you can get such a discount then it's already been priced-in.

There's margin on cost of goods sold, and there's the margin of overall business.

Retail is low margin only if you subtract salaries/offices/marketing AND cost of goods.

Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#136

Post by anonymouskimmer »

ipaddr wrote: post #75
electriclove wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the downvotes / disagreement? “People using coupons -> worse customers” makes sense to me. The shop isn’t getting more money from these customers.

Not true. A dollar off coupon will encourage purchasing otherwise ignored products. I buy toothpaste. A dollar off coupon will encourage another brand purchase to a more expensive product that may get repeated. The shop may get addition money by having me buy other items to save me the time of multiple store visits. There is a reason why each week a different item goes on sale. That loss leader leads to more purchase…

> There is a reason why each week a different item goes on sale. That loss leader leads to more purchases

Except that I, the person who already buys that product, buys nothing, or buys it from another store, because it's no longer in stock when I make my purchases in the evening. (I've since changed to shopping in the morning or early afternoon, so run into sales pricing outages much less frequently, but the general point stands.)

Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#137

Post by anonymouskimmer »

legutierr wrote: post #112
treffer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It becomes more funny once you shift online. Basically every checkout has a "coupon" field. Now you look for coupons, and some coupon aggregator of doubtful quality pops up. You find something that works. Or give up. Done. The coupon sites are usually of doubtful quality because .... Basically all affiliate networks forbid it. It's also the reason why "last click" attribution is horribly broken. Funnily enough it's n…

> The coupon sites are usually of doubtful quality because .... Basically all affiliate networks forbid it. I wasn’t aware of this, and I’m not sure I understand why this would be the case. Do you have any more information about this?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39243992

Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#138

Post by CM30 »

palmfacehn wrote: post #4

I've seen similar outcomes where free users required more support than paid.

This is one of the reasons free web hosting mostly died out. You'd spend more time and effort helping people that weren't interested in paying (and often didn't want to learn how anything worked) than you'd make through ads or upsells.

Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#139

Post by geor9e »

It's me, I'm the worst user. I subscribe&save at every opportunity, then cancel all of them before the next shipment. I get several new credit cards a year just qualify for the $500 sign up bonus, then never use them again. I have 20+ gmail accounts to use new customer promos over and over. You do not want me as a customer.

Re: The worst users come from referral programs, free trials, coupons

#140

Post by kbos87 »

It’s really easy to spot effective vs. ineffective/“empty calorie” growth channels when you look at them through the lens of a single word - intent.

Ads appearing alongside search results are among the highest intent, which is why they perform well and are thus so expensive.

Referral programs and coupons are people looking for generic deals. You might form habits among a few of them, but the likelihood is low. Free trials are probably more dependent on the context.

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