Cookie Stuffing Voucher Code Sites - Genius!

One of the latest debates on the Affiliates4U forum is to do with the number of Voucher Code sites and their 'questionable' methods in generating commissions.

It seems that an increasing number of these sites are adopting the practice of hiding the actual voucher code and forcing the user to click on a button in order to reveal the code. The clicking of the button drops a cookie onto the users computer, and this ensures that the site owner gets paid a commission regardless of whether the user make a purchases through the links provided.

In my opinion, this is a pure genius idea!

As affiliate marketers there is just so much information online about the best way to make money from affiliate marketing. You're told to find a niche, build a user friendly website, create back links, distribute articles, reguarly update your site with fresh content, take part in PPC, participate in forums, blah blah blah.

But, what seems to escape people's mind is the simple fact that affiliate marketing is about one thing -

Refering people to click on your affiliate links.

It's really quite simple.

More clicks = more cookies dropped. More cookies dropped = more money.

So if some folk have come up with an idea on how to get more cookies on a users computer, then fair play to them I say.

There is of course a question of ethics in this type of practice. But then the question of ethics is nothing new in the affiliate industry.

In my opinion the people who are moaning about this sort of cookie stuffing, force clicking or whatever you want to call it are just jealous....and probably not making as much money in AM as they would want to be.

If you want to make decent amounts of money in affiliate marketing, then you need to think outside the box in your promotion methods. Cookie stuffing on voucher codes is one of many examples.

The Moaner Lisa has a number of sites and webpages floating online. They all vary in the amounts of income they bring in each month, but the best performing ones by far are the ones which are not necessarily 'white hat' and above board.

I dont know about you, but I'm in this game to make money.

So if you are reading this and you think that the methods used by voucher code sites are unethical, then let me ask you a question - do you mask your affiliate links?

If you do, then you are just as bad, and you have nothing to complain about. Hiding your affiliate links is just another example of unethical practice yes?

If you don't, then you are making less money than you would if you did.

Oh by the way, many thanks for reading this post. When you clicked on this site, I made sure that cookies were dropped onto your computer from about a million different merchants. So anytime you make a purchase online, The Moaner Lisa is gonna be quids in...

EDIT:
Here's a quote I just found from someone bitching on the A4U forum:

"The upshot of this is that I am planning to launch a proper user focused discount voucher site as I could not find a single one that wasn't just a very thinley disguised affiliate shopping site."

So is this guy saying that he is going to heavily disguise the fact that he is building an affiliate site? Hardly ethical is it?