Increasingly we are being approached by brands/websites that want us to promote them. Usually they offer us either an affiliate commission for every sign up/action, a % of sales or want to pay a flat fee. Our response is always the same: instead of doing that, why don’t you use that money to offer our readers a better deal?
It’s not always successful (actually it’s rarely successful), but when it is I see it as a win/win/win:
- The brand/website gets us to promote what they wanted and their costs are the same.
- Our readers get a better/bigger than normal deal.
- We build a loyal reader base.
We’ve done this with Northpointe in the past and currently have a deal going with Topcashback (ending soon). I’m sure I’ve missed other times we’ve done this as well, we also have some other ones in the pipeline. I’m trying to be more proactive about these sorts of offers by reaching out to brands/websites that I love/use regularly (that’s how the Topcashback deal came along). I’m interested to hear from readers on what brands/websites they would like me/us to reach out to. As you can imagine, we’ve already tried most of the usual suspects (e.g credit card issuers & banks that offer deposit bonuses).
I’d love to see gym promotions. There’s a bunch of national chains, and gyms tend to have signup fees that are somewhat negotiable. Plus all the world travelers here could work on those beach bodies! Also, as the doctor of credit I think it would be interesting to see some collaboration with Mr Money Mustache or Ramit Sethi from I will Teach You to Be Rich. Ramit’s book has a fantastic chapter on calling in to negotiate fees with banks/phone/cable companies that would for sure fit in with the readers here!
As mentioned above, award wallet would be a great one. Not sure if they would do it but maybe you can get them to give your readers the option to get grandfathered in to the $10 a year plan. They’d probably gain a nice number of loyal customers from a promo like that.
No specific ideas, but wanted to say thanks for being so upfront.
Welcome
Bank that are not chex inquiry sensitive and allow users to open bank account online with credit or debit card
I really enjoyed the deal with Sift, any company that aims to streamline price protection, returns and warranties are pretty cool, as well as any streamlined savings such as the Trim thing you reviewed last week.
Credit unions, mutual banks please.
airbnb.
Seems to be a popular one, will reach out.
Las Vegas Whorehouse LLC.
Mr. Ramsey, i think they only take cash, maybe we could do a referral deal through Plastiq? 😉
AwardWallet. TripIt. Mint. FileThis. ScanSnap. Scotty Peeler. Avery Labels. Etc etc.
Thanks, Glenn!
They rarely take you up on the offer because affiliate programs ALL SHAVE. They count on you not knowing how many people you really referred. It costs them more to make a good offer to customers.
Yeah, but we can actually lower the bonus so that their total costs are lower. E.g if they usually pay bloggers $100 and readers $100 then we can switch it to $150 to readers directly.