Changes to LOVEFiLM offer

[Jon]

The popular offer LOVEFiLM has undergone a few changes which will affect all freebie sites. The free trial is no longer available and instead there are now 2 different ways this offer can be completed

2-4-1

Get 2 months LOVEFiLM subscription for the price of 1 month.
This is a great offer and will allow your referrals to really get the benefit of the service that LOVEFiLM provides. The offer will credit as pending within the normal time (a few hours tops). The approval for this offer will occur just after the end of the 2nd month, when the user has paid for a third month subscription. So to recap, the referral will have to sign up to the "2 months for the price of 1" offer, and then stay with LOVEFiLM for at least another paid month (which would be their 3rd month), and the credit will be approved subject to the normal procedures. The pending period for this offer is therefore around the 8-9 week mark.


2 Months Up Front

Pay for 2 months up front for quick approval.
This offer is here to satisfy those referrals that want to be approved quicker. It requires that they sign up to LOVEFiLM for 2 months on one of the unlimited packages which cost £9.99 or more per month. Once payment has been authorised and a DVD has been received then the pending credit will be approved within a week in most cases.

(Thanks to Lee at the Kudos Network for the info)

[Jon]

My personal view on this is I was expecting the free trial to end over a year ago, and I think to a degree the whole scene has been lucky this has only happened now. Obviously the model of having a free trial was simply not working out.

It is important to note that LOVEFiLM have not done the easy thing and simply pulled out altogether, hopefully after a period of 8-9 weeks we will see what change it has had, and the uptake on the 2 different ways for the offer to turn green and if anything can be tweaked in the future

[FurbtasticM]

Originally Posted by Jon

It is important to note that LOVEFiLM have not done the easy thing and simply pulled out altogether

I'm not sure I follow your logic Jon. Why would anyone pull the plug on an affiliate that provides as many leads as FJ and Kudos. Even if the numbers fall dramatically they are still getting a return from it.

If users takes the 2-4-1 and cancel, LOVEFiLM get £9.99 and pay no commission. In fact, they only pay commission on either offer once someone has paid £19.98.

I can understand why it makes sense for them, it's a no brainier. Pulling out would be madness.

[Jon]

They could have done what alot of other companies have done and simply said no incentive sites full stop. Incentive leads generate more work for the network (such as no credit reports, and more checks for anti fraud (people are always looking for ways to cheat cashback sites to), so thats why other companies have said no incentive sites.

[FurbtasticM]

If the cost, in time and money, was more than the benefit, then they no doubt would have done. It clearly isn't.

[Diesel]

Since Coral went my ratios went from 1:5 to around 1:15, now that lovefilm free trial is gone i expect them to plummet even further

This marks the end of actually getting a freebie for completely free!

[iFreeZone]

Hopefully more household name companies become available so we can have a change of tactics to "you would have signed up to them anyways, so why not go through this..." , although we do still have Intuit and Homestead.

[corky20]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Since Coral went my ratios went from 1:5 to around 1:15, now that lovefilm free trial is gone i expect them to plummet even further

This marks the end of actually getting a freebie for completely free!

Are Intuit and Homestead not free?

Since my .com site has been getting mainly international traffic i've been promoting them, plus LBT. I guess everyone else will be promoting them too now. This was going to happen eventually, we should be thankful the run with Lovefilm free trial lasted so long.

Hopefully some other good free trials will come along in the future!

[Monkeyegg]

Yes Corky, the Homestead and Intuit offers are completely free 30 day trials. Although not such a big brand now, Intuit are a big company and may well become a household name in the future.

We are working very hard with international traffic to prevent recommendation of offer cancellation, as well as identifying poor quality leads and reporting these back to Intuit in a genuine attempt to keep this trial.

Please work with us to try to help us maintain this in the same way that I know the majority of you did with the Lovefilm free trial.

[Amiethest]

Will do my best, can't say I'm not disheartened though, but I know you wouldve done anything to keep it.

[Diesel]

Originally Posted by corky20

Are Intuit and Homestead not free?

Yeh they are but no offers will be completed in such volume as Coral and Lovefilm used to...They were the really popular ones due to both being regularly on TV!

In my opinion this is going to slow down the freebie scene dramatically... Ratios will be appalling.

[corky20]

Originally Posted by Diesel

Yeh they are but no offers will be completed in such volume as Coral and Lovefilm used to...They were the really popular ones due to both being regularly on TV!

In my opinion this is going to slow down the freebie scene dramatically... Ratios will be appalling.

I agree with you but there are still some good offers that can be pushed like Intuit, Homestead, LBT, Equifax etc...

Personally I have been promoting these as most of my traffic is international from my main .com site. That said my ratio has been pretty bad recently, in the last 300 reds i've had 12 greens!

[FurbtasticM]

Originally Posted by corky20

I agree with you but there are still some good offers that can be pushed like Intuit, Homestead, LBT, Equifax etc...

Personally I have been promoting these as most of my traffic is international from my main .com site. That said my ratio has been pretty bad recently, in the last 300 reds i've had 12 greens!

I'd probably say that anything between 60% and 90% of my greens are from LOVEFiLM. I did try and download a CSV of refs to check more accurately but Apple FJ froze and wouldn't let me.

Only time will tell if any of the others will perform as well.

What worries me slightly is that the 2-4-1 LOVEFiLM offer is still the most prominent. The cynic in me can't help thinking that people will sign-up but not initially realise they will stay pending for 2 months. When the penny drops, they may have already lost interest in getting their freebie and the offer will revoke.

[corky20]

Originally Posted by FurbtasticM

I'd probably say that anything between 60% and 90% of my greens are from LOVEFiLM. I did try and download a CSV of refs to check more accurately but Apple FJ froze and wouldn't let me.

Only time will tell if any of the others will perform as well.

What worries me slightly is that the 2-4-1 LOVEFiLM offer is still the most prominent. The cynic in me can't help thinking that people will sign-up but not initially realise they will stay pending for 2 months. When the penny drops, they may have already lost interest in getting their freebie and the offer will revoke.

That's a huge chunk of your greens, hopefully they don't take too much of a hit. Hopefully the other offers will pick up the slack and perform well. I guess only time will tell how this affects everyone.

Now that you mention about the postition of the 2-4-1 Lovefilm, I would also like to see the AA offer a bit further down the page, it's just getting in the way up there!

[Xpango.com]

For my 2 cents on this, historically the freebie world has seen free trial offers come and go. Some such as Lovefilm have been very popular and there have been others in the past, the tickle tests were massive on the US scene and we used to have other offers which were extremely popular.

Unfortunately the free trial offers do require a fair bit of policing by networks to ensure quality is good and fraud is low, but I think it's also worth noting that the economy is still very poor and I'm assuming the numbers weren't adding up right now. This offer may be back, Blockbuster pulled their free trial offer in the past but it's not back in a similar form (we have it on Xpango).

One thing I would add is that whenever a good offer goes, another one will normally replace it, so bear this in mind.

I'm actually suprised this has been pulled for FJ & Kudos but like I mentioned above, I also wouldn't be surprised if it's back in a few months when Lovefilm see how many leads they lose from Freebie/Incent sites.

Lovefilm is a popular offer though and it's never nice to see these offers go. Let's hope it will be back in due course.

Sam

[moviedrome]

Originally Posted by FurbtasticM

I'm not sure I follow your logic Jon. Why would anyone pull the plug on an affiliate that provides as many leads as FJ and Kudos. Even if the numbers fall dramatically they are still getting a return from it.

If users takes the 2-4-1 and cancel, LOVEFiLM get £9.99 and pay no commission. In fact, they only pay commission on either offer once someone has paid £19.98.

I can understand why it makes sense for them, it's a no brainier. Pulling out would be madness.

I'm not sure if we've made this clear enough. The 2 4 1 offer is on any LF package. Not just the 9.99 one so the user can sign up for the 3.99 if they want.

It was a quick and dirty offer add last night because it just had to be done but later today I'm going to look at all the offer positionings and the most popular tab

[arcticfox]

Originally Posted by moviedrome

I'm not sure if we've made this clear enough. The 2 4 1 offer is on any LF package. Not just the 9.99 one so the user can sign up for the 3.99 if they want.

That means to get a green though they will have to spend £7.98 and it will go green in 3 months? You know many people will see the £ sign and be put off.

If someone is truly interested in joining lovefilm and staying with them, it's a good offer but (in my opinion) I can't see a great percentage staying on to that 3rd month if they have only signed up to get a free? gift which means you lose out and we lose out.

One alternative is for us (the referrer) to offer possible sign ups a small incentive ourself e.g. £5 paypal if they stay on for that 3rd month (not a bad idea actually) but then I feel Lovefilm will change the goalposts again and make it 4 months etc etc.

I know you are in a difficult position and I'm sure you can understand our concerns but is there any way you could contact Lovefilm with our concerns?

[moviedrome]

Originally Posted by arcticfox

That means to get a green though they will have to spend £7.98 and it will go green in 3 months? You know many people will see the £ sign and be put off.

If someone is truly interested in joining lovefilm and staying with them, it's a good offer but (in my opinion) I can't see a great percentage staying on to that 3rd month if they have only signed up to get a free? gift which means you lose out and we lose out.

One alternative is for us (the referrer) to offer possible sign ups a small incentive ourself e.g. £5 paypal if they stay on for that 3rd month (not a bad idea actually) but then I feel Lovefilm will change the goalposts again and make it 4 months etc etc.

I know you are in a difficult position and I'm sure you can understand our concerns but is there any way you could contact Lovefilm with our concerns?

None of them are concerns we haven't already expressed to lovefilm and I know they read this forum so they will already be aware.

[MJ10]

Originally Posted by moviedrome

I know they read this forum so they will already be aware.

They do?!

Would love to hear their reaction to the goings on here! Maybe some reassurence from them or something?!

[kudos]

To make something clear, we very nearly lost the LOVEFiLM offer altogether. The senior management looked at the figures and basically said lets pull the plug. Too much work for not enough reward.

However the Affiliate Manager over at LF fought our corner and said he can make it work. These new offers are the result of this compromise.

Things will change again Im sure of it, but hopefully for the better as we all try to find that middle ground.

@Arctic - thats a good idea. I think you guys perhaps could be proactive in making sure the user does what they are meant to do, if you dont already.

I guess the networks could do more as well in making sure the user is fully aware of the requirements. Im thinking of creating an email system which will notify the user at various intervals. Basically just to keep reminding them of their commitment. Not sure on how it'll work yet. Just an idea.