Why are there not more sites like TopCashBack, QuidCo, OhMyDosh..

Jon

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I've been looking into these sites a lot more recently to get a handle on how they work and make their money and basically it's all just affiliate marketing on steroids

Take OhMyDosh for example. You can literally hover your money over the links on their website and see the URL they are going to go to are via affiliate networks like Awin. I assume they have some kind of 'cash reserver' to give money to the users are affiliates more often than not don't pay out THAT quickly.

TopCashBack and Quidco just do similar so the amount of money these sites must be making must be gobsmacking!

HotUKDeals is another site that earns a crazy amount of money. I must have seen that 'Three Mobile Sim' and 'Sign up to Revolt Card' offer on their front page for a good number of days now so lord knows how many people are they pushing through but I would guess it's in the thousands! Not to mention the stuff I've seen online about how much HUKD charge companies to have their Black Friday offers listed at the top during that week!!

If anything THEIR system is the cleverest as the content is all user-provided by people putting up deals and then their system turns the links into affiliate ones! Best passive income going!

I know there are a handful of other similar sites like 20Cogs (which ohmydosh own as well) and well as the likes of LatestDeals but I don't get why there aren't more of these sort of websites because as long as you can drive the traffic you would earn an insane amount of money from your site!!!

All these sites just remind me of the likes of Profit Accumulator where Sam took a load of information that was already out there, presented it is a nice, easy to use way, charged for it and now he's a bloody millionaire!!!!


I need to get creating!!
 

The Reverend

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I've been looking into these sites a lot more recently to get a handle on how they work and make their money and basically it's all just affiliate marketing on steroids

Take OhMyDosh for example. You can literally hover your money over the links on their website and see the URL they are going to go to are via affiliate networks like Awin. I assume they have some kind of 'cash reserver' to give money to the users are affiliates more often than not don't pay out THAT quickly.

TopCashBack and Quidco just do similar so the amount of money these sites must be making must be gobsmacking!

HotUKDeals is another site that earns a crazy amount of money. I must have seen that 'Three Mobile Sim' and 'Sign up to Revolt Card' offer on their front page for a good number of days now so lord knows how many people are they pushing through but I would guess it's in the thousands! Not to mention the stuff I've seen online about how much HUKD charge companies to have their Black Friday offers listed at the top during that week!!

If anything THEIR system is the cleverest as the content is all user-provided by people putting up deals and then their system turns the links into affiliate ones! Best passive income going!

I know there are a handful of other similar sites like 20Cogs (which ohmydosh own as well) and well as the likes of LatestDeals but I don't get why there aren't more of these sort of websites because as long as you can drive the traffic you would earn an insane amount of money from your site!!!

All these sites just remind me of the likes of Profit Accumulator where Sam took a load of information that was already out there, presented it is a nice, easy to use way, charged for it and now he's a bloody millionaire!!!!


I need to get creating!!
I know someone who tried to make a TCB but the problem is getting the engagement. TCB has adverts on telly.

Its a trust thing - we (the computer literate) tell people who aren't as literate not to click strange links online, not to hand over bank details and not to trust people online.

HUKD is just a 'forum' with automated aff-linking. They don't get paid from quite a bit that is posted (car lease deals - for example) but the amount of Amazon links probably keep them in champagne and caviar for life!

But creating another HUKD will be a challenge because you need all those users willing to give you their time for free. I have memories (but they might be false!) that HUKD used to give the OP of a deal a 'cut' of the money it made.

I think that would be a great way to create a competitor - HUKD has the 'experts' people who get flairs and 'are rewarded' (presume paid?). They are essentially Deal Finders for HUKD.

The biggest challenge on creating a competitor to HUKD is what are you offering that they aren't? What deals will they have that they don't? What is to stop someone just taking your deal and posting on HUKD?

Either way, good luck to what-ever you decide to go for in the future.

:)
 

Jon

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yeah i vaguely remember HUKD giving people who recommended deals at the start of their website journey

I think you are right that creating a new HUKD you would more than likely struggle as like you said. You would just end up creating the exact same deals as they have so you wouldn't be offering anything unique!

But then OhMyDosh / 20Cogs exist and they are both the same company and offer the same deals!! lol
 

David Says...

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By the time you get to the scale needed to make it worthwhile, it's no longer a side hustle but a major operation:
  • user acquisition
  • user retention
  • conversion rate optimisation
  • striking deals with affiliate managers and agents
  • customer support (dealing with all the "it hasn't tracked!" emails)
  • coding, development, server management
All of a sudden you have an office with 80 staff and the overheads that brings - that's fine if you're one of the market leaders, but harder to maintain as a challenger.

And the market will only support so many. As @The Reverend asked: why are people going to choose YetAnotherCashbackSite.com over more established players? TCB has the scale to negotiate market-leading cashback rates AND their own bonuses for high numbers of affiliate sales.

The moment you start getting any cut-through, the big players will simply copy your USP. They've got first mover advantage and won't be afraid to take advantage of it.
 
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Jon

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By the time you get to the scale needed to make it worthwhile, it's no longer a side hustle but a major operation:
  • user acquisition
  • user retention
  • conversion rate optimisation
  • striking deals with affiliate managers and agents
  • customer support (dealing with all the "it hasn't tracked!" emails)
  • coding, development, server management
All of a sudden you have an office with 80 staff and the overheads that brings - that's fine if you're one of the market leaders, but harder to maintain as a challenger.

And the market will only support so many. As @The Reverend asked: why are people going to choose YetAnotherCashbackSite.com over more established players? TCB has the scale to negotiate market-leading cashback rates AND their own bonuses for high numbers of affiliate sales.

The moment you start getting any cut-through, the big players will simply copy your USP. They've got first mover advantage and won't be afraid to take advantage of it.

Aye these are all VERY good point in terms of what it would take to make a successful alternative to the likes of TCB,QuidCo, HUKD

I still think if you have a good idea and a snazzy unique selling point you can do well!

I've done work for Pouch before and they were on Dragons den the next year and got 5 dragons invested and at that point had only made around £2000 profit and were just a 3-man-band startup!

 

cashbacklover2019

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There have been plenty of other cashback sites that have fallen by the wayside over the years, there are a few others still in existence increasing number of well known merchants will only affiliate with Quidco/TCB

Oh My Dosh is owned by Submission Technology who previously owned several cashback websites that are now defunct.- Greasy Palm, We Promise To - also a host of other spin offs including operating newspaper named cashback sites.
 
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Lakadema

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There used to be more such as Line My Pocket and Greasy Palm, but they took a large cut for themselves as far as I can remember. Quidco and then Top Cashback came onto the scene and took over because they were offering much higher rates as they claimed all the cashback was paid to the customers. It was a new concept at the time and now they seem to have cornered the market. I wouldn't change to a new company unless they were offering something significantly different or better.

There was also the original RPoints site which seemed to be going the same direction as HUKD at one point, but I think they ran into financial difficulties and were taken over. HUKD didn't have much competition.

Jon is right I think, Profit Accumulator and these sites, saw an opportunity to offer which hadn't been done before and so had little competition which enabled them to grow fast and become the major players in the market.

What they have in common is letting people make a bit of pocket money without selling or risking anything (for a small fee).
 

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