They pretend (or pretended) to have coupons that you needed to click in order to reveal. Often upon clicking, the coupons were invalid. Perhaps some were never real. But upon clicking, a pop-under would launch which would drop their cookie.
So a user who was already committed to buying, and in the process of doing so, who simply checked for a coupon while going through the checkout process, would end up generating an affiliate commission for RetailMeNot even though RMN provided no value to either the customer or the merchant.
This is basically a scam that pretty much all coupon sites pull, which is why many companies ban coupon sites from joining their affiliate programs.
I run affiliate programs for my businesses, none of which have a box for coupon codes when you sign up. Despite that, nearly every day new coupon sites sign up for the affiliate program.
They usually have a webpage full of "coupon codes" offering discounts that don't exist made up, ready to add the referral link to. I remove all these sites from the program, some leave the pages up anyway.
Even coupons.com has a page for my business with several "Click to Save" buttons that do nothing. They're publicly traded as well.
Some of the sneakier coupon sites will put up other, competing products that do have affiliate programs to try and flip people into a product where they get paid.
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They pretend (or pretended) to have coupons that you needed to click in order to reveal. Often upon clicking, the coupons were invalid. Perhaps some were never real. But upon clicking, a pop-under would launch which would drop their cookie.
So a user who was already committed to buying, and in the process of doing so, who simply checked for a coupon while going through the checkout process, would end up generating an affiliate commission for RetailMeNot even though RMN provided no value to either the customer or the merchant.
This is basically a scam that pretty much all coupon sites pull, which is why many companies ban coupon sites from joining their affiliate programs.
What you're describing is cookie stuffing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_stuffing). People have been prosecuted over this: http://www.businessinsider.com/ebay-the-fbi-shawn-hogan-and-.... I'm surprised about your claims that a public company would be doing this.
I run affiliate programs for my businesses, none of which have a box for coupon codes when you sign up. Despite that, nearly every day new coupon sites sign up for the affiliate program.
They usually have a webpage full of "coupon codes" offering discounts that don't exist made up, ready to add the referral link to. I remove all these sites from the program, some leave the pages up anyway.
Even coupons.com has a page for my business with several "Click to Save" buttons that do nothing. They're publicly traded as well.
Some of the sneakier coupon sites will put up other, competing products that do have affiliate programs to try and flip people into a product where they get paid.
It blows my mind how many companies still eagerly work with coupon sites given this has been true for over a decade.