As a consumer, RetailMeNot is great. As another website that sells products for commission, it's terrible. If RetailMeNot can find a coupon that I fail to mention, that's fine.
But RetailMeNot also steals that last click cookie with coupons that simply do not work or are not really coupons (Check out the Amazon Free shipping "coupon" for example). That's nothing but cookie stuffing, and if it were any other smaller company doing something similar they'd probably get banned from the Amazon affiliate program.
Basically, imagine you as a website owner buying a product on Amazon and writing a review about it, reading the review out while piecing together a video montage that shows it off, taking some pictures of it, and compiling it all just to get a little bit of commission if someone reads and watches your review. Then the customer searches for an Amazon coupon before checking out, goes to RetailMeNot, and then gets the "Free Shipping on 35+ deal" that is not even a deal or coupon, or even a coupon that does not even work or exist. This million dollar company has stolen your effort and will get commission on that sale. It's just rotten from that viewpoint.
It seems enough to fix on Amazon's end. Just credit the commission to the last click cookie as of the time the user reaches the checkout page (assuming the customer actually does close the purchase within a short amount of time).
But RetailMeNot also steals that last click cookie with coupons that simply do not work or are not really coupons (Check out the Amazon Free shipping "coupon" for example). That's nothing but cookie stuffing, and if it were any other smaller company doing something similar they'd probably get banned from the Amazon affiliate program.
Basically, imagine you as a website owner buying a product on Amazon and writing a review about it, reading the review out while piecing together a video montage that shows it off, taking some pictures of it, and compiling it all just to get a little bit of commission if someone reads and watches your review. Then the customer searches for an Amazon coupon before checking out, goes to RetailMeNot, and then gets the "Free Shipping on 35+ deal" that is not even a deal or coupon, or even a coupon that does not even work or exist. This million dollar company has stolen your effort and will get commission on that sale. It's just rotten from that viewpoint.