A couple of days ago, I started receiving some emails asking about a new install put out by Tim Storm of FatWallet. It seems Tim had just released the FatWallet Now! Bookmark as beta on his site and some were curious as to what this actually installed, how it behaved and when the FatWallet affiliate tracking code would be set. Since Tim has a large loyal following on his site, I can see why some would be interested in how the bookmark behaved, especially fellow coupon affiliates. I have installed his new product and performed some quick testing.
I installed on a Windows XP Pro operating system using Internet Explorer 6.xx. FatWallet Now! is available for several different browsers. Basically FatWallet Now! is just a bookmark of some javascript code. The instructions on the FatWallet web site instruct the user to place the bookmark in the Links folder. This allows the bookmark to be more readily accessible from the browser toolbar. Although the FatWallet web site talked about an icon to click, I did not have an icon for FatWallet Now! in the browser toolbar, but rather had to click the Links icon to access the FatWallet bookmark. Click on the image to the right to see exactly what the FatWallet Now! Bookmark looks like in IE once installed.
So how does the FatWallet Now! Bookmarklet work once installed? When an end user is shopping online, they can check to see if FatWallet has any coupons or deals for the store they are currently visiting. They do this by clicking on the Links icon in their browser toolbar and then the FatWallet Now! Bookmark (that’s two clicks by the end user) while they are on the merchant’s web site. A pop up will then appear from FatWallet listing the coupons/deals available through FatWallet for that merchant and whether or not they can earn a cashback rebate with the merchant (see image to right, click to enlarge). We found no automatic setting of the FatWallet affiliate link via this pop up during our limited testing. There are also links to possible threads on the FatWallet forum that might be of interest to the end user based on the merchant site they are visiting. Again, during our limited testing, clicking on a forum link did not invoke the FatWallet affiliate tracking code. The end user is taken to the FatWallet forum in the browser window in which they had been viewing the merchant’s web site. If FatWallet does not have a relationship with the web site being viewed when the FatWallet Now! Bookmark link is clicked, then the pop up message is that they have no offers. If the end user clicks on a coupon/deal or for cashback earnings, one of two things can happen at this point. What will happen depends on whether or not the end user has a FatWallet member login cookie set on their computer or not.
If the end user does not have a FatWallet login cookie set on their computer, then the browser will be redirected to the login splash page on the FatWallet web site. The end user has three options on this page. They can join FatWallet if they are not yet a member, log into their account if they are an existing member or they can opt to continue to shop without logging in (i.e. cashback earning not being tracked). Once the end user makes one of these three choices, the end user will then be redirected back to the merchant’s web site through the FatWallet affiliate link for the merchant. See the image to the right (click to enlarge) for the splash screen I was redirected to when clicking on a coupon link without being logged into my FatWallet account.
If the end user does have the FatWallet login cookie on their computer, then the end user is redirected through the main browser window to the merchant’s web site via the FatWallet affiliate link when the click on either a coupon/deal link or cashback link in the pop up. Another pop up will be displayed giving the end user the appropriate information for the offer such as the coupon code, conditions of the offer, etc. See image to right (click to enlarge). In this image, you can also see the browser being redirected through the FatWallet web site via their affiliate link if you look at the browser address and status bars. It should be noted that the FatWallet Now! Bookmark is in beta. At this time, it seems that it is what it claims to be, an advanced bookmark
