The 30th and 31st of the month are the busiest days for ShopCodes. These are the days that monthly offers typically expire and new emails arrive from merchants listing the offers for the days and weeks ahead.

I aim to remove all expired codes and sales from ShopCodes and not have them present just because I’ve got a page ranking well in Google for a nice search term.

This is made less painful when merchants replace a code with a new one or extend the expiry date. You’d be amazed at how many merchants only offer codes at Christmas time though, so some of the merchants pages look typically flat for some of the year.

To give you an understanding of the work I’ll need to do in the coming days, here’s some numbers.

78 promotions expiring 31st or expired on the 30th.

32 of those promotions involve Exclusive code merchants. These are merchants that have offered me a unique or branded code or landing page. If it’s the actual Exclusive code that is expiring and not just a generic sale, then I’ll have to send out up to 32 emails, to merchants and affiliate managers.

10 of those Exclusive code merchants have my Exclusive code expiring today. I’ve since sent 10 emails to affiliate and network managers asking for a new code or to extend the existing code. Having an Exclusive code extended is not a given and some merchants don’t reply to the email and some may say their business model has changed (See below). So you have to list the benefits of them providing a unique code, such as increased exposure above-the-fold or some sales figures.

Of the other 22 Exclusive code merchants, the unique code is ongoing and their monthly offer is changing. This is a simple task of me removing a line of information or replacing it if a new offer has arrived via email.

Once I’ve taken care of all the 32 Exclusive code pages (and I have 143 in total) I look at the generic codes.

Of the other 56 promotions expiring, 54 are codes and 2 are sales. (I only really promote sales where the expiry date has been set.)

I don’t just delete the expired codes, I do a search in my email inbox to see if there’s an update from that merchant. I filter all my emails and I currently have 39 unread emails in my inbox containing the word “code”. I’ll work on these emails before others. Now, it’s 44. Told you today was busy.

And finally 1 top merchant has informed me that he can’t extend the Exclusive code he’s provided as they are phasing out discount codes until the end of their financial year.

To some who promote Figleaves, this may be a blow. No more so than me, as they’ve been my number one merchant for quite some time.

I’ll be taking a closer look at their site later this evening to see what other content I can add.