Advertising watchdog bans cashback pop-ups for misleading shoppers

Pop-up adverts offering customers cashback on websites of companies such as Asda and Domino’s Pizza have been banned by the advertising watchdog.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found a number of adverts run by shopper reward programme Webloyalty to be misleading.

The pop-ups appeared after a customer had purchased an item online, offering them cashback worth about £20.

Text on the adverts said shoppers can click on a link “to claim the above reward, credited onto your card, when you next place an order” with the retailer.

Smaller text underneath a “continue” button read: “By tapping above, you can join our partner programme for £18/month and claim your reward”.

The adverts investigated by the watchdog appeared on the websites of retailers Domino’s Pizza, Papa John’s, Moonpig, Asda and Trainline.

The ASA said it was not clear to customers that the pop-ups were coming from a third party, and that by clicking “continue” some people would have thought they were finalising their transaction with the retailer.

Consumers may also have been led to believe that they had earned a free cashback reward based on the order they had just placed.

The ASA said this was not the case, and therefore found that the adverts were likely to mislead people.

Webloyalty said it felt it was clear to shoppers that their order with the partner website was complete, that the pop-ups were offered by a third-party service, and that it was advertising signing up for a paid-for scheme.

The ASA’s rulings mean the adverts, in their current form, are banned and Webloyalty must make future marketing communications clearer for shoppers.

The retailers which host the adverts must also ensure that they are clearly seen as coming from a third-party subscription scheme, ASA said.