Google Insights for search term "Coupons"

Check out the 2008 Holiday season spike in the search term “coupons”.  Wow — you know times are tough when everyone is scrambling for online coupons.

Online coupons are a great opportuntity to build a direct relationship with your consumers and potentail consumer by offering online coupons.

Coupons can be offered on your web site, through the large coupon sites like Fat Wallet, Coupons.com, or Savings.com and through social networks like Bloggers and Facebook.

New technologies that control the distribution of online coupons have increased retailers acceptance of the coupons.  Check with your largest customers to ensure they will accept the coupons.  And work with one of the large online coupon technology providers.  The technology providers handle everything and have bits in place to stop fraud.  Expect to pay a set up fee which will include a number of coupons printed.  Then you will pay per coupon printed after meeting the number included in the set up fee — so you pay for each time a consumer prints the coupon.  You will still need to work with a redemtion house.

Online coupons are becoming very popular and it’s a great way to add an element of interaction, reward, and measurement to your online campaigns.  Consumers are looking for them (check your Web Stats and see how many people get to your site looking for “coupons”) and they can be used to attract new consumers. When doing a Blogger out reach campaign it’s a must to incent the Bloggers to give coupons to their readers.

Online Coupon Site

Online Coupons are coupons visitors can printed out on their home printer.  In the past there were issues with fraud and retailer acceptance — but now you will find that technologies are available to thwart fraud and appease retailer concerns.

Online couponing is a great way to provide an offer to your consumers and measure the effectiveness of a campaign.  A couple things to keep in mind:

• To prevent fraud you will want to check out one of the online coupon vendors.  They offer technologoes that manage the amount of times to coupons can be printed.  They also work with retailers to make sure the coupons will be accepted at check out.
• Couponing works well in conjunction with other tactics such as blogger outreach.
• For consumer brands a lot of the traffic to your web site is looking for coupons.  Providing new offers throughout the year is a great way to build a loyal visitor to your site.