Most shoppers today turn to digital coupon codes before making an online purchase. A May 2020 survey revealed that 92% of U.S. consumers at least “sometimes” look for a deal before they buy, and just 8% said they “never” look for a way to save on their purchase. This creates a massive opportunity for retailers and eCommerce companies to expand their reach through coupon marketing, which can drive more traffic and sales than an eCommerce site can on its own. Here are the top competitive marketing intelligence trends to look for when working with a coupon site and how to know which sites are worth your time. What is coupon marketing? box of coupons and cash representing Coupon marketing is a method of attracting new customers and increasing sales from existing ones through discounts and offers. Today, most coupon marketing is done digitally, with one or more of the following: Promo codes Mobile coupons Downloadable coupons Trackable discount links These discounts are often sent to customers through regular emails but can be shared on social media, through affiliates, and even on coupon and deal sites. Top coupon sites There are dozens of sites that claim to help shoppers save money as a repository for the best coupons and deals. Some even offer exclusive deals to just their site, often in an arrangement with the retailer directly. These coupon sites make their money through an affiliate partnership with the retailer and advertising. slickdeals.net representing coupon marketing strategy As of May 2021, the top coupon site was slickdeals, with 54.14 million hits to the site on average in a month. The second-trafficked site was Rakuten; it has 46.99 million visits for the same timeframe. The graph below demonstrates the top ten sites globally. Why work with coupon sites? Coupon sites have already built giant communities Philippines Photo Editor with one thing in common: they want to find the best deal. So, provided your deal is significant enough to cause a shopper to consider buying from you and not a competitor, you have something coupon sites can give their readership and help build their reputation as a destination for top deals. As you help the coupon site stay up to date with deals their readers will love, you’ll get the traffic they send – and potentially a sale. While a deal site can raise awareness for you and your promotion, they can’t make up for shopping snags, so be sure you have your site optimized for coupon code redemption. Making the coupon experience a seamless one for shoppers is key to turning a first-time shopper into someone who would consider shopping with you again. From there, you can build loyalty. After that, they’ll maybe seek you out first, even without a coupon code. Digital coupon marketing is somewhat about education. It can make an excellent first impression for shoppers who have never heard of your brand or were unsure you could fill their shopping needs. Even if they don’t end up buying, simply visiting your site after coming to it from a deal site builds awareness and trust.

Want to drive traffic and add brand new revenue streams? Affiliate programs are powerful accelerants for both. And affiliate links are the vehicles bringing in users within the thriving affiliate marketing industry. In the U.S. alone, spending is expected to hit $8.2 billion by 2022, according to Statista – more than three times what it was in 2012. Whether you are an affiliate earning passive income by referring traffic to businesses, or a business launching an affiliate marketing program, you have to understand exactly what affiliate links are, how you can use them to optimize your affiliate research and strategy to bring in more traffic, revenue, and high-paying customers. We’ll answer these questions and will close with tips for affiliate partners looking to use links most effectively. What are affiliate links? In simple terms, affiliate links drive traffic and revenue. Affiliate links are unique URLs that Photo Editing Services identify the specific affiliate partner responsible for a website visit, and they’re generated by joining an affiliate partner program or affiliate network. affiliate links definition Before the 90s, handing out business cards for referrals is effectively an affiliate program. With Amazon Associates launching as early as 1996, affiliate marketing moved online. Using a unique identifying ID or username, a referral site can receive credit for each visitor directed to the target website. For every referral, whether it’s traffic or a sale, depending on the partnership agreement, affiliates receive a commission rate per click or a payout based on a proportion of a purchase. Affiliate links make it possible for businesses to track the traffic channels where they receive the most affiliate traffic. Using affiliate research, businesses can maximize their marketing efforts and find monetization opportunities by assessing the performance of competitors, online businesses, and individual affiliate outlets. What does an affiliate link look like? (URL breakdown) What does an affiliate link look like, exactly? How is it different from a regular link, in terms of structure? And why does it matter to you in real life? To the untrained eye, an affiliate link might look just like any other link you find. But they matter, precisely because they are making money for affiliate partners and businesses. Depending on the industry, affiliates may be running tutorials, become bloggers, or building subscribers on social media to promote links to a greater target audience and drive traffic to gain an affiliate commission and eventually passive income. This type of online marketing matters. What’s behind it? A remarkably simple link structure. Here’s a look: Even the shortest of links might contain additional information, either in the form of a marketing tracker such as an urchin tracking module (UTM), or an affiliate ID. That ID will be unique to one partner, making it easy to assign traffic to its source. An affiliate link will include details as a URL parameter, which refers to any text that appears after a question mark in a web link. Essentially, this is a capability built into the fabric of the internet.