SmallBusinessNewz

Experian Marketing Services released data from its coupon report: Benchmark Data and Analysis for Email Marketers. Among their findings, was that 80% of online coupon mailings garnered higher transaction-to-click rates and transaction rates than non-coupon campaigns.

In other words, if you are using email marketing, you may want to seriously consider going the coupon route.

"For marketers, the data behind our coupon study further validates how email coupons can and should be used to engage customers and drive traffic and sales to other channels. Understanding the purchase drivers and triggers along with the channel preferences of unique customers is an essential element in building loyalty and engagement. Today's consumers are multi-channel and marketers that acknowledge this will see greater return on their marketing spend," said Matt Seeley, president of Experian Marketing Services' Platforms division.

Experian highlights the following findings:

- Two-thirds of American households use coupons, with the vast majority of them (87 percent) used to save money and 30 percent used to try a new product or service.

- Seventy percent of coupon-using households obtain their coupons from newspapers. However, the Internet is a growing coupon source. Over the last three years, the number of households that get their coupons online has increased by 46 percent.

- Nearly half of all American households use coupons to buy food/grocery products, making them the most common items purchased with coupons, followed by cleaning products and beauty/grooming products.

- More households are now using coupons at restaurants/fast food chains. Compared to 2006, there are now 9 percent more households redeeming coupons at restaurants.

- Click rates trended higher for coupon emails, with average lifts of 17 percent for coupons redeemable online and 24 percent for coupons redeemable in-store.

- Eighty percent of online coupon mailings garnered higher transaction-to-click rates and transaction rates than the non-coupon campaigns. Of this group, 78 percent also had higher revenue per email.

There is no question that consumers are looking for coupons, discounts, and promo codes online this year, even more so than last year, when the recession was at its worst. Google shared some interesting findings from its Insights for Search tool on this. Also, Doug reported on some Hitwise information, which found searches like "free shipping" and "coupon" to be increasing dramatically around the holidays.