EVouchers are a hit
The article “It’s a coupon revolution” (Marketing- week.co.uk, 8 September) raised some interesting views on the future of online vouchers in maintaining consumer trust and providing a good return on investment for brands investing in these types of marketing activities.
Whilst we would agree that some online offers do not live up to the hype, there is certainly a strong indication that online offers and vouchers continue to be extremely popular with consumers and generate proven results for brands wanting to increase online sales and increase traffic to their website.
eMarketer has just released a report, UK E-Commerce (August 2009), looking at online buying activity for 2008-2010. The report includes a survey by the Office of Fair Trading that looks at reasons why UK shoppers make purchases online. Fifty-nine per cent of shoppers said it was due to a special online offer, up from 53% the previous year. In LinkShare’s own survey, which investigated the impact of online marketing with UK consumers (August 2009), vouchers, promotions and special offers were seen to be the most useful form of online marketing at 59%. Similarly 58% of consumers have responded to this type of marketing and also consider vouchers the least invasive form of online marketing, at just 11%.
For brands to continue to make vouchers and online offers profitable, they need to be creative and targeted in the way they market them, and of course be diligent in managing internal financial metrics.
We have seen a growing demand from our customers wanting to develop their affiliate marketing programme following initial success in this area. With time invested in developing and maintaining a relevant and targeted campaign, marketers can leverage the proven effectiveness of vouchers as a successful and profitable marketing tool.
Liane Dietrich, UK managing director Linkshare
