We talked with Forrest Schaaf, Co-founder of For Me To Coupon, about his take on coupon standardization, the rise of local coupons and deals, and more.
Is there a need for standardization when it comes to how merchants deliver coupons to affiliates? And what data would like to see included with those coupons?
Yes. There is s a need. I would argue that reasonable standardization always decreases costs and increases accuracy by reducing complexity. Well-designed standards also provide clarity and introduce best practices.
The goal here for all parties involved is to is to present the offers to consumers and quickly and accurately as possible. This challenge is enhanced by the fact that coupons (and more generally, “deals”) are, by their nature, constantly changing. Standards make it easier to accomplish this goal for all parties concerned. They reduce errors and omissions based on misunderstandings and variation among systems.
While For Me To Coupon’s services include normalizing all data sources for subscribers, standardization would help us as well because it would improve accuracy for the merchants and networks upstream of us.
Regarding data inclusion; the piece of info that seems to be missing most commonly is the expiration date, which may be set to “No expiration” or even missing. It’s perfectly understandable that a merchant may not be sure when they wish to expire a deal, but it’s best to put in a good guess and correct it as necessary (which also gives urgency to the consumer). A lack of expiration becomes a problem when a merchant suddenly does pull the deal without sufficient notice to affiliates. This is the Number 1 cause of errors sneaking into the data, although we ourselves take steps to prevent this as best we can.
In addition to dates of validity, sometimes merchants expect the affiliates to go out and build links. This is a considerable roadblock, and turns off affiliates.
Finally, it’s important to include accurate restrictions and ensure that the program terms and communications make it very clear which deals affiliates are and are not allowed to promote. This is another common area of misunderstanding. Some program managers seem to assume that if they don’t promote a deal directly to an affiliate, that affiliate is bound not to use it. The programs terms need to spell this out. When in doubt, many affiliates will double-check with the merchant (this is what we do), but this is cumbersome.
Do you think standardization might be onerous for merchants and discourage them from participating in offering more coupons? Why or why not?
Coupons and deals are manually created and maintained by merchants. If a merchant already enters their coupons and deals into one or more standardized forms already, standardization should make the process simpler and more uniform. But for the sake of convenience, many merchants simply email their deals out to affiliates, possibly without even constructing the links. In these cases, data entry is certainly additional effort, especially when a large number of deals are involved at once.
I don’t really blame the program mangers; they are specialized in marketing and their time is better spent designing and optimizing the offers rather than entering them in specific formats (let alone testing them). Indeed, this is a fundamental aspect of For Me To Coupon’s value proposition.
So in practice, I do think that a network absolutely requiring merchants to enter coupon data in a standardized form might be enough of a barrier to reduce the number of coupons some merchants offer, especially smaller ones with less resources. But I don’t see that ever being an absolute requirement.
One thing to note about merchants; if the implementation of standards requires merchants to make any engineering changes, that will be “onerous” in the sense that any technical project is onerous to them. Engineering is time-consuming for most merchants. That is another reason standards are preferable in the long run since they would tend to simplify future projects.
Have you experienced growth in a particular segment (or type of affiliate) looking for coupons feeds and what do you attribute that growth to?
We’ve definitely seen a lot of growth across the board, and while I can’t identify any particular vertical that stands out, we’ve definitely seen lots of activity in certain segments. For some time I’ve seen growing interest from affiliates for local, printable, and grocery coupons, and Groupon has made the “local” area explode as it became a household word.
But I think that the growth here is not simply because of the popularity of Groupon, rather what propels growth in “local” is the fact that the affiliate model has yet to take its share of those locally-spent dollars.
Another hot area is mobile, although it still seems to be looking for a winning coupon model. One problem reportedly was the inability of most store scanners to scan phone screens, which complicated this task. I don’t think it’s a secret that the growth in interest in mobile is the result of clear and present opportunity in a relatively new and unclaimed territory.
But with all the Groupon hoopla going on, don’t forget the continued rise of flash sale and “deal of the day” sites. (For example, on the OPM side, we saw HauteLook get acquired by none other than Nordstrom.) There are a limited number of merchants offering these kinds of deals but more and more are specializing in it.
I think this area of flash sales is interesting because it’s a proven winner, but innovation is key and there are plenty of unexpected and counter-intuitive surprises.
Are there any technological developments on the horizon that you expect to enhance the way you do business (for example: new tracking developments, anti-fraud tools, new API’s, etc.)?
Elegant solutions to the mobile problem and attribution for printable coupons are definitely going to be beneficial, although that is more an expansion of reach than changing the way we do business. These innovations won’t really change our core model of unifying and testing this ever-changing data. Some may simplify it, if we’re lucky.
What the biggest challenge your business currently faces?
Really, it’s growth. There are more and more sources of data and business models every day. There are many needs regarding the relations, quality, and delivery of data that aren’t being met yet and we’re trying to keep up.
Of course, the pending legislation that would hamper affiliates also creates risks and challenges for many of us since we all ultimately depend on our merchant relationships. I truly appreciate the PMA’s efforts in this regard, and we’ve tried to do our part as well. Everyone on the business side of our team has at some point gone to bat in front of legislators or journalists.