Using online coupon codes is a prevalent online activity, but one characterized by a poor user experience. Inaccurate, expired, and false coupon codes are a major problem online. This study looks into the accuracy and reliability of major coupon code websites and presents detailed findings from its analysis of 550 coupon codes across 40 retail brands.
An online version of this document is available here: https://blog.zipfworks.com/online-coupon-code-accuracy-study/
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● Our approach for solving this problem involves applying crowdsourcing at scale by
connecting those who are knowledgeable about coupon redemption (in this case,
coupon bloggers and extreme couponers) with those shoppers who are looking for a
working code at the time of checkout.
● We’ve built Dealspotr, a social platform designed to connect these two constituencies.
On the expert (content creator) side, we allow coupon experts to create a profile and
then share their knowledge about working deals and discount codes for specific retailers.
On the shopper side, we distill and format the advice provided by coupon experts into a
single page that summarizes the best available working coupon codes for a given store.
● Dealspotr is built around the concepts of collaboration and shared rewards. Experts can
earn rewards in the form of cash and egift cards within the Dealspotr system based on
the feedback of a proprietary performance measurement system that estimates their
effectiveness in providing high quality information that helps the highest number of
shoppers save money. They key innovation in Dealspotr is to enable the app community
to participate directly in improving the quality of content in its database while sharing
revenues generated from the app directly with its user community.
● Our goals are:
○ Have knowledge of all the available working discount codes for a given store at
any given time
○ Minimize the presentation of invalid and expired codes
● Dealspotr does a wide range of other things, our larger goal is to create the first modern
social platform for sharing and finding deals, but the purpose of this paper is to focus
specifically on coupon code accuracy.
● Since launching in October 2015, we are still in our infancy as a platform and
community, but we have made significant headway in building an active community of
coupon experts and providing some of the code tools for sharing knowledge and
displaying it for shoppers. We felt this was a good time to do an audit of our coupon
accuracy versus our major competitors.
● So we recently conducted an audit to compare our coupon accuracy versus our three
largest competitors, RetailMeNot, Coupons.com, and Groupon.
Goals of this Study
● The goal of this study is to ascertain and summarize the coverage and accuracy of three
of the most popular coupon websites and our site Dealspotr.
● We selected coverage and accuracy as our two metrics because these determine the
speed with which a shopper can find a working discount code. We consider speed to
working code to be the essential user experience goal served by coupon websites.
● How do we define coverage and accuracy?
○ Coverage is defined as a given website presenting the largest number of working
discount codes for a particular store at any given time.
○ Accuracy is defined as the percentage of codes presented which are recognized
by the retailer, are within their expiration dates, and are presented with
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accompanying instructions (such as exclusions and limitations) which enable the
shopper to successfully redeem the code
Study Methodology
● We conducted our survey on two days, June 13, 2015, and June 17, 2015.
● We analyzed 4 websites in our study:
○ Retailmenot (http://www.retailmenot.com)
○ Coupons.com (http://www.coupons.com)
○ Groupon (http://www.groupon.com)
○ Dealspotr (https://dealspotr.com)
● At the time of each test, we took a snapshot of the coupon codes presented by the four
coupon websites for each of 40 major retailers and compared them for coverage and
accuracy.
● We selected the 40 retailers based on the following criteria:
○ We tested retailers that serve customers in the US only
○ We selected from the top 250 US retailers based on consumer interest for
coupons for those retailers. To measure this, we used data from SEMRush.com
and chose from the top 250 brands based on consumer search volume for the
term “brand name + coupon” or “brand name + coupon code.”
○ We selected only retailers that honor coupon codes and issue them periodically
to customers. We only chose retailers that prominently display a “coupon code”
input field somewhere in their ecommerce checkout process.
○ We selected from a broad range of industries and retail segments, including
fashion, electronics, food, services, and consumer sundries.
● How we tested:
○ For a given retailer, we visited each of the four coupon sites and tested the
coupon codes presented.
○ For each retailer, we visited the retailer website and added items to our shopping
cart. We tested each discount code by entering it into the box offered during
checkout.
○ If we were able to secure a discount, using the instructions provided by the
coupon website presenting that code, we considered that code as working.
○ If we were unable to secure a discount based on the information provided on the
coupon website, we considered that code as not working.
● What types of coupons we included in the test:
○ We only looked at coupon codes and ignored all other types of sales and deals
listed on each website.
○ We included all types of coupon codes, including those that provide a sitewide
discount, and those for specific categories, brands and products. We required
that the site accurately described any limitations of a particular code to count it as
a working coupon code.
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○ We ignored all coupon codes that were listed on each coupon site that were
clearly marked as “expired” or otherwise marked as unreliable.
Summary of Findings
● Coverage
○ Coverage is defined as having knowledge of and presenting the highest number
of working codes for a particular store. Broadly speaking, Dealspotr and
Retailmenot had the highest coverage of coupon codes for the 40 major retailers
in the test by a factor of two. Dealspotr had the highest coverage, with 163
working codes presented for the 40 retailers in the test, compared to 140 working
codes for Retailmenot, 82 for Coupons.com, and 71 for Groupon.
● Accuracy
○ Accuracy is defined as the percentage of discount codes presented on a coupon
website that are currently valid and working at the time of testing.
○ Generally, all four websites had similarly high accuracy scores, with Dealspotr
having slightly greater accuracy than the others.
■ Dealspotr: 84.0% accuracy
■ Retailmenot: 83.8% accuracy
■ Groupon: 82.6% accuracy
■ Coupons.com: 79.6% accuracy
● Unduplicated coverage
○ An important metric we studied is unduplicated coverage of discount codes. That
is, valid codes on one website that is unavailable on competing websites. A
website with high incidence of unduplicated coverage indicates a unique value for
shoppers in search of a working coupon code.
● While we only tested the four websites mentioned in this study, our estimation is that
these websites represent among the highest performers in coverage and accuracy
among coupon websites online. This is due to the significant resources required to
maintain a highly accurate database with broad coverage, and the fact that the largest
websites likely have the most resources to achieve this goal.
Key Takeaways
● Retailmenot, among the most established coupon websites with the highest amount of
traffic, has been the standard bearer for nearly a decade when it comes to breadth and
depth of coverage of coupon codes. The company outperforms even its largest
competitors by a wide margin.
● However, Dealspotr, a new app offered by ZipfWorks, utilizes a new, more modern
system of crowdsourcing mixed with advanced social networking features to produce an