
Online Coupons: The Catalyst Behind Sales
Coupons are appealing
As soon as we notice the word coupon on any website, we rush to it and start buying the things satisfactorily, as we are going to get it for a discounted rate, no matter what. Such is the attraction of this six lettered word, which has driven people and thus, businesses have started using it and making profits of it. It is a general human tendency, if we get something for what it is, it makes us happy and encourages us to do it more. Businesses know this, and explore all possibilities to make it happening. This is the reason coupons, promo codes and discounts have been a big hit.
But, there are some companies that think that putting coupons on the site makes their website look cheap. But it is not at all the case, instead, coupons are a crowd puller and the business gets a good ROI due to it.
There are many ways in which coupons are used by websites to attract customers, which work 95% of the time. To save your time, we have here, some of the techniques presently used by businesses in which, coupons are offered to customers and this has helped them increase sales.
Coupon Strategies to Drive Sales
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Social Media and Third-Party Apps
One of the most successful methods of giving coupons to users is through Social media. People spend a whole amount of time on social media, which is the reason giving coupons through social media, and it is not necessary to give coupons to all, but instead, only to the ones who are loyal followers so that they feel special.
There are many third party apps which can be outsourced the coupon distribution.
For example, below is an example of a coupon which a coffee company has given to its loyal customers. This not only helps in gaining good name for the company, but also makes the customer feel valued.

2. Abandoned Carts and Retargeting
Abandoned carts are a minus point for any E-commerce business and a coupon code’s charm may work on it. Thus, many businesses offer coupon codes that gives us the discount if the total price of the products reaches a particular amount in the cart and offers it to them, so that the customer may consider stopping and looking for different products to complete the cart value. Banners can be displayed with the discounts, to make the customer stay back and buy the item.
3. Attack the first time buyers
The first time buyers on any website can be targeted and attracted by the many offers and coupons so that they turn from visitors to customers. For example, they can be asked to fill out a few details to know about the categories they would like to shop in to know their tastes and then personalized shopping list with attractive coupons and discounts can be displayed, tempting them to click that ‘buy now’ button.
For convincing people more, if such businesses selling similar kind of items, offers more discount on their products, it would definitely make the people come to their site.
4. Holiday bonus
Normally when people are in a holiday mood,they have a tendency to buy more. Online businesses take advantage of it and roll out, amazing discounts, coupons and offers which are irrestible. Coupons at this time, should give the maximum amount of discounts, gifts and other offers, which not only helps people buy more amount of things in the holiday fever, but the business end up gaining the maximum sales during this period.
For example, here the offers are there for the apparel and jewellery stores.



5. Referrals
Word of mouth is a major source of marketing and an efficient way of gaining business. If someone refers us a website, it means they have already shopped and it is the trust which assures us to buy from there.
These referrals may be placed by family members, friends or any one and taking advantage of it can prove beneficial to the business also. Hence, if the option to refer to known people is offered, it is a big plus point for the business as people are ought to share what is good.
6. Tracking ROI
Online businesses not only use coupons, but also ads to a great extent which is one of the greatest factors of revenue generation. These ads and coupons can be combined to track the ROI and analytics of a site and it can be known, where the maximum leads and traffic is generated. The ads on different sites shared (Google, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail etc), can have different coupon codes, and the effect of it can be observed accordingly. For example, the below are the two types of coupons which are offered by Pepperfry, one on their website and the other on Facebook. Anyone who clicks any code and shops, benefits and it can be known, where the people visit more in this site’s case, their website or their Facebook page.
7. Don’t let them go
Sometimes, when we exit from a website, they offer us some amazing discounts that make us want to stay and shop further. This strategy of an exit intent pop up helps to gain customers, who are leaving but may stay back, if the offer seems attractive to them, like the example below.



8. Buy this, get that FREE
This has always worked, not only for the online but offline marketing also. Businesses offer discounts for the items which are mostly desired by people and make it discounted, and people end up buying it and getting happy about getting it for free.
This is also a great method of clearing out stocked items which are lying in the inventory. It serves the dual purpose of giving people something in free, as they bought some items from the site, as a token of gratitude, and unused stock gets cleared out and doesn’t get wasted lying and then writing it off.

Some Coupon Websites Doing Great
For Reference some of the coupon websites are as follows:
Conclusion
Congratulations! Reading to this end means you have now known all secret sauces to boost your conversion rates with coupon plugins. There’s no reason to just pouring money into generating leads without putting efforts into improving conversion while visitors reach your website. Beside design, UI/UX, you now know that coupons are potential to boost up your sales and could be implemented in different strategies at every step on your store.