Affiliates and Merchants both have to question the validity of coupons in software promotions. In the US, people love to get a good deal. Does a coupon or discount offer really help or hurt sales and commissions?

I generally work with Content and Review sites. I am finding more and more that the use of coupons is a solid way to increase sales and overall gross dollars. Content sites are having great luck increasing sales by adding a “special of the week” or dedicated “Special offers” section to the front page of their site. In addition, newsletters are a good way to promote discounted items. This can attract new visitors and buyers to your site, and also give them reason to keep checking back for new offers.

This case study was done on a review site. All reviewed software products were offered on a matrix and no discount was mentioned within the matrix. The discount was mentioned in the review text itself with a hyperlink which took the customer direct to the shopping cart with this info:

15% OFF all orders-Limited time only! Enter coupon code xxxyyy at checkout

This small mention got big results. The intent of this coupon offer was to offer a small discount in an effort to get customers to “get off the fence” and purchase while not lowering the overall gross sales or lowering the affiliate’s commissions. This was accomplished.

The discount was launched on October 19th and stats were pulled prior to and during the discount offer. Here is what happened for the 12 days after the coupon was launched:

• Average Daily orders (# of products sold) increased 18.9%
• Average Daily Sales gross Increased 38.8%
• Average Order Volume (AOV) increased $4.31 per order or 14.9%

Interestingly, offering a discount actually increased the number of people purchasing on a daily basis as well as the overall dollars that they were spending. Customers will often purchase an upsell or multiple products if given a discount or incentive to do so.

We work closely with the merchants in oneNetworkDirect to provide discounted items on a quarterly basis for affiliates to promote. If you want to add coupon or discounted products from oneNetworkDirect to your sales efforts contact us and we’ll help you get started.

By: Denise Purtzer

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