Deal Current Network Launches New Responsive Platform

The last 45 days have been an exciting time for the tech team at Deal Current Network with two major updates

• On April 1, we released a brand new responsive coupon and deal software platform. This allows clients to launch a new savings site in minutes with deals, coupons, or third party plug-ins.
• Today we released a new website showcasing our fully responsive platform and performance based coupon network

Here is a screenshot of the homepage and please let us know what you think.

How To Use Google Remarketing

A Short Video Overview of Remarketing Here is a short 50 second video overview of Remarketing by our CEO Jimmy Hendricks, from a recent advertiser marketing seminar in San Diego. We are piloting short 90 min training seminars to teach small businesses about online marketing, offers, and coupons. Click on the image or here to watch the video.

Examples of Remarketing Ads The great thing about Remarketing is your ads will show up on local websites (when those sites have ad space left) for a fraction of the cost. Here is a perfect example of our ads on the San Diego Union Tribune. One day we had all 3 spots on a page load and our total cost from that website was about $15.

How to Get Started Step 1: Watch the Google Remarketing video. http://www.google.com/ads/innovations/remarketing.html or on the video to the right. Step 2: Create a Google AdWords account Step 3: Create an “Audience” within your Google AdWords account. The video explains how to do this. Step 4: Create 4 common banner sizes for your program. You can start with less, but these are the four most popular sizes (File max size is 50kb and sizes need to be exact): 300 x 250 250 x 250 728×90 120 x 600 Step 5: Google will need to approve the ads which typically takes 3 business days. You can email them on the third day if not approved and this speeds up the process. Step 6: If you have more questions check out this cheatsheet http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/12/19/google-adwords-remarketing-cheatsheet

3 Tips for Running an Online Coupon Business

A majority of publishers are adopting coupons and seeing great results. Actions by consumers on coupons grew 42% from 2400 in December to over 3400 in January. The number of coupons grew from 417 in December to 516 in January.

If you are considering adding digital coupons to your site, but haven’t yet then you should read this article from Emarketers.

eMarketer estimates that 92.5 million people in the US redeemed a digital coupon in 2012. By 2014, US adult digital coupon users will surpass 100 million.

We don’t believe that coupons are replacing deals, but we 100% believe that offering deals and coupons will lead to a bigger opportunity.

As a result, we are going to be sharing a lot of market knowledge and to start here are three tips to running a successful coupon program.

1) Make Sure You Get a Great Image From an Advertiser

We see so many merchants use bad photos, out dated photos, cheap stock art in advertisements and wonder why they don’t get a response

Here is a great example of an image that is awesome from, Cafe Ventana, a St. Louis bistro. They have a great picture and their logo placement is clean and clear.

2) Use Great Tags, Not Just the Business Name

Remember consumers aren’t typically looking for a specific business, but a business type.

So use tags that help a customer find what they are looking for in a certain category or neighborhood.

We recommend at a minimum: City, Neighborhood, Zip Code, Specific Services or Food Type.

3) Create Incentives to Sign-Up & Advertising Packages

When you first launch your coupon program, give new advertisers an incentive to try online coupons:

• $29 a month for the first 3 months, then $49 a month
• Get 3 months free, when you sign up for 12 months

Create packages to entice advertisers to run more than one coupon at a time to increase your revenue faster. In our system, you would just divide the monthly spend and enter that for each coupon.

• $99 per month for one coupon
• $179 per month for two coupons ($89.50 a month)
• $249 per month for three coupons ($83 a month)

Bundle coupons with additional advertising to increase performance and your average sale.

• $99 per month for one coupon
• $199 per month for a coupon and 20,000 impressions promoting the offer
• $499 per month, 30,000 impressions, and a 15 second radio or TV ad (if applicable)

Deal Current Unveils Performance Based Coupon Software

The following are excerpts from Peter Krasilovsky’s Local Onliner and BIA Kelsey Blog. Click here to read the full article: Deal Current Unveils Performance Based Coupons

SignPost, Local Offer Network, Boomtime, Analog Analytics and Second Street Media now incorporate a range of local offer formats. These can include deals, coupons, gift certificates and contests. So is San Diego-based Deal Current, which is specifically focusing on coupons to move beyond deals: both traditional, flat rate coupons, and performance-based coupons.

While deals remain attractive for their games- like excitement – especially in high margin categories — coupons are preferable to deals in many instances. They don’t churn as much and aren’t as time pressured – coupon customers tend to stick with the channel for years on end, and tend to add to their budgets as results are proven. They also work everywhere, unlike mobile-limited channels such as Groupon Now; and they don’t require businesses to share revenue.

Deal Current’s innovation with coupons is offering a performance-based option. It enables publishers to work with advertisers with no upfront costs. As President Patrick Dillon notes, “It is like AdSense, but better because you don’t pre-fund the account.”

Dillon notes that a performance-based model incentivizes publishers to circulate the coupons around the Web with SEO and aggregators. A performance based coupon, in fact, might look and perform like a text ad, but will cost 40 percent less than comparable online ad choices.

To see a live example click here, San Diego Coupons, or contact us via email for more information.

Deal Current Network Adds Two Industry Experts to Our Team

We would like to introduce our two new team members that have a combined total of 4 years in the daily deal industry–working at Zulily,  on Active.com’s Schwaggle team, and a daily deal pure play in Chicago, IL. Lianne and Joanna will be helping grow our service and support teams and further develop key collateral, training documents/videos, and improving other marketing initiatives for our clients.

Lianne Maly – Marketing Team

Lianne brings more than five years of daily deal and media knowledge to her role at Deal Current. Prior to joining us, she worked on an Emmy Award Winning investigative report and crafted primetime news stories at 10News and KUSI in San Diego. Afterwards, she was a Marketing Associate for a start-up daily deal company in Chicago, then took a role with Active.com’s Schwaggle (a national daily deal program for athletes). She will be a key player in improving collateral, updating training docs, and launching a marketing campaign to support your efforts.

Joanna McClanahan, Customer Support Team

Joanna brings ten years of customer relations experience to her role at Deal Current. Having launched her career in the eCommerce field, Joanna brings daily deal experience to our team. She launched a successful high-volume call center for zulily, Inc.; the largest flash sales site in the world tailored to moms, babies, and kids. Joanna joined zulily as the 50th employee there, and left when over 1,500 were on staff. Her expertise in project management, customer retention, team building and training development will be a huge asset to our team.