Catalina Marketing boosts digital couponing business
NEW YORK — Catalina Marketing has joined the growing world of online coupons with the development of its Coupon Network by Catalina, which promises to offer shoppers unique savings and coupons.
Brands with current offers on the site — located at CouponNetwork.com — include Nestlé, Kellogg, Fisher-Price and Johnson & Johnson.
Through the site, shoppers can access printable coupons, which shoppers can print from home; YourBucks offers; and, coming soon, digital coupons that can be added directly to a savings card.
YourBucks offers are exclusive to CouponNetwork.com. YourBucks Offers are dollars-off rewards shoppers can use like cash at their favorite store, according to the Web site. Current YourBucks offers include discounts on iTunes gift cards and GE Energy Smart or Reveal lighting products.
The tough economy coupled with the boom in daily-deal coupons from such companies as Groupon has helped fuel the growth of online couponing.
In a recent New York Times article on Coupon Network by Catalina, Susan Gear, group VP for digital at Catalina, said that while online coupons account for just 1% of all coupons distributed, they account for about 10% of all coupons redeemed.
Gear told the New York Times that Catalina had been considering a foray into the online coupon universe for some time. The idea began gaining steam after Catalina, in recent years, took such steps as offering coupons by mobile email and handling Target's coupons section on its site.
To develop Coupon Network, Catalina consulted with retailers, advertisers and bloggers, according to the New York Times report. Gear noted that, going forward, Catalina also is considering initiatives like daily deals and group buying.
Catalina, however, isn't new to the coupon business. The company tracks brand and store-level couponing performance data, and acquired two digital couponing businesses, E-centives and Collabrys, last year.
“Catalina Marketing has spent the past 25 years transferring our understanding of how purchase decisions can be used to motivate, enforce or drive new buying decisions,” Dick Buell, Catalina Marketing’s chairman and CEO, said last year. “Delivering relevant communications to the right audience, and measuring the performance of marketing spends, is at the core of all our business initiatives. We are excited about extending this level of shopper understanding and shopper value to the digital space for our consumer packaged goods, food, drug and mass partners.”