Dive Brief:

• Eighty percent of coupons will be redeemed on a mobile device by 2022, according to a forecast by Juniper Research. The estimate is for digital coupon redemption to surge 94% to $91 billion in five years from $47 billion in 2017.

• In-app coupon redemptions will be the dominant mobile channel toward the end of 2022, overtaking SMS, a channel that also will show healthy growth, Juniper estimated. Chatbots, QR codes and invisible payments have the most potential to be disruptive technologies in the next five years.

• The volume of chatbot coupons will jump from 25 million this year to 1.1 billion by 2022, Juniper forecast. Couponers will show an increased preference for using mobile platforms that handle one-time and loyalty-based incentives for in-store use, per Juniper. 

Insight:

Chatbots are just beginning to be used for marketing purposes and little research is available on how they are being used, making the Juniper research noteworthy because it is an early indication that one potential area of opportunity for brands is in delivering coupons. This makes sense, as consumers already engaged in a dialog with a brand chatbot are likely already considering a purchase. A well-timed and personalized coupon could increase the probability of them completing a purchase.  Chatbots currently offer some challenges in terms of providing strong user experiences but the technology is improving. 

The convenience of mobile platforms makes them well positioned to handle more coupons that help drive people into retail locations, especially for consumers who are willing to share their location data with apps that use geotargeted offers. The technology will transform couponing as marketers develop the tools to personalize offers based on a wealth of data including purchase history, social media interests and location. Juniper also estimates that digital coupons will be produced at a fraction of the cost of using human operatives.

Despite the fact that in-app coupons will overtake SMS, marketers shouldn’t underestimate the continued power of SMS coupons that rely a mobile phone number as a unique identifier, according to the researcher. Consumers are more receptive to personalized offers in text messages, which have stringent regulations in Western markets that prevent high volumes of unwanted spam compared with email, said study author Lauren Foye.

Online consumers are able to secure a discount 38% of the time they shop by using a coupon code, according to a Priceonomics analysts of CouponFollow, which provides a browser extension to automatically check for a discount code. Coupon codes offer an average price reduction of 19%, equaling a mean cash savings of $25 and an average cart total of $138, according to the analysis. The websites that give out discounts most often are Blair, Woman Within, Puritan’s Pride, Autozone, Roamans, Fullbeauty, JoAnn, Vistaprint and Payless Shoesource, according to the analysis.