Online Coupons And Deals: How To Find Them

Everyone's in the game these days, even Google announced in August that they
would be offering online coupons. If anyone has used a search engine to look
for coupons or discounts on products they know how daunting a practice it
can be. With monthly search queries in the millions, coupons and discounts
(and variations on these terms) might some day exceed Paris Hilton in the
search rankings. When searching "coupons" or a similar keyword on Google,
Yahoo or any other search engines you quickly discover hundreds of results
but perhaps not exactly what you're looking for.

Typically your results fall into these categories of websites:
incentive reward programs, printable national brand coupons, local shopping
websites, directories/portals and online discount aggregators.

Incentive Reward Programs - These sites leverage their affiliate commissions
as incentives to consumers. For example if a consumer visits their website
they are presented with a 15% discount offer from a leading computer
manufacturer, if the consumer clicks on the link and purchases the computer
the website is paid a commission of which a portion is credited to the
consumer. Many times this is disguised as a member rewards program or points
club.

Printable National Brand Coupons - These websites compile national brand
coupons and offer instant print capabilities once you download their
proprietary print software. Most of these websites force the user to
register in the process of downloading the print software. The leaders in
this category have evolved from traditional direct mailers or large
newspaper conglomerates that can source a pool of coupons from national
brands found in your Sunday paper.

Local Shopping Websites - These websites tend to be very geographic specific
in their content and are usually smaller in overall user visits though they
usually do a great job of promoting local businesses such as pizza
restaurants and specialty shops. Many times local radio and TV station
websites work this way adding additional exposure for their advertisers.

Directories/Portals - Yes the phone companies are in the game.
As a matter of fact the phone companies are probably one of the best suited
for this market since the greatest challenge is sourcing the relevant
content (coupons). Lucky for them they already have a national advertising
sales network that they use to sell advertising in their phone books.

Local & National Savings Aggregators - These are the sites that pull all of
the above content together under one website with the hopes of making online
discount searching an easier and more successful endeavor.

As more and more advertisers embrace the Internet expect to see the
extinction of coupons and discount ads as you know them.
Perhaps the piles of Yellow Pages on the curb are a telling sign.

About The Author: Nigel Milne is the web master and publisher of
http://www.MyTownOffers.com a consumer website that provides a large
selection of online coupons and deals from local and national merchants and
product manufacturers.