The latest edition of the Hitwise monthly UK online roundup makes interesting reading for all of us in the affiliate industry who work with voucher codes. Robin and the team at Hitwise have been looking into the popularity of various voucher code keywords and phrases and the results point to changing consumer behaviour in this market.
This graph demonstrates the decreasing nature of searches for the exact match term [vouchers], however does not take into account the fact that users are potentially being more specific when searching for deals.
So the graph below shows all searches including the term voucher.
So we can see that whilst the search volumes are flattening out, they are still growing, which would seem to indicate that consumer behaviour when searching for discounts is evolving. Is this a result of a maturation of the market, with consumers becoming used to not finding certain vouchers that they have looked for so therefore refining searches to give the best chance of finding what they need?
Finally Hitwise looked at the traffic to voucher specific websites (the examples they give are MyVoucherCodes, MoneySavingExpert and HotUKDeals).
As we can see, the growth is not as pronounced as it has been previously but is remaining steady and growing. In fact, traffic sent to merchant sites has increased by around 25% year on year from May 2008 to May 2009.
So what does this mean? It seems that consumers are becoming more savvy in knowing how to search for discounts. It would not surprise me if this predates a movement away from user generated sites such as Money Saving Experts and Hot UK Deals towards sites which offer consumers a better experience and greater chance of success in finding a valid code.
It also begs more questions. It seems that traffic to voucher code sites is not growing at the same rate as traffic from these sites to merchants, so are voucher code sites becoming better at converting their traffic. Personally, I would like to think that the introduction of the IAB Affiliate Council’s guidelines have assisted in enhancing the quality enabling consumers to trust the space more. Is this the case?
Finally, the volumes here are huge so it isn’t an area that merchants can afford to ignore, but must use to their advantage. I would love to see some demographic data from Hitwise on the type of people using voucher code sites. We make assumptions that the type of consumer that searches for voucher codes come from the “Jeremy Kyle demographic” but I would dispute that. I would imagine that these consumers are web savvy younger consumers who understand how to use the web to their advantage.
It shows that, as has been demonstrated in the US over many years, the desire for consumers to find a better deal will not go away but needs to be managed. The market does seem to be experiencing some maturity as is bound to happen but instead of the beginning of the end the data seems to point towards a natural evolution in the use of voucher codes.
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