With 65 percent of convenience store shoppers who use mobile coupons redeeming offers within five minutes, savvy retailers are leveraging their loyalty programs and in-store signage to target consumers who are nearby or in their stores, according to a report released today by Koupon Media.

Mobile coupon adoption continues to grow as retailers and brands get more innovative, helping drive higher redemption rates than for paper coupons, according to Koupon Media’s Mobile Coupons: State of the Industry 2016 report. Gamified scratchers, 30-day promotions, redeemable display ads and TV marketing are just some of the ways marketers are boosting their mobile coupon efforts.

“We were surprised to see how quickly customers decided to engage with an offer; 65 percent of customers redeem an offer within five minutes of seeing it,” said Bill Ogle, CEO of Koupon Media. “This tells Koupon and its clients, particularly in the c-store space, that it’s important to deliver offers to customers when they are engaged with a brand or retailer in or near the store.

“Because of this finding, we’re seeing more retailers leverage loyalty-linked offers and in-store tactics such as text-in POP signage and rebate offers,” he said.

Mobile use grows
The reports findings show that mobile coupon use was up 18 percent in 2015 for a total of 92.6 million consumers. Koupon Media confirms eMarketer’s forecast that the number of mobile coupon users will grow by 11 percent in 2016 for a total of 104 million.

Additional findings include that 42 percent of mobile users have used a mobile coupon; 39 percent of customers spend more if they receive a personalized coupon, and 60 percent of customers would adopt mobile payments if offered coupons.

For some categories, the redemption rate for mobile coupons is more than 10 times the average for a paper coupon.

By product category, the redemption rate for energy drinks is 43 percent, soda 17 percent, juice 15 percent, coffee 12 percent, food 11 percent, candy 5 percent, water 4 percent and snack 2 percent.

By type of offer, the redemption rate is 15 percent for free offers, 7 percent for buy-one-get-one offers and 3 percent for money-off offers.

30 Days of Free
The report also highlights some of the more innovative mobile coupon campaigns in 2015.

For example, a large c-store chain launched a 30 Days of Free campaign to introduce mobile coupons to its customers. The retailer delivered a new free offer each day on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, radio and TV.

The program delivered 2.4 million offer views, 88,646 store trips and $315,000 in added revenue.

Another retailer texted customers a scratcher game that led to an offer for varying amounts off a purchase with strong results.

“In 2015, customers viewed and redeemed more offers at higher rates than ever before,” Mr. Ogle said. “As user adoption increases, we expect the efficacy of CPG brand and retailer campaigns to grow proportionally.

“Now that the value of mobile offers is clear, retailers are finding new and innovative ways to engage customers with them,” he said. “We’re seeing more retail apps launching with offers, more loyalty programs link offers to customer accounts and more retailers exploring Koupon’s proprietary single-use barcode technology.

“Marketers are learning more about what makes a campaign successful. We expect to see more of our clients use past performance data to build and launch campaigns in 2016.”