On Sunday I presented at the eMetrics Industry Insights Day on high-level Internet behavioral trends. One trend that I discussed is the rise of consumers using the Internet to save money (even more so than usual!) through searches for coupons, visitation of coupon websites, and usage of price-comparison tools.
The market share of visits for a custom category of 11 printable coupon websites is up 85% for the week ending May 3, 2008 as compared to the same week last year. While these websites represent a small percentage when compared to all Internet activities, they offer a good opportunity to influence offline sales for purchases – particularly for companies that sell consumer packaged goods. Visitors to the websites are also spending more time looking for coupons – the average visit time to the category was 6 minutes and 14 seconds (for the week ending May 3, 2008), up from 4 minutes and 29 seconds one year ago.

Searches for the generic term ‘coupons’ are up 45% for the week ending May 3, 2008, compared to the same timeframe in 2007. Not surprisingly, 45% of the searches for coupons referred the traffic to the Shopping & Classifieds category. Among the top ten searches for ‘coupons’, the most popular words included in the queries were ‘grocery’, ‘printable’ and ‘free’ during the same timeframe. The top branded coupons being searched are Pizza Hut, Target, and Dell.

Comparison shopping engines also benefit from tightening budgets as consumers compare prices and availability. The market share of visits to the CSEs increased 75% for the week ending May 3, 2008 as compared to the same timeframe last year. Last month, April 2008, the top product categories to receive referrals from the CSEs were House & Garden, Apparel and Appliances & Electronics.