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Douglas MacMillan is one of the Ninja Hamsters at ADOTAS aka an intern. He previously spent several months working as a dutiful intern under the dictatorship of Jann Wenner at Rolling Stone, only to be set free by our own Kiran. He does not get Jaime skim lattes in the morning.

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RSS Breathes New Life into Coupons

Written on
April 19th 2006
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by Douglas MacMillan  |
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Last week, a site with plenty of foresight on RSS innovations and the coupon model began operations. ZiXXo is looking to change how online shoppers use coupons by enhancing local RSS functions and leaving out the affiliate component altogether. ZiXXo is “internal” in the sense that all of its advertisers create their own account on the site, providing their own contact information, links, and images to generate promotional leads. The advertisers are supplied a “control panel” with which they can view, pause, activate, edit, or delete coupons with the click of a mouse.

Consumers sign up for a free RSS feed on the site, and supply their categories of interest and zip code, or radius, of their location. They receive a wealth of information on local deals—such as pizza or clothing—as well as promotions from the national advertisers which interest them. There is also a community aspect of the site which asks users to tag or rate the coupons and businesses they use.

“The web affiliate sites can tap into an existing base of coupons, while ours are being built and managed by the companies themselves. Building a critical mass of coupons is the key,” ZiXXo’s Mike Hogan told ADOTAS. “But we are totally unique in offering local coupons and the uptake has surpassed our expectations so far.”

When a company called Valass introduced coupons to printed newspapers in 1972, their distribution grew tenfold, and supplied advertisers with a fresh new way of updating customers on promotional deals. It may be too early to say for sure, but RSS might give the coupon model the next great boost it needs to thrive in an increasingly digital world. With RSS still evolving, and with a number of other syndication tools on the rise—such as LaunchPad, email alert services, and Application Programming Interface—there are countless more possibilities for coupon marketing on the web.



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Reader Comments.

Great Article. We implemented Over 30 Coupon RSS Feeds for the different categories in February. It was the best low cost feature with the highest return ever.

Customers also learn slowly but steady to appreciate the offers delivered via RSS too.

Some people still trust email more than a RSS Feed, but that is no problem at all, because you can syndicate the RSS Feeds and Send them out via Email (check out the Free Email/RSS Aggregator service Feedblitz).

Posted by Carsten Cumbrowski | 11:02 pm on April 26, 2006.

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