It's All About Coupons: Exploring Coupon Use Behaviors in Email.

At Yahoo, we have been exploring the changing role of email in people's lives [4]. A major part of what we have heard from participants in weekly usability studies is that their primary use of email -- not limited to Yahoo Mail -- is for receiving coupons and deals; yet, this topic is underexplored in the HCI literature, with few clear implications for design. To understand how people save, share, or use promotional email, as well as how they deal with the overload of these emails, we analyzed quantitative data from a large marketing study and an online survey, and conducted a two-week diary study to qualitatively understand coupon use. We found that 92% of American adults have received a promotional email and 65% have used one in a 2-week period. We explore the flow of a digital coupon in a user's life and conclude with implications for the design of new digital coupon systems and email clients.