You may remember several months ago when I wrote the story titled, “World’s First Offline Affiliate Network?” It was about Yub, which offers an innovative way to take the benefits of affiliate marketing, and implement them into retail locations and restaurants. At the time, they had just received $12 million dollars of capital through investors. This company has now been acquired by the digital and printable voucher giant, Coupons.com.
Copons.com has long been a leader in online coupons, discounts and other digital benefits for their millions of customers. Apparently they are interested in expanding their footprint, as they spent an estimated $30 million to acquire Yub.
Copuons.com spokesman said, “Coupons.com plans to bring its scale, affiliate network reach and merchant base to the Yub platform to increase consumer adoption.” This seems to imply that Coupons.com will allow Yub to continue to run largely as it is, except with all the benefits and marketing power that they already have in place. This could dramatically increase the speed at which the Yub offline affiliate program could grow and expand.
In addition to bringing in an incredibly innovative product into the company, coupons.com may also see this as a great way to expand their business more into the offline realm. They have been a leader in providing digital and printable coupons, which are often used in offline stores, but this will take it to a whole new level (if successful).
