The question is, which one is a bigger stinker, coupons.com or retailmenot? Both make a significant portion of their revenue ranking organically on Google for other big companies' name. What happens when this traffic shrinks or is lost?
As an investor I am very concerned when a company publicly publishes that they make tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars off of a free stream of traffic from Google. Companies can establish a brand from that position, but its ultimately their financials which determine their long term survival. Zynga offers an alternative example, grew very fast due to a never to be repeated level of free visibility on Facebook's news feeds. Multi-billion dollar mobile gaming companies are in very similar positions today.
I'm not saying these companies or websites are worthless, but the valuations are insane for the risk they entail. High valuations make companies spend more and borrow more than they should.
Does a company own their user base? That is a pretty good indicator of long term viability. Ironically, Microsoft of the 90s looks like a fairly friendly neighbor in comparison to the "platforms" software businesses are built upon today.
Coupon.com's business model is to be the online distributor of manufacturer and store coupons. I'd have to think Coupon.com's revenue comes more from manufactures and stores licensing / paying for inclusion on the Coupon.com website than from affiliate marketing.
Retailmenot is getting 73% of its total traffic from search and Coupons.com is less than half of that at 35%.
I think Coupons.com also has a more engaged audien than Retailmenot and a large network of coupon bloggers promoting the product and participating as affiliates.
RetailMeNot serves digital coupon codes and focuses on SEO to get traffic to their site.
Coupons.com serves manufacturer grocery coupons distributed via printable means (browser plugin) and digital via retailer loyalty card integration. They have relationships with manufacturers & retailers to discount products through retail chains. Furthermore, Coupons.com also has a digital coupon codes side of the business which competes with RetailMeNot, Affiliate program called Brandcaster which many bloggers use and few other smaller channels.
I hope this brings some clarity to the discussions in this thread and folks can see that Coupons.com is not just a website.
edit-- Here is a link to their S-1: http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1115128/0001193125140...