How we stay honest: Our editorial standards explained

Over the last year, we, the Coupons.com team, have intensively reevaluated our strategies, our processes, and what we bring to the table. Why? To better serve you, our customers. Sure, we want to be the best in the business, but we want to do that by earning the trust of people exactly like you to help you save money. 

With all of this happening behind the scenes at Coupons.com, one significant thing hasn’t changed: our editorial integrity.

Our editorial standards at Coupons.com have never wavered. Since we took up the mantle of Coupons.com, we’ve always worked with the explicit goal of serving our users first and foremost. That means we never put a retailer, their wishes, or the potential for revenue above what is best for our shoppers.

These standards are extra important since our work is closely linked with brand partnerships and paid-for advertising. Both of which are ways that we make money so that we can keep bringing you savings content.

Basically, our editorial standards are the guiding principles that help us keep our customers at the forefront. So, we thought we’d share more about them with you. 

Consistent check-ins to keep us pointed in the right direction

One thing about our team: We love to chat. We like a good catch-up with a coffee on Monday morning, but talking isn’t just for socializing. It’s a big part of how we stay on the same page.

You see, our team is made up of smaller teams that act as a checks-and-balances system for Coupons.com as a whole. Our team of editors, sales personnel, back-end developers, and SEO specialists all work in tandem to keep us moving forward together as a site. So we rely on solid communication, and if we’re honest, it’s one of the fun parts of the job.

We’re in constant communication daily, so anytime someone notices something, it’s as simple as walking over to another teammate’s desk or shooting someone a message. We don’t wait for quarterly meetings to talk about an issue we’re facing or a problem that needs fixing. And if we notice that what we’re doing isn’t benefiting you, we talk about it then and there. 

Addressing issues immediately and checking in on our principles allow us to keep our content and savings at the highest level to better serve you. It’s nothing novel, but working together to be the best site we can be is a core principle for the Coupons.com team.

Our business relationships don’t control our content

We’ll always be transparent about the fact that we earn money through partnerships with brands, sponsorships, and paid advertising. However, we promise never to let money influence the quality of the deals or content you find on our pages. 

The integrity of Coupons.com and the service we provide are two things we value above any chance to make a dollar. 

So we will continue to publish exclusive offers our account managers negotiate with contacts at brands or with retailers directly. And we will continue to strategically partner with brands for advertising space. Those relationships are incredibly important!

But we will never bring you subpar savings because we’ve been paid to do so. That could be a quick way to make a buck, but it certainly wouldn’t benefit anyone long term. So we simply won’t do it.

Our editorial team maintains and controls what we publish and what is on our pages. 

When we contact a retailer’s customer service, we tell you about our own experiences. Did they go above and beyond? We tell you. Were we still unsure even after their reply? We tell you that, too. We join loyalty programs and sign up for newsletters so that we can honestly tell you if they’re worth the time, effort, and additional emails in your inbox. 

That way, we don’t just give you a code; we also give you an understanding of the retailer and how they work. And it’s always from our personal experience and expert perspective. 

Having full autonomy over our pages means we never jeopardize our standards.

Coupons are always vetted before they’re published 

The final standard that we won’t compromise is the way that we verify our coupons and deals. 

Before any given offer is published on our pages, there is at least one savings expert on our team who checks it, tests it, and reads all about it. And oftentimes, two or more people on the team check out an offer before it makes it to you. 

Our verification process starts with sourcing the deal. This is done by an editor doing first-hand research to find savings, our community (aka the public) submitting deals to us, or when a retailer or brand partner discloses new coupons to our team directly.  

Before we bring a coupon to you, we first compare it to those that are already live on our site. If it isn’t as good or better than those we already have live, we may not publish it since it may not serve in your best interest. We also read the retailer’s terms and conditions, stress-test eligible products or any exclusions, confirm if there’s a minimum purchase requirement, and track expiration dates. 

Then, we move on to the fun part: Actually using the offer on the retailer’s page by doing a mock purchase. This means that we really get to know a deal and its strengths and weaknesses (if it has any!).

Oh, and we tell you about anything you need to know to make a discount work for you in the Terms and Conditions section of our coupons.

Once we know that an offer has meaningful value and works the way it’s meant to, we publish it on our site. But our work isn’t finished yet.

We continue to re-verify the deal on a regular basis. So, we don’t just rely on expiration dates; we actually check to make sure that offers are still working as they should. That way, we don’t have expired offers on our pages, and we don’t let you miss out on a retailer deal that’s been extended past its original expiration date. 

This cycle is repeated time and time again by one of our own in our Atlanta, Kuala Lumpur, Amsterdam, or London offices. No bot or AI can do exactly what we do; it’s always an in-the-flesh Coupons.com savings expert.

The TL;DR version of all this is that through our verification process, we’re able to curate a selection of only the best offers out there to maintain a high standard across our pages.

Our editorial standards guide every day

Each of these principles comes together to form our editorial standards, which are crucial to our daily operation. They keep us focused and ultimately, that saves you money. Each guideline enables us to bring you better codes and offers, so they aren’t just there for our benefit; they’re also there for yours. 

And we hope that they help you put your trust in us, too. We hope that they prove to you that we have your best interest in mind with each code we verify, every conversation we have with an brand partner, and every meeting we have behind the scenes. 

The Clip is where the people behind Coupons.com get to speak plainly. No press releases. No corporate polish. Just honest stories from people who think hard every day about helping you spend less and keep more.