According to a new Juniper Research study, mobile couponing is poised to reach redemption rates of 8 percent by 2016.

In the “Mobile coupons – the road to redemption” study, the research predicts which markets and trends are expected to grow by 2016. The study also looked at issues that must be overcome to make mobile coupons viable.

“The major challenge on the user side will be ensuring relevancy – once someone starts to receive too many badly-targeted offers, or even worse, unsolicited offers, they will view mobile coupons as spam and cease to be part of the market,” said ” said David Snow, senior analyst at Juniper Research, Hampshire, England.

“On the retailer side, the major challenge is having both the redemption technology in place and staff trained to use it,” he said.

“If a motivated consumer arrives at a store and cannot redeem the mobile coupon for some reason, then everyone loses.”

Mobile clipping
Over the last two years, mobile coupons have grown because of the number of channels they are now available on, per the Juniper study.

Mobile coupons that were primarily only available via SMS and MMS in 2009 are now being sent to consumers through more advanced ways with mobile email, mobile payments, applications and mobile Web.

The study also found some interesting statistics that divide mobile coupon usage by location.

The Far East and China will continue to be a hot area for mobile couponing and is expected to generate almost $45,000 in mobile coupon redemption by 2016.

However, mobile couponing is predicted to particularly grow in the United States and Europe with more advanced mobile platforms, per the study.

“The growth in North America and Western Europe is closely linked to the growth in smartphone and mobile app and mobile Web adoption and location- and person-aware mobile coupon schemes,” Mr. Snow said.

“Mobile coupons have been more widely used in the Far East and China, but they are more SMS-based and therefore more limited in personalization,” he said.

Find me a deal
The Juniper study comes on the heels of other recent Juniper mobile coupon redemption.

According to a recent Juniper finding, mobile coupon redemption rate is expected to exceed $43 billion by 2016 (see story).

In order for brands and companies to fully utilize mobile coupons, Juniper suggests that marketers view mobile coupons outside of campaign-specific ways to more of a broad, overarching way to continually connect with consumers.

With the jump in smartphone adoption, mobile coupons need to be included in multiple areas of a campaign and need to be targeted to individual consumers’ shopping habits.

Additionally, bricks-and-mortar retailers need to be able to understand and process mobile coupons more efficiently and quickly in the future.

“Mobile coupons are such a key enabler of mobile commerce – being an actionable advertisement, a payment incentive and a loyalty builder all in one,” Mr. Snow said.

“It has the power to drive footfall back to the retailers after that which was lost during the online revolution,” he said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York