• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, March 19, 2012

One of the nation’s largest coupon publishers, News America Marketing, has created a free iPad app for couponing called SmartSource Xpress. The iPad app is a digital extension of the print brand, SmartSource Magazine, a Sunday coupon insert reaching 74 million homes in the U.S. every week, and its associated Web site, SmartSource.com.

The SmartSource Xpress app allows consumers to find and digitally “clip” coupons for savings on household brands and products including Campbell Soup, Colgate-Palmolive, Comet, Energizer, Kraft Foods, and Rubbermaid, among others.

Once coupons are selected, they are digitally transferred to the consumer’s registered shopper card, for automatic redemption at the checkout. The coupons can be redeemed via shopper club cards at 4,000 retailers around the country -- a number which SmartSource expects to increase over the next year.

Inmar, which tracks the promotions and coupons industry, calculates that digital coupon “inserts” have grown 46% over the last two years, compared to 34% growth for comparable print products.

Amid continuing economic woes, digital coupons have been adopted by a growing number of American consumers, with the number of online U.S. consumers that use digital coupons set to grow from 88.2 million in 2011 to 92.5 million in 2012 and 96.8 million in 2013, according to Nielsen Homescan.

According to separate figures from Valassis, CPG marketers distributed a record 305 billion coupons in 2011. However, only 1% of these were distributed in digital format,  and 89% were distributed in print freestanding inserts.