You’ve downloaded SnipSnap. You can hardly wait to snip your first deal. And then you discover all the thousands of coupons at your finger tips. And then you quickly get very SnipSnap happy. Look, all coupons are wonderful things, but some are more rich with potential than others. You want to snip the absolute best deals possible, but you don’t want to spend a lot of time trying to figure out which coupons are your best bets. Thankfully, with the ability to preview a coupon before you snip it, and the following know-how for what to look for in a promising deal, you’ll only snip the best of the best and your mobile couponing success rate will soar. Here’s what you need to look for when you’re scrolling through your options.

Questions to Ask Your Coupons:

• “Are you expired?” Nearly all coupons have expiration dates. Most retailers and restaurants require customers to use current coupons, but some stores will allow you to redeem expired coupons, especially if the coupon in question is one the store frequently reissues. Because some deals never die, we leave them in the app so you always have access to every possible opportunity to save. But, if you want to have the best success rate at the register, you’ll probably only want to snip current coupons. You’ll certainly want to know the difference between current and expired offers and you’ll definitely want to know which you’re attempting to redeem. You can set SnipSnap to automatically delete your expired coupons and even remind you before a deal goes bad. But some coupons’ expiration dates don’t capture when they’re uploaded into the app. You’ll probably want to avoid snipping these “never ending” deals because, chances are, they’ve already ended. (You could always give them a shot though – they just may work!) If you don’t see an expiration date listed on the coupon home screen, check the coupon’s preview to see if you can find it on the coupon itself. Then you can manually edit it.
• “Are you a manufacturer coupon?” Sometimes, I’ll search for specific items or brand names in the SnipSnap search bar. For instance, last weekend I wanted some Nestle chocolate to whip up some chocolate covered gummy bears, so I typed “Nestle” into the SnipSnap search bar. I found lots of great search results, but not all of them were “store” coupons, even though they were only redeemable at, let’s say, Target. In preview mode, I’m able to tell if a coupon is really a store coupon (which SnipSnap supports) or actually a manufacturer coupon (which stores are only able to accept in paper form). (For a quick tutorial on store coupons vs. manufacturer coupons, go here.)
• “Do you have someone else’s name on you?” If a coupon has someone else’s name/address/account number on it, you A) probably shouldn’t redeem it B) probably won’t be able to redeem it. This is pretty straight-forward. Some personal coupons, however, don’t actually have other people’s names on them, but the language on the coupons implies they’re only for use by certain people in certain situations. For instance, coupons that were issued for a customer’s achievement or bad experience should only be redeemed by the recipients themselves.Check it out! Follow these guidelines and you should have the best SnipSnap experience at the register, every time.