• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, March 2, 2011

Coupon kingpins Valassis and News America Marketing say they've struck a cross-publishing agreement, intended to expand the digital couponing efforts of both companies.

Valassis, based in Livonia, Mich., owns redplum.com, and News America owns SmartSource.com, both leading digital coupon sites. The intention is to make both sites more robust, John Lieblang, president of Valassis Digital Media, tells Marketing Daily, greatly expanding the number of coupons available to consumers.

RedPlum reaches some 100 million shoppers weekly. News America Marketing distributes FSIs to millions of consumers each month, with more than 1,600 newspapers and 55,000 supermarket, drug, office, mass merchandisers and dollar-store locations across the country, including Kroger, Safeway and Walgreens.

While recession-fever fueled intense growth in 2009, with coupon use gaining 27% in 2009, reports Inmar, another company which tracks coupon use, growth may be leveling off: 2010 redemption rates were on par with 2009, it says. (Coupons for food products, however, did increase 3% in 2010.)