Dive Brief:

• Coupon site RetailMeNot Inc. Tuesday reported a 33% Q1 fall in profits as a boom in mobile transactions was overshadowed by declines in its desktop business.

• The Austin-based company managed to beat estimates nevertheless. In Q1, mobile net revenue rose 137% and constituted 9% of total revenue, following a 90% rise in Q4 last year. But desktop transaction revenue, (including tablets), which are $78% of total sales, dropped 14% to $47.1 million.

• Number of visits increased 16% to 179.9 million and monthly mobile unique visitors were 18.4 million, up 55% year over year. Q4 saw bigger increases, the company said.

Dive Insight:

RetailMeNot has felt the effects of a Google algorithm change that prioritized mobile-optimized websites. But that change could eventually become a boon as more retailers move to optimize their sites, according to RetailMeNot’s spokesperson Brian Hoyt.

"We do believe that (as a result of this focus on mobile quality) more retailers optimizing their mobile channels is a good thing in that it will shift more digital marketing dollars to effective channels like RetailMeNot," Hoyt told Retail Dive in an email.  

But, Hoyt also noted, CEO Cotter Cunningham​ stated on the company's earnings call that the impact of the latest 2015 algorithm change to RetailMeNot so far is largely neutral.

“From a platform perspective we continued to see a shift and consumer preference towards mobile, mobile website traffic grew to 111% year-over-year offset by a decline of 10% per traffic on the desktop,” Cunningham told analysts. “As a reminder our desktop business faces very difficult comps in the first half of year, but will start to use and become more favorable once we get pass the second quarter, which we expect to be the trop.”