Deals 3D: Facebook and AMEX Strike a Deals Deal

Facebook touts itself as a platform that allows and encourages partners to further build out its social graph. In Deals, it has now found its most significant partner yet, inking a deal with American Express to push socially curated deals to cardholders.

Cardholders will link their AMEX accounts to Facebook’s “Link-Like-Love” application. They will then be able to access special AMEX deals specifically recommended based on their social graph, including their likes and check-ins and those of their friends. Once chosen, deals will link directly to cards for seamless point-of-sale redemption by consumers and easier real-time visibility for merchants.

“Closing the loop” on deals transactions has been a persistent “last mile” problem. That’s expressly why we see credit cards, banks and other financial institutions aggressively migrating into the space — combining their payment systems and purchase data for a complete solution.

Facebook benefits through close alignment with AMEX by accessing its wide reach with businesses (big and small). It’s also a compelling experiment by the social media giant to move closer to consumer credit cards to more seamlessly layer commerce onto the platform.

Lexi Reese, Facebook’s director of local sales, defended the seminal role of the social graph in sourcing quality offers during a keynote address at Deals 3D. Among the data she cited: Sharing deals triples purchase probability; “liking” them raises that to 10x. Also, “well-curated deals sell better at higher price points,” and inherently social categories (restaurants, entertainment, fitness, recreation) perform best.