Will card-linked offers supplement coupons and advertising for national and local merchants and services? Will financial institutions such as banks and credit card companies take advantage of their access to card data to become major players in ecommerce and media as well? And will cash back remain the primary driver of the card-linked offer space?

These are some of the key questions we asked in an anonymized survey we have just completed with some members of The CardLinx Association, whose roster include such companies as Microsoft, Facebook, Bank of America, MasterCard, American Express, First Data, Cardlytics, Living Social, Deem and Linkable. Some non-members also participated in the survey, which had 14 respondents in total.

One key finding: this space appears to have momentum. While some startup publishers have ceased their operations, others have dug in. And more merchants and consumers are participating in card-linked offers than last year. Respondents also noted that card-linked offers have gone from representing “experimental” marketing budgets to — in some cases — seven figure contracts.

Survey results will have their public debut at BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local: Interactive Local Media Conference Dec. 3-5 in San Francisco. The session also includes interviews with CardLinx Association CEO Silvio Tavares and Cardlytics CMO Kasey Byrne.

The post The BIA/Kelsey/CardLinx Survey: Momentum For Card Linked Offers appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Groupon’s transformation from a daily deals company to a multi-channel shopping promotions and e-commerce portal continue with its launch today of Freebies, a new program that groups together online coupons, promo codes. sales, giveaways and samples.

More than 5,500 brands are said to be participating. Retailers taking part with special offers in the initial launch include Macy’s, Nordstrom, Best Buy, American Eagle and Sephora. The effort is focused on the U.S., with international expansion expected in 2014.

The new effort pits Groupon against other providers such as ValPak, Gannett’s ShopLocal, Wanderful Media’s Find&Save, and adds to other Groupon branded efforts, including Groupon Local (local deals and offers), Groupon Getaways (travel) and Groupon Goods (electronics and other products). Groupon also offers Breadcrumb for B2B merchant payments, promotions and services.

Freebies is an interesting and ambitious application. By extending beyond daily deals and moving towards a shopping mall approach, Groupon has focused on becoming a more heavily trafficked site. The challenge will be to convince consumers to think of Groupon when they are researching their shopping choices. In this case, the eyeballs (help to) win.

Groupon VP Sean Smyth and Wanderful Media CEO Ben Smith are speaking at Leading in Local: Interactive Local Media Dec. 10-12 in San Francisco. You can register here.

The post Groupon’s ‘Freebies’ Seeks to Attract National Retailer Promotions appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

The opening day of BIA/Kelsey’s SMB Digital Marketing conference provided a stark reminder of the persistent challenges in reaching local businesses. Groupon VP of Global Merchant Marketing Sanjay Gupta offered a different view – a reality check of the assumed reality checks. Call it the “what SMBs think vs. what they do” dynamic. As just one example, “keep it simple (for merchants)…yet they accept complexity for trust and value.”

Gupta’s point: not all merchants are created equal, they don’t think or operate the same, and thus homogeny across categories doesn’t exist. This dovetails with Groupon’s expansion from a daily deals brand into a more holistic merchant services platform. It also underscores the focus that the company is shifting to its merchant customers… not just  buyers.

Sales and account support, a Merchant Center with tracking services, and customer interaction tools are all part of a suite that also includes scheduling, Rewards and moving forward, payment services.

Gupta insists that while Groupon is focused on delivering an effective CRM system for its merchants, the company doesn’t necessarily see itself as the only dashboard that SMBs will use. “We want to be the dashboard in the areas in which we play.” Ultimately, Gupta’s goals are more transaction-oriented than just controlling a dashboard – delivering merchants capabilities that they’re unable to secure themselves, and of course generating revenue and growth.

The post SMB Digital 2012: Groupon and the Merchant-as-Customer Shift appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

LivingSocial created a stir when an e-mail circulated from the group buying site informing deal-a-day aggregators that they would be dropped as affiliates. However, as 8coupons cofounder Landy Ung and The Dealmap CEO Jennifer Dulski reminded the ILM:10 audience last month, not all aggregators are created equal. As such, they are not all being treated equally by LivingSocial.

Pure daily deal aggregators — those featuring “a collection of daily deals as its primary content” (via the e-mail) — will be excluded. These include Yipit and Dealsurf, as reported. Others, including 8coupons and The Dealmap, will continue as active LivingSocial affiliates, taking a share of revenues for referring customers. Both companies serve an array of offers beyond just daily deals, meaning less head butting with destination sites.

There are several plausible reasons for why LivingSocial would selectively pull the plug. While Dulski and Ung stressed at ILM that aggregators play a complementary, and not a competitive, role in the larger deals ecosystem, those that barter singularly in DOD could pose a threat. As pure-play aggregators build their e-mail lists, some subscribers may be tempted to abandon the swarm of destination sites and simply hook on with an offer network. In those cases, 8coupons’ Matt Moskowitz told BIA/Kelsey that “LivingSocial doesn’t want to subsidize their entire business model.”

Also, some aggregators bid for and buy Google AdWords and other SEM campaigns for LivingSocial keywords. Essentially, Moskowitz said, they are “making money from LivingSocial, then reinvesting it to compete with them.”

With new deal-a-day sites surfacing constantly (several hundred now) and more white-label providers recruiting publishers to “get in the game,” the noise level will only rise. As a result, the role of the aggregator becomes more pronounced. For second tier and niche sites, having access to an aggregator’s network is crucial. For top dogs such as Groupon and LivingSocial, the competitive tension heightens.

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