When was the last time you got a manicure special in your in-box? If you are a man, it didn’t do much for you. In fact, many deals, offers and other promotions aren’t especially relevant to their recipients. Even when they are relevant, they pop up out of context in media where recipients are unlikely to act on them.

Can promotions be filtered and personalized for interests, location and behavior? When consumers sign up for Groupon, Living Social or Amazon Deals, or loyalty based products such as Amex’s LikeLinkLove or BankAmericaDeals, they may be able to check off categories for certain interests, and more relevant deals may be aimed their way.

There isn’t always enough volume to do much with this, however, or a good way to distribute the offers. Amazon and Bank America, for instance, both have huge distribution lists. Anyone would want access to these lists.

But consumers will only see an Amazon deal when they go to Amazon, get an email from Amazon or look it up on Facebook or Twitter. BankAmericaDeals will only show its offers when people look at their online debit card statements, or via emails.

A new solution was introduced today by Local Offer Network, the company that runs Deal Radar and licenses its aggregated deals database to 150 media companies (including MasterCard, Tribune and others). LON’s new product is “Catalyst,” a personalization and scoring system.

Catalyst is able to cold start personalization via data exchanges such as eXelate and other sources, and becomes smarter over time as more descriptive and behavioral data are added to a profile. The cookies automatically capture consumer behavior and information, and then matches it against the deals and other content from Local Offer Network’s network.

CEO Dan Hess, in a briefing with BIA/Kelsey, emphasized that Catalyst is ultimately about boosting yield. “Our premise is that content should be pushed to consumers at any given time,” he says. It is also about leveling the playing field between deals, offers, circulars and other promotional data.

“Local commerce information isn’t effective if you just pump it out of a fire hydrant,” says Hess. “We’ve developed a way to select the most relevant, highest performing content for each person, wherever they happen to be. And we can do that with very light implementation requirements on the part of publishers.”

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As deals verticalize, we’re intrigued by opportunities for B2B plays. MarketSharing is offering deals tailored for SMBs (office cleaning discounts, office copier repair, etc.).

Now, Cardinal Health, a Fortune 20 company, has launched a pilot with Local Offer Network to provide up to 70 percent off professional health practitioner “consumables,” such as medical gloves, hand santizer gel, respirators, etc. Daily deals and multi-day deals are being offered.

“It boosts the purchasing power of medical, dental and veterinary practices of all sizes,” says LON CEO Dan Hess, who suggests that such “unique product and experience,” niche deal offerings are becoming one of the next big waves in the deals space. More generally, bigger ticket items are also coming on strong in the consumer market, such as medical procedures. “If all else fails, promote a deal with a laser in it,” he jokes.

Local Offer Network provides a white-label deal platform, aggregation and syndication network services. The 17-person, Chicago-based company operates in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia, and publishes about 7,000 deals a day. The company also produces and recently relaunched Dealradar, a personalized deal aggregator now in 130 markets.

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If you can’t be a major destination site such as Groupon or LivingSocial, the deal exchange space appears to represent the largest revenue opportunity for deals companies. Exchanges, which take commissions from originating publishers for placing deals in additional publications, may prove to be even more important than the other major parts of the deals ecosystem — white-label technology and marketing support for deal sites, and deal aggregation.

Among the earliest to develop Exchange concepts was Chicago-based Local Offer Network, which also operates DealRadar, an aggregator site. LON is run by former Tribune Interactive VP Dan Hess. Launched in the first quarter of 2010, the LON Deal Engine™ aggregates more than 2,000 group buying offers daily from websites in 97 markets worldwide.

Today, the company announced a $1.5 million Series A round led by Illinois Ventures and Matthew Pritzker Co., which is run by the 29-year-old heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune. The funds will be used to further accelerate the company’s network expansion, product enhancements, client service staff and new business development.

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The future of city guides has been morphing beyond events and features. This was driven home today by the launch of Metromix Deals, a JV between Metromix, the 50+ site city guide chain co-owned by Gannett and Tribune, and Local Offer Network, which separately operates Deal Radar.

The effort is the latest “aggregator” to bundle deal a days with other offers and content. Other major aggregators include The Dealmap, 8coupons and Yipit.

Metromix Deals, which also includes deals from FindMeSpecials.com, specifically aims to target consumers with deals when they are ready to buy (i.e., as they are planning a movie date). There is a dedicated deals section on the site, as well as deals-related features in contextually relevant areas (akin to Tippr and some others). Consumers can search deals by city, neighborhood or category; view the day’s top deals on a map; and plan ahead via a Metromix Deals calendar.

“Our audience has always looked to us for information on local deals, so the new Metromix Deals destination is the natural extension of our ever-growing site,” said Kara Walsh, Metromix CEO, in a press release.

Advertisers can gain additional impact beyond typical featured listings by taking over the Deals section home page and other areas and “re-skinning” them with their brand images and roadblocking the ad units. They will also get extra mileage by having their ads distributed to other Local Offer Network sites. Local Offer Network, which envisions deals with other publishers, is headed by former Tribune Interactive exec Dan Hess.

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