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.”

The post LON Intros ‘Catalyst': Scoring Deals, Matching Them with Buyers appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

American Express is all over the deals and promotions space, with its Link, Like, Love campaign on Facebook; Twitter offers; and geo-based deals on Foursquare. Its Serve product also has been providing deals for AOL’s Patch.com.

Until now, there has been little response from the bank-originated credit card companies: MasterCard or Visa. Today, MasterCard announced its own, initial deals initiative — “MasterCard Offers Services” — a daily deals and promotions distribution effort for its bank members. At the same time, MC promises that consumers will have a “simple, easy-to-navigate technology system.”

Initially, MasterCard is teaming with Local Offer Network, a deals aggregator and network. Member banks will be able to pick and choose deals in various formats and vertical segmentation from local and regional merchants. Vertical segmentation will likely include shopping, travel and experiences. Content will be available by the end of this quarter.

MasterCard has also been working with loyalty providers such as Next Jump to provide them with anonymized data. It is not clear whether MasterCard will be working with merchants to enlist them in deals. It also doesn’t appear that there there is a loyalty angle with the arrangement. Perhaps that will be included in the next phase. Last year, MasterCard reported that it had 37 million merchants and 63 billion annual transactions coming through its network.

Many banks already work in the promotions space with various loyalty and engagement programs such as Cartera Commerce’s OfferLink and Edo Interactive. The relationships reinforce the banks’ merchant relationships by providing them with extra value. It also keeps the commissions in house (i.e., away from e-wallet schemes) and reinforces their own brands as trusted commerce channels.

The post MasterCard Jumps Into Deals Space appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Dan Hess, CEO of deals aggregator and research company Local Offer Network, played mythbuster at ILM West, using data to set the record straight on where the market is moving…and where it isn’t.

Hess is convinced that there is still ample room for “specialization” across geography, demography and interests…rather than the doomsday consolidation/roll-up  scenarios forecast by many. As a result, “the money is still there,” meaning that margin compression hasn’t undercut the business models of many deals providers as expected.

This reinforces BIA/Kelsey forecasts, which project the U.S. deals market to reach $4.2 billion by 2015.

Rather than the initial conception of the buyer as a pure deal hunter, LON’s data suggest that shoppers are moving up-market in their purchase behavior, using deals for “higher-consideration items” such as clothing and accessories, health/medical/dental, and travel/hospitality. The average deal voucher has jumped to $76.33. Shoppers also have far more time to consider these pricier purchases, as average deal duration is nearly five days (up from 1.7 in Q3 2010).

Hess’ lasting words: “If all else fails, get a laser.” Data shows that laser hair removal deals are big winners.

The post ILM West: Rumors of Deals’ Death Are Greatly Exaggerated appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

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.

The post Local Offer Network, Cardinal Health Partner for B2B Deals appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Travel deals are hot. Social networks are hot. Group buying is hot. But when travelers go to a new city, they often don’t have the social networks and group buying to live the life…or at least the discounters life.

Gtrot, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based service that has data for almost 100 U.S. cities, plans to take care of that. The service is launching GTrot Deals, a service that will cross reference travel plans and experiences with their Facebook friends, and with Local Offer Network, a deals aggregator. It is an interesting cut of LON’s data.

GTrot Deals will save users from having to sign up for local deals with favorite deals sites. It automatically starts sending deals five days before the trip, and automatically ends after the trip. Users won’t have to go to the trouble of unsubscribing.

Personally speaking, however, it’s not the way I want to travel. If I have a couple of days to spend in a city, I want to go to the best places, not just the ones that have a discount that week.

And it certainly doesn’t do the merchants a favor, with the possible exception of tour outfits, like Old Town Trolley, or event and destination companies, like Madame Tussauds. They want to acquire new customers, not one-off customers. But still, it will be interesting to check it out. I could see verticals of this, especially student oriented deals (Let’s Go Europe, Lonely Planet, etc.).

The post Travelers Get Best Local Daily Deals Via ‘GTrot Deals’ appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

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.

The post Local Offer Network Gets $1.5 Million appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.