American Express has launched an iPhone application feature that offers daily deals to consumers targeting their purchase history and location. The ‘My Offers’ feature, is an add on to American Express’s existing iPhone app. Most of the bugs have been worked out, so It should be up and running. The beta test areas include New York and Los Angeles. Brand name merchants, such as Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins jumped on board and offered “spend $10, get $5″ deals. Local merchants in both cities are also offering deals.
‘My Offers’ is using the American Express Smart Offer technology platform. That is the very same platform the company is using to design and target offers on Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. According to Mashable, in the press release that introduced the feature, Josh Silverman, president of the U.S. Consumer Services Group at American Express, “acknowledged that the daily deals space — led by Groupon and LivingSocial — is crowded. But the company sees an opportunity to use its customer purchase data to come up with more relevant offers.”
The application feature takes into consideration the user’s geo location as well as his or her spending history. That allows the Amex App to rank the offers by relevance. The platform also includes a sort feature, which has become increasingly common amongst geo-targeted applications. One important sort to note is that of ‘deal expiration date’. Customers should receive the discounts within three to five days AFTER using the card to make the purchase.
American Express feels that its sorting algorithm that uses purchase history data differentiates it from others that are “plagued with irrelevant sorts.” Groupon has attempted to better sort its deals with a Pandora-like “thumbs up” feature that tracks users’ preferences.
Yet another reason why you should not leave home without your American Express card.
