‘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.

Mashable

DiscountOn.com.au is an Australian website founded by Ben Stefanescu, a tech entrepreneur who viewed the daily deal and massive-discount industry with some skepticism.

The Herald Sun interviewed Stefanescu and he spoke about what experiences influenced him to start his site, and why he feels that normal daily deal sites aren’t beneficial on a long-term basis, to merchants.

He had met a restaurant owner who ran a daily deal, and the discount & number of coupons sold, combined with the commission paid to the deal site, nearly left the restaurant in financial ruin.

“He said he had to work for the next three months for nothing so he could honour the coupons”. Stefanescu also mentioned the cupcake bakery in England that infamously almost closed due to an oversold daily deal.

Stefanescu started to consider launching a site of his own, providing consumers with access to deals, but giving merchants the power to control them. No more would merchants be forced to pay huge commissions, or sell more deals than they could afford to hand out. The merchants will be able to craft and control their own deals.

Under the DiscountOn platform merchants upload their deals for free. No cost, no matter how many deals they want to offer. Then, customers log on, buy the coupon for $1 and go to the merchant. The merchant then gives the customer the $1 for reimbursement, and the customer uses the coupon to get the deal.

This means, the merchants get paid directly, and don’t have to wait for payment like daily deal sites.

For right now, the $1 fee for customers is waived as Stefanescu and his team try to grow a user base.

Visint http://www.discount.on.au to see the merchant-power site in action

Source: The Herald Sun

According to CNNMoney, not to mention the hundreds of phone calls, texts, and e mails I have received; Investor demand for Facebook shares has been “nothing short of pandemonium.”

It’s interesting to note that the additional shares will be sold by selling shareholders of the company, not by the Facebook. The company plans to adhere to the original plan to sell 180 million shares. The additional 241 million shares are being sold by those other Mark Zuckerberg. The founder has decided NOT to sell any additional shares, also adhering to his previous plan to sell 30 million shares, or just less than 6% of his Facebook holdings.

Mark’s reason for liquidating the shares is to cover his expected tax bill from the IPO that could easily exceed $1 billion. No worries though, after the offering, he will hold 503.6 million shares, or about 31% of the company. That stake would be worth $19.1 billion if shares can maintain a $38 price. In my opinion, I think the $38 price will be obliterated on the first day. I’d expect to see prints somewhere in the $50 to $70 range.

Facebook insiders to become multi-millionaires/billionaires

Some of the early investors are jumping aboard the ‘sell while hot’ bandwagon. James Breyer of Accel Partners, the 2^nd largest shareholder, plans on liquidating 49 million shares roughly 25% of his holdings. I have no doubt that Eduardo Saverin will be doing the cha cha cha all the way over to a Singapore bank, unless he opts for a Swiss or an offshore account.

The final pricing is expected after the market close Thursday; my guess is closer to the $38 number. Shares should begin trading on Friday with Mark ringing the opening bell.

Factoid - Should Facebook sell $16 billion in shares as expected, it would be the largest tech IPO in history, and the third largest U.S. IPO ever, trailing only the $19.7 billion raised by Visa (V in March 2008), and the $18.1 billion raised by ‘too big to fail’ automaker General Motors (GM in November 2010), according to rankings by Thomson Reuters. It would also be the 11th largest global IPO in history.

 CNNMoney

Getting in on the daily deal business is easy, but it’s making a successful run which can prove difficult; but these entrepreneurs are sure that their approach is the right way to go. The team works with only small, local businesses and donates a solid 20% of the incoming revenue to local charities.

Levine describes himself as a ‘serial entrepreneur’, who, on a daily basis, leads Jaleva, a pharmaceutical company which has recently patented two of its products. He’s considered “the guy who runs the back end” while Sasha and Jered run the every-day operations.

The brothers are only 4 years apart in age (35 and 31, respectively) and have been making charity donations since they were very young.

In an interview with the Rancho Santa Fe Review, Sasha recalls their first donation project when he was only 8. “We made ‘Save the Whale’ posters and sold them. We donated the money to Greenpeace.”

Both brothers enjoy rock climbing, which is how they initially met Mordy; and while all three were volunteering at a Down Syndrome Action event and a local children’s hospital the concept came to them. During a chat about how big Groupon was, they started talking about how great it would be to do a local deal company in San Diego.

Once the concept of the deal site supporting non-profits was brought up, all three were on board.

Charities that want to be involved in Ideal4aCause get to sign up for a ‘contest’ to be the featured charity for a month. Whichever charity gets the highest number of votes will get to benefit from particular deals and will be featured on the website.

For instance, starting May 1^st, the charity was the Women’s Museum of California, which benefitted from the deal on Mother’s Day Flowers.

 Previously featured charities include: ARTS – A Reason to Survive, Girls on the Run, Helen Woodward Animal Center, Difference Makers International, Jeans 4 Justice, Cancer Angels and the San Diego Oceans Foundation.

Donations depend on the amount of deals sold and the revenue brought in from the deals, so they vary. Jered says they hope to eventually be writing $1000 checks, because for some non-profits, $1000 goes a long way. He added that they’re trying to target the “conscious consumer” – one who will purchase if it benefits the well-being of others.

“Cause-people are more conscious, more affluent and they come back – the extreme opposite of the coupon clipper,” Levine added.

Ideal4aCause gives the merchant control of what they offer, and the hours they offer, but insists that it must be a significant savings. They also allow their merchants to run deals on other sites and no be exclusively tied to Ideal; because they believe their site attracts a different kind of customer, not just the typical coupon-clipper.

The brothers Cherry and Levine are the main team running Ideal4aCause for now; although they do have interns to assist with marketing for the company at big events in the San Diego area. They hope to need more help soon, as they plan on growing quickly.

Daily Deal Media’s own Don Young plans on meeting with the Ideal4aCause team in the next month and doing a follow-up story as to how the business is progressing. Looking forward to that!

Visit http://www.ideal4acause.com to find out more

Source: Rancho Santa Fe Review

Getting your emails past an ISP’s deliverability standards alone is a significant barrier.  Getting your emails opened and links clicked is an entirely different barrier.  Like many of you, I am subscribed to a boat load of daily deal sites and it is almost impossible to check them all out.  Email fatigue threatens every deal business.  Due to the high volume of emails that deal sites send and the amount of emails that folks receive, overcoming email fatigue and achieving higher response rates from your emails is incredibly important.  Here are a few tips to help your subscribers overcome email fatigue and receive higher response rates:

1. Make the content of your emails remarkable –

Remarkable content is the easiest way to have your subscribers “remark.”  Nothing trumps well crafted stories, deals, options and benefits because they will naturally spread from your subscribers to their friends.

2. Segment Your Subscriber Base

Segmenting by location, level of engagement, age, gender, and type of products purchased are great ways to customize your message and better connect with your users. Folks who have never opened your emails should be put on a separate list and you can experiment with different ways to engage with them.  Folks who open every email and click every link should be on a separate email list and you are probably reaching them most effectively already. 

3. Experiment and Test

Split testing the emails that you send to your subscriber base gives you superb insight into the type of subject lines that get the most open rates, and the type of emails that receive the most clicks and result in the most sales.  Analyzing data and adjusting accordingly is the surefire way to continue raising your subscriber engagement.

4. Use Incentives

Use further incentives to encourage your users to share your emails and deals, and tell their friends.  User generated recommendations are one of the best ways to sell a product and so if you can entice your user base and prospects with further incentives (other than the great deals you are offering) you are putting yourself in a better position.  Folks should get excited when they see an email from you.

You could also run a contest, or even give away T-shirts or coffee mugs or other little items that don’t cost much but you could brand to further spread the word.  Gamification can do wonders.

“What are you doing to keep your subscribers engaged and active?“ 

If the answer is nothing, you may want to rethink your email marketing strategy.

Without question, social media – like email and texting – has become one of America’s preferred methods of communication. And wherever the masses go, the advertising budgets of companies large and small quickly follow.

According to a new report published Tuesday from BIA/Kelsey, the U.S. Local Media Forecast (2011-2016) shows that social media advertising revenues will grow from $3.8 billion in 2011 to $9.8 billion in 2016. That reality would represent a compound annual growth rate of 21 percent.

All told, BIA/Kelsey believes that the local segment of U.S. social media advertising revenues will balloon from $840 million in 2011 to $3.1 billion in 2016.

The Return on Investment

“ROI and social media are fast becoming an inextricable pair,” independent business analyst Mike Randazzo tells Daily Deal Media. “Just because social media is relatively inexpensive to use and advertise through doesn’t mean that return on investment isn’t important to companies using Twitter, Facebook, and other social channels. The jury is still out in many cases with regard to how effective social media ads are – especially on Facebook with its growing mobile population. But as evidence mounts to suggest that social media marketing is helping to drive big eCommerce dollars, I think BIA/Kelsey’s new report could actually be underestimating the real growth we might see.“

BIA/Kelsey, which defines social media advertising as money spent on advertising formats across social networks, says the predominant social ad format is still display. Display ad spending is projected to spike from $3.6 billion in 2011 to $9.2 billion in 2016. BIA/Kelsey similarly expects the social non-display segment to grow from $140 million in 2010 to $630 million in 2016.

So what’s behind the anticipated growth? According to Jed Williams, analyst and program director for Social Local Media at BIA/Kelsey, the answer is a multifaceted one.

“Better performance, coupled with richer formats and creative elements, like video, will be the principal social ad market growth drivers,” said Williams. “Social advertising’s local business penetration will steadily increase as SMBs’ understanding of social media deepens, and as the networks continually improve the ease of onboarding and campaign management. Facebook opening its Ads API to more partners, including those that work with SMBs, and Twitter’s self-serve platform will help to ‘democratize’ social ads, which will ultimately lead to more local growth.”

BIA/Kelsey has released the new report ahead of a forthcoming public presentation regarding social media and advertising. Findings from the social local media forecast will be up for discussion during BIA/Kelsey’s upcoming conference, Mobile Local Media San Francisco, which kicks off June 27th.

To learn more about Tuesday’s published report and BIA/Kelsey’s corresponding prognostications, check out the company’s official blog here.

Source: BIA/Kelsey

NoMoreRack is a flash sale site that is making strides in its goal to become the TJ Maxx of the web.

The company was founded in Vancouver and is only 17 months old and is enabling consumers to afford items they usually couldn’t by buying overstock directly from the suppliers. The site offers goods from clothing and jewelry to electronics and items for the home at drastically (and I mean sometimes drastically) reduced prices.

NoMoreRack racks up sales of about 8000 items per day, which amounts to 5 items per minute and has a subscriber list of about 4.5 million.  Revenue in the past 12 months amounted to $50 million and is poised to double in the next year.

So, with all this success, why move from Vancouver to NYC? Jay Bhatti of Business Insider caught up with co-founder Melina Ash after the company attended the Business Insider Start-UP 2012 event.

Heavily influenced by the Start-UP event and being able to network with highly qualified people relevant to their company, NoMoreRack team has three main reasons for moving to NYC.

First off, the team finds that the types of people they want to recruit to grow their team are concentrated in New York City. They love the energy and enthusiasm that people have towards startups in the city.

Secondly, if your site is an e-commerce startup, NYC is prime territory. Ash said that adding retailers, wholesalers, designers and brand headquarters to a tech bubble bursting with talent, makes NYC perfect.

Third, NoMoreRack sees NYC as a perfect jumping-off point for international expansion.

In the week after the event, NoMoreRack leased office space near Union Square:

“After spending a few weeks in New York meeting with people and attending the various tech conferences, we knew we had to be here, in the heart of the action.  It was a no-brainer after meeting people at events like the Business Insider 2012 Start-Up.  We hiring right away in New York City, so if anyone likes what we are building, just email us at hr@nomorerack.com“

See what NoMoreRack is all about by visiting http://www.nomorerack.com

Source: Business Insider, Vipesh Agarwal, Vice President, NoMoreRack

IMGrind points out findings from the infographic, including the fact that Pinterest is outpacing Facebook in acquiring new users. That makes me ask; is that because more people are already on Facebook? More findings and the infographic are below:

-Pinterest users spend $180  compared to an average of $85 by Facebook users

-10% of the sites sales come from Pinterest referrals as compared to 7% for Facebook referrals.

Source: IMGrind

Underscoring this tangible room for growth is a new found interest among digital merchants and other eCommerce providers to help make Canada all it can be in the digital realm.

To that end, Acquity Group Limited, a global Brand eCommerce and digital marketing company, announced this week that it is not only making the Canadian market a top priority, the outfit is also setting up shop there.

Acquity Group will be opening a new office in Ottawa, Ontario – the company’s 11th office in North America. This Canadian homestead will help support the organization’s growth and efforts throughout the Northwestern United States and Canada.

“With online consumption in Canada expected to reach $51 billion by 2016,” said Acquity Group in its announcement, “major North American retailers and B2B brands serving the Canadian market have engaged Acquity Group to design elegant yet functional experiences integrated across all digital channels, including web, mobile and social.”

Not All Clear for eCommerce in Canada

Despite the potential of Canada to become a major market for eCommerce, the nation still faces major headwinds in this endeavor.

Published reports show that only 1% of retail expenditures related to Canada come from online transactions. In the U.S., that figure is substantially higher at 8%. Making matters worse, as of this writing, the Canadian government doesn’t  monitor eCommerce statistics. More troubling, perhaps, is the fact that the Canadian Chamber of Commerce has even gone on record to say that Canada’s eCommerce infrastructure “is no longer world class.”

But despite the major overhaul and upgrades the Canadian market will require at the hands of both public and private powers, no shortage of companies still look to Canada as a diamond in the rough.

“With a booming technology sector and broad network of strategic partners located in Canada, establishing a physical presence in this market was a natural progression in our expansion,” says Chris Dalton, President and CEO of Acquity Group’s US operations.

Acquity Group, Dalton says, has relationships with Adobe Systems Incorporated, a company with a large Canadian presence, and Hybris, a multichannel commerce and communication software provider with its North American headquarters in Montreal.

“With the announcement of an Adobe-Hybris partnership this past March, it became critical to build a Canadian presence and leverage our triangular partnership,” Dalton adds. “We are excited to offer marketers and retailers a truly engaging buying process for every step – from brand engagement to browsing to check out.”

So will Canada finally emerge as a major market for eCommerce? It certainly could. But it all but certainly won’t unless the Canadian government finally puts some muscle and concrete planning behind the presently floundering eCommerce infrastructure that fails to attract the industry’s biggest players.

Source: Acquity Group Limited

The initial suit is being filed in LivingSocial’s home base, Washington D.C. and the complaint is being handled by attorneys at Nichols Kaster, PLLP. The plaintiff’s attorney at the firm, Michele Fisher states that  ”LivingSocial is a marketer of deals, but unfortunately its employees are getting a raw deal when it comes to the company’s failure to pay them for all their hours worked.”

The plaintiffs are not named in the press release but they reworked for LivingSocial across the US within the past three years, and some worked in New York in the past six. In the suit filed, it’s alleged that LivingSocial misclassified the employees as exempt salaried employees; saying that they don’t fit under any of the legal exemptions of the law’s overtime pay requirements.

Multiple plaintiffs are represented by counsel in Minnesota and Washington D.C. Michele R. Fisher and Tim C. Selander from Nichols Kaster, PLLP in Minneapolis and Sundeep Hora from Alderman, Devorsetz & Hora PLLC in, DC.

See below for more information about the case

The case is entitled, Holt v. LivingSocial, Inc., f/k/a Hungry Machine, Inc., Court File No.: 1:12-cv-00745 (District of Columbia). Additional information about how to make a claim in the case may be found at http://www.nka.com or by calling Nichols Kaster, PLLP

Source: PRWeb