Nitin Mangtani of Google Offers: #SFSW12

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by andrewsho


Nitin Mangtani is the Product Chief of Google Offers and I am liveblogging his talk at StreetFight Summt West 2012.

He tells a story about his kid pretending to open a restaurant and makes a sign with lots of stars reading “best restaurant of all” to try to get customers. Note to Nitin, your kid has already figured out how to spam reviews…

Local commerce begins online: 97% of consumer research local products and services online before buying.

A Consumer’s Journey:

  1. Research
  2. Located
  3. Promotions
  4. Purchase
  5. Loyalty

Mobile is the key to unlocking frictionless local commerce.

Google+ Local experience on mobile is “seamless”

This week is Google Offers’ one-year anniversary.  Went live in Portland in June 2011.  Launched their app in October 2011.  May 2012 Google Offers and Google Maps for Android integrated.

Self service Google Offer interface allows merchants to quickly create an offer and distribute via Google for specific time periods.  The idea is to drive business during slow periods.  (This has been the holy grail/72 virgins of local for ages) Provides analytics re how many impressions, redemptions, etc.  Different than daily deals.

Google Offers With Rewards = loyalty offers.  Consumer registers credit card and whenever you go to a merchant you swipe your credit card and GOOG tracks repeat visits and allows merchants to reward customers based on # of visits.

Google Offers Marketplace: Partners with daily deals companies to distribute via Google’s audience.  (Is this the evolution of The Deal Map?).  Customer sees offer, redeems and prints – everything gets passed on to daily deal provider and merchants.  Gilt City and Zozi are two examples of deal partners.

The offers with best merchant quality outperform offers with better discounts.

Personalization is the key to engagement.  You have to send offers that matter to users.  Google uses explicit and implicit personalization.   Users can pick categories of offers and see offers only in their geographic area.
Nitin’s subtle preview of Google Business Builder mentioning:
  • Google Maps
  • Google+Local
  • Google AdWords Express
  • Google Offers (Pre-Paid Offers, Coupons, Loyalty)
  • Google Wallet
Now for Q&A:
Are these services more Push (sales) or Pull (self-service)?  Nitin thinks it will be a combination of both.
I asked if use of Google Offers can help with Google+ Local rankings.  Mangtani says “no”.

 

 

 

 

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