At a time when Groupon daily-deal clones are fast becoming a dime a dozen, a company called DealOn Media unveiled a deal-buying exchange that could level the playing field for publishers and open new revenue streams for deal providers.
Dubbed OfferEx.com, DealOn on Tuesday released a private beta of the platform. If you’re thinking DoubleClick for daily deals, you aren’t too far off. OfferEx is built on proprietary technology owned by AdBlade, an ad network that displays ads across a network of more than 1,100 top news and information sites.
The powerful online exchange connects discounted voucher offers with qualified resellers in the billion-dollar daily-deal and group-buying marketplace.
“OfferEx distribution partners can immediately leverage the revenue potential around the billion-dollar daily-deal and group-buying space without the substantial effort and expense of building out a large sales force to secure merchant and business offers,” said Rich Razgaitis, CEO of DealOn Media. “Groupon made daily-deal sites popular, but OfferEx will make daily-deal sites mainstream.”
The Daily Deal Craze
Local merchants like restaurants and spas love the daily-deal model, as it is inherently much less risky than buying traditional advertising. Traditional advertising requires local merchants to invest heavily up front without any guarantee of results. The daily-deal model is less risky and puts a little more pressure on the deal provider to perform. Between merchants loving the model and customers loving the savings, the daily-deal craze seems like an instant classic.
Although a handful of daily-deal incumbents dominate the industry today, there’s still room for competition — and there’s plenty of it. Even Yelp and Twitter are getting into the daily-deals space. With OfferEx, deal suppliers and publishers can jump into the lucrative fray and claim their share of dollars in a growing industry. Indeed, OfferEx is introducing homogeneous technology that sets the stage for a daily-deal showdown.
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