Nitin Mangtani of Google Offers: #SFSW12

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.