Get Paid for Sharing Daily Deals with Offermation

Meg Rayford February 3, 2012 Tweet

Milwaukee residents have a new way to save and share with local online advertising startup Offermation.  The company is integrating word of mouth marketing into the daily deal model and has earned kudos as an alternate in the 2012 SXSW Accelerator Program in the Innovative Web Technologies category.

Not just another daily deal marketplace, Offermation stands out from its competitors in a couple of ways.  Businesses that advertise on Offermation have a bit more control over the deal process than on other sites.  They can specify their own parameters for the deal, including price, length and discount.

The other differential is that the site not only caters to businesses and consumers, but it also fosters a community of “publishers” who get paid for sharing good deals.  Each deal page has a variety of share links to tell your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, or blog readers about the deal you just purchased.  Using a custom code, Offermation tracks any clicks and sales from your shared links and rewards you for each purchase made through your link.  Or, if you’re more of a widget person, you can use the custom Offermation Widget to drop the deal into your website as a banner ad in a variety of sizes.

The Publisher Dashboard helps you keep track of how many people have viewed, clicked, and purchased the offer from your share link or widget.  If your friends take the bait, commission is paid out for each person that purchases the offer, and Offermation sends you check.  Businesses have control over how much to incentivize publishers, and publishers can pick and choose which deals they want to share with their network.

What I like about Offermation is that the company rewards customers for doing what most other businesses have simply come to expect from their customers online – Offermation rewards them for their role in marketing.  Personal recommendations and shares are the Holy Grail of any marketer trying to build out a social media campaign, but most fail to give props to the customers doing the legwork of selling their products to their families, friends and co-workers.  If I’m going to be a link in the word of mouth marketing chain, shouldn’t I at least get rewarded for doing so?  Offermation thinks so, and it will be interesting to see if Milwaukee residents agree.