Placecast’s ShopAlerts service, which delivers retailer and merchant offers and discounts to consumers via their mobile phones, is debuting a new technology today. Placecast is adding the ability to link mobile offers tied to nearby store locations that consumers redeem by simply swiping their linked credit or debit card at the store.
As we’ve written in the past, ShopAlerts is a white-label geofencing platform for businesses that want to deliver geo-triggered offers to their customers on their mobile phones. Consumers can opt-in to receiving text messages in a variety of ways—at the store, online, via text-message, mobile websites or on Facebook. Geofences are virtual areas set around physical locations; when an opted-in consumer is inside a geofenced area, she receives a message from a business, including a discount, notice of a sale, directions to a store or other content.
With the new service, a consumer could opt into a discounts program from a credit card company, mobile operator, or retailer, and when the consumer gets close to a particular merchant, an offer will pop up on their mobile phone screen. A Card-Linked ShopAlerts offer might read “Get a $20 statement credit when you use your card and spend $100 or more at Big Box Retail, 1234 Main Street.”
Customers then simply make a purchase and automatically receive the discount on their bank statement. What Placecast says differentiates its card-linked offers, is that the incentives are location-based, and used real-time location, consumer preferences and spend history.
To make this all work, Placecast says it has been granted a patent that is based on the ability to correctly match store locations with transaction data between processors, issuers, retailers and now mobile app and wallet providers. The patent covers 43 claims around technology that ‘cleans’ location data and translates the different address expressions in merchant databases.
Placecast launched Card-Linked ShopAlerts in beta with card issuers this spring. To date, over 550 merchants have delivered card-linked offers using the platform with restaurants emerging as the top-performing category.
Card-Linked ShopAlerts can be used to complement other offers programs that credit card companies, carriers, and brands may already be delivering, says the company. Placecast’s partners include Telefonica’s O2, AT&T, and some of the largest credit card companies in the world. Over 160 brands have run ShopAlerts programs including Starbucks, L’Oreal, The North Face, Kiehl’s, Subway, Pizza Hut, Kmart, HP, Chico’s White House Black Market, JetBlue and SC Johnson.
Placecast also recently launched a white-label wallet functionality,