28 October 2011 | Author: N. Hamilton Media copywriter

Google guns for Groupon with G+ data

Google seems to be upping its efforts to steal Groupon's coupon-clipping crown, as the firm announced it will now be using Google+ data and a new personalisation mechanism to better target deals.

According to The Financial Times, Google let slip that it'll soon be using G+ social signals as well as a new personalisation quiz in a bid to top the daily deals market by better targeting individual consumers and driving uptake.

Google will now ask Google Offers subscribers to indicate what kind of deals they would like to receive information about.

Group Project Manager at Google Offers Nitin Mangtani wrote on the Google Blog: "There's a universe of amazing daily deals out there, but it's hard to find them all in one place - and it's even harder to discover the ones that really matter to you."

To solve this problem, the firm will use personal and social sharing data extracted from Google+ user profiles to determine what deals might be of interest to individual consumers, and ask users to weigh in on the kinds of deals they'd like to receive.

Mantingi wrote: "We're also introducing a personalisation quiz to help you find just the deal you want, all in one place."

The move has been labelled game-changing by Opus analyst Greg Sterling.

Sterling explained that Google's plans to utilise social data and user engagement platforms should help the company displace Groupon as a daily deals market leader, as the coupon clippers currently only track user purchases in an attempt to gauge individual interests.

BIA Kelsey analyst Jed Williams added that increased personalisation could help alleviate the 'deal fatigue' felt my consumers who feel their inboxes are clogged with coupon-clipping, money-saving spam.

"This direct play by Google is smart," he said. "Personalisation will continue to intensify as a differentiator [in the daily deals marketplace]."

The move to gun for Groupon using social information to filter daily deals is not without controversy, and comes just days after Groupon began legal proceedings against two former employees who now work for Google Offers, following Mountain View's failed billion-dollar bid to buy the firm.

What's more, Google's plan is likely to madden Mark Zuckerberg, as Google is partnering with 14 smaller deals companies - most of which had previously partnered with Facebook Deals - in order to offer more luxury and niche-interest deals.

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