Earlier this year, Bing launched Bing Deals, a deals aggregation feature to surface deals from across the web in Bing. Today, Microsoft announced some new features to go along with that.
First off is the Deals hub. “Previously deals were surfaced within Local results so you didn’t have one place to go find deals in your area or a way to sort,” a representative tells WebProNews. “With the Bing Deals hub, there is a one stop shop for the more than 200,000 deals from across the web, local daily deals, and exclusive deals only found in Bing.”
“And those exclusive deals only found in Bing are also new,” he adds. “Deals on mobile via m.bing.com (RIM, iPhone, Android) have had a hub-like page since the launch in March, but with this update the new additions are the exclusive and local deals. Although not identical, Deals on mobile is optimized to surface local deals based on the person’s location – simply clicking on the ‘Locate Me’ button, people can find the best deals in their current location.”
Also new is a Punchcard loyalty program for advertisers. Raj Kapoor of Microsoft’s mobile advertising team talks about this on the Microsoft Advertising blog:
Today we are announcing the launch of Bing Deals Beta with loyalty program in 12 cities across the US in order to bring a new relationship-focused element to deals. Deals will no longer be a one-time engagement, but rather, the Microsoft Punchcard Program will integrate a loyalty program tied to the deal that gets better with more engagement. Businesses will have the opportunity of staying connected with their customers and offer programs that reward their customers for repeat business. Businesses will also have the opportunity to offer “accelerated deals” whereby the deal can become more valuable once the number of customers purchasing the deal crosses a defined threshold.
Furthermore, Bing Deals will enable giving back to the community by enabling local merchants to offer deals in partnership with local schools with a percentage of the proceeds going towards schools’ fund-raising efforts – continuing a long history of local businesses supporting local community initiatives.
On top of all of that, there are some updates to the Bing Business Portal, which will let businesses better manage their presence, the company says. These include tools to offer detailed info about your business and other marketing tools.