SAN FRANCISCO – A LivingSocial executive at ad:tech said that the company is currently testing mobile deals that let marketers decide the time of day they want to run their promotions to better target consumers.

According to the keynote speaker, the company is currently testing its mobile service in Washington. The executive said that mobile is a great tool for driving foot traffic because of the location aspect and that using time of day to better target consumers will likely be beneficial to brands.

“This new mobile initiative will help drive customers through the doors exactly when needed,” said John Bax, chief financial officer of LivingSocial, Chicago. “Businesses can create a big campaign and pick the time they want to offer the deals.

“There are businesses that don’t need traffic at a certain time and others that might want to offer deals because business is slow,” he said.

Future deals
The executive said that the new pilot initiative is great for companies that want to narrow down a certain time to offer deals to take advantage of time-of-day targeting and get the most traffic they can to their locations.

Mr. Bax also said that there are four pillars of local commerce: commerce, local, social and mobile.

“Local ad units are best sold locally,” Mr. Bax said. “You can structure better deals by having a local source.

“Everyone knows that mobile is growing,” he said. “To get those impulse buys you have to have a mobile presence and that’s evolving.”

In addition, Mr. Bax said that mobile helps marketers check redemption rates in a simpler way.

“In a traditional market, you don’t really know how many click throughs there are, but with mobile, you can see when consumers redeemed their coupon,” Mr. Bax said.

Quality offers
According to the executive, LivingSocial is all about connecting quality merchants with the local customers they are looking for.

Additionally, the company’s services help create demand for local businesses that would otherwise never see the amount of traffic they want.

“We’re able to create demand for small companies like a bed and breakfast market,” Mr. Bax said.

The company has worked with several companies to promote daily deals.

One of the most popular was its deal with Amazon where it offered consumers a $20 gift card for $10.

According to Mr. Bax, 80 cards were sold per second and 40 percent of purchases were made via shared links.

“People are looking for values,” Mr. Bax said. “Everybody shops locally and the breath of offers you’re going to see from us will apply to all consumers.

“People aren’t really thinking that you can shop from your local merchant, but we believe in the long run you will,” he said.

According to Mr. Bax, it is all about building that business, consumer relationship.

“We try to structure every deal that works with merchants and consumers,” Mr. Bax said.