Digital Marketer Edo Helps Small Merchants Offer Card-Linked Rewards

Card-linked marketer edo Interactive is launching a new Marketplace web portal that lets small merchants set up card-linked offers to new and existing customers.

Originally the Groupon competitor, which presents merchant offers based on the location of a person's last purchase, concentrated mainly on larger retailers. Now, small business owners can sign up for edo's services through Marketplace. Merchants set a budget for the offers and only pay for the transactions that edo completes.

The Nashville company began testing its "geocommerce" technology last Spring.

"Local merchants are looking for marketing techniques that will help them stay competitive, yet options like daily deals and other social or mobile advertising models are proving costly, laborious and unable to deliver clear ROI," said edo's chief executive Ed Braswell in a press release.

More than 200 merchants use edo's original offer system, and through the company's partnership with more than 140 financial institutions, including Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) and Ally Financial, those deals reach more than 140 million cardholders.

In September, edo raised $15 million in its latest round of investments led by VantagePoint Capital Partners and Baird Venture Partners.