Google Offers Expands … in “Limited Quantities”

Smart move by Google here. The Google Offers program has expanded to New York City and the San Francisco/Oakland areas — see Greg Sterling’s Search Engine Land article for full details. But a couple weeks ago, Google changed how it presents the offers — and that presentation is carrying through to the new cities.

In the early days of Google Offers, when it first launched in Portland, the offer email would indicate how many were available, like this:

But Google stopped showing an exact count back on June 23rd. All the Portland offers since then, and the new offers today in New York City and the Bay Area, all simply say “limited quantity available,” like this:

From a pure marketing perspective, it’s smart to create a sense of urgency to get people to purchase the offer.

That said, I’m sure posts like this one from Mike Blumenthal didn’t help — it shows some pretty dismal sales percentages during the first two weeks that Offers was live in Portland.