• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, May 3, 2011

Paid-search marketers often talk about loving the ability to tweak campaigns on the fly. They learn from testing. And if the marketer ends up picking the wrong word for a headline or adjective in a description, she can quickly adjust the message.

Retailers download the application that varies from free to fee, depending on the services. It's free for stores to enroll, but those who want to tap into loyalty programs or other special services such as analytics will pay a fee.

The location-based application supports augmented reality to help consumers discover the stores through loyalty programs, location, real-time search, and interaction and games. Initially, the app will run on Apple OS, followed by Android and BlackBerry.

Michael Kurtzman, vice president of consumer products at iLoop, says the company built that same mentality into an application called SlingShop scheduled to launch in June across select markets. Similar to paid-search campaigns, the application supports dayparting and even hour parting, which means marketers can run the promotion for hours per day or longer. It would come in handy if a restaurant wants to run a three-hour lunch special. The app will process ecommerce transactions, and link into an analytics package.

A dashboard, or leaderboard, will allow shops to analyze and track consumer visits by date, frequency, status, or other criteria. Participating retailers can push out a thank you note, coupon, or reminder to come back to visit the store. It gives retailers easy access to communicate with customers.

Consumers who download and launch the application on their mobile phone can point the camera lens down a store-filled street to search for specials at participating shops that sign up for the SlingShop program.

The application aims to drive traffic from mobile devices into physical stores, mostly for small businesses that don't have a mobile-commerce strategy. Consumers can also sign up to receive specials from one or multiple shops.

To promote loyalty, the platform also integrates games. Once in the store, shoppers use their smartphones to play a game such as slinging a digital slingshot at a target for the chance to win a discount. For those shops with iPads, the retail store can set up the game for consumers to play who don't have a smartphone. In this scenario the consumer must interact with the shop to earn discounts.

Even those who use email marketing say it can take hours to set up a campaign and then send it out, according to Kurtzman. "Marketers know theirs will be one out of 150 emails sitting in someone's inbox," he says. "This application takes minutes to create a loyalty program that works. It's about getting people to come back to the shop."