• The Wall Street Journal, Monday, June 4, 2012 10:24 AM

Having so far failed to turn Google Offers into a thriving business -- on par with Groupon and other daily deal services -- Google is reportedly pursuing several strategies to increase local business advertising. Positioned as a “platform,” Google Offers has seen a boost in the number of partners using the service -- including KGB Deals, Zozi, Tippr, and HomeRun -- along with a “precipitous” increase in the overall number of deals being offered through Google Offers, according to deal aggregator Yipit.

“The downside for Google is that in such instances, it must share revenue with such companies, bringing down profit margins,” The Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog reports. Google is also turning to partners to increase the number of local businesses who use AdWords, the company’s self-service system that lets people bid to show ads on the Google search engine. “AdWords historically has been considered to be too complicated for average store owners to use on their own,” Digits notes.

Last fall, Google rolled out a “premier partner” program in which it would help promote other companies that could manage AdWords accounts for small businesses. According to Digits, the program already has 15 partners.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »