Can Coupons Bring Local Businesses Online?

Google’s plan to add printable coupons to its local business listings could be a key in getting mom & pops online. Google’s local search is much more valuable with their participation, and partnering with Valpak gives all of those local businesses a reason to update their Google Maps listing.

It’s also a way to ease them into online advertising. If they can see real, trackable results from putting up their coupons on Google, they’ll be more willing to spend some money on AdWords.

Clearly the idea of a printable coupon makes offline conversion more trackable, but could coupons also be a solution for online tracking, to some extent? Google and others are facing challenges from AJAX and other dynamic page-serving technologies. Perhaps offering coupons, to be redeemed at the time of conversion, could be a solution in some cases.