AT&T Interactive Takes on Groupon By Launching YP.com Daily Deals

Despite Groupon’s and LivingSocial’s early leads in the daily deals space, the two companies are not stopping others from jumping on the bandwagon — especially if those others already have a national sales force.

The most recent addition to the list: AT&T.

As expected, AT&T Interactive, which operates its YP.com brand, today launched its first daily deals associated with its yellow pages offering in Atlanta, Dallas/Ft. Worth and Los Angeles.

In many respects, the offers represent just another ad unit its sales force can pitch to merchants. To date, it’s primarily been focused on selling search terms, banner ads, coupons, and more recently, mobile ads.

Since May, YP.com has been collecting email addresses from customers who were willing to sign up for the offers in those three markets. Registration is now open nationwide as it plans to expand in other cities.

In addition to distributing the offers by email, AT&T Interactive plans to push them out over mobile phones.

Last week, Foursquare announced that AT&T’s Deal of the Day offers will be distributed and available to Foursquare’s app users, and AT&T Interactive plans to integrate Deal of the Day offers into its YPmobile app on iPhone and Android in the next few months.

In Los Angeles, it’s first offer was for $20 worth at Em’s Artist Café for $10; in Atlanta, it’s first offer is for 52 percent off three art classes; and in Dallas, it’s selling half-off tickets to see “America’s Got Talent” runner-up Jackie Evancho.

In addition to Groupon and LivingSocial, some of AT&T’s direct competitors will be Google, Yelp, OpenTable and Travelzoo, which are all trying to leverage their brand recognition and monthly visitors to enter the frequently very profitable daily deals space.

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