The daily deals space is increasingly a brutal market, with Groupon struggling while Facebook, BuyWithMe and others have come and gone. Now Facebook is back with a second attempt that, although uniquely positioned, still has to conquer significant consumer fatigue and retailer reticence.

The new Facebook Offers lets businesses post an offer on their Facebook Page that users can click on to receive an email that can be redeemed by showing the email on their mobile phone or by printing it out. What makes the service unique is that instead of taking a transactional percentage and controlling the message ? as most deals sites do ? Facebook is turning the tools over to the merchants for free.

?This Facebook iteration allows merchants to add offers into the newsfeed interested consumers already receive,? said Wilson Kerr, vice president of business development and sales at Unbound Commerce, Boston. ?Since these customers have "liked" the business, they will likely "like" an offer even more, and find it less intrusive.

?Since Facebook is a ?sharing engine? anyway, the deal can quickly market itself, as people share via the click of their mouse,? he said. ?Mobile plays a big role, as redemption is tracked to the point of sale, and Facebook captures the metrics.

?Facebook is playing to its strengths with this new iteration. Unlike Groupon, Facebook makes money on advertising and driving additional consumer usage should mean more ad dollars.?

Risky moves
Most daily deal sites share revenue with merchants based on how many buy into the deals. However, with growing competition from an increasingly wide array of offers, consumer interest in deals is shrinking.

At the same, retailers are increasingly wary of deals that bring in little revenue, do not drive repeat business and provide little in the way of data about who is redeeming the offers.

?Groupon has had some fits and starts and negative press,? said Jed Williams, analyst and program director at BIA/Kelsey, Chantilly, VA. ?It is not cash flow positive nor is Living Social, BuyWithMe went away and others are struggling.

?Over the last six to nine months, there has been some necessary consolidation in the space,? he said.

Entering the deals space at this time could be a risky move for Facebook because of these trends.

The social network could be hoping that its significant user base, which includes 800 users worldwide and 425 million mobile users, will help it overcome any hurdles.

?Not sure if Facebook can bring much new to the table because of the process around daily deals,? said David Kaminsky, analyst for emerging technologies at Mercator Advisory Group, Maynard, MA.

?The one area that needs to be improved is redemption,? he said. ?If Facebook can build that into the transaction, that would be an improvement.?

Closing the loop
The social network is trying to set itself apart from Groupon and others by letting the merchants control the offers.

Merchants can integrate offers with content on their Facebook page and extend the reach of the offer with premium ads and sponsored pages, thereby directly tying content and ads together.

?The initial deals were just appearing in the Facebook newsfeed ? now they are appearing as content and ads and can be redeemed by users,? said Bia/Kelsey?s Mr. Williams said. ?This is beginning to close the loop.

?Facebook is figuring out what is working and is extending the reach of ad units with social content around something like sponsored stories,? he said. ?Facebook is placing a big bet on the role of social context and Facebook Offers is an example of that.?

Driving tracked costumer engagement via offers will enable Facebook to capture data on what ads might work best for what businesses and where, giving it an way to try to boost its advertising sales.

Facebook has said it needs to monetize mobile as use increasingly shifts towards the channel, causing desktop advertising revenues to decline.

Scaling up
The new deals offering from Facebook is also related to the social network?s acquisition of mobile loyalty app Tagtile last week. The app includes a mechanism for sending offers and tracking in-store activity, which further helps Facebook close the loop on commerce.

Offers is currently only available for managed accounts, which are big brand clients that have marketing services. Part of what will determine if the deals offering is a success will be how quickly and easily Facebook is able to extend the service to other businesses.

?I?d like to see how quickly Facebook brings Offers to mid-market and smaller business to get a sense of if this can scale to more than just the biggest businesses.,? Mr. Williams said. ?Generally the way they do that is through partnerships, or opening up APIs so developers can participate."