Groupon growth playbook

Write the policy agent by agent: keep training crawlers blocked if that is the business choice, but explicitly allow search and user-fetch agents (OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot) and decide on Google-Extended with the Gemini trade-off in view. Add "ai-input=yes" to the content signal if retrieval is wanted, move the rules out of the managed block so they are owned, and check that verified AI fetchers get past the bot challenge on city, category and deal pages.

Assistants can only recommend and cite pages they can read. A written policy also stops a platform default from deciding Groupon's AI visibility each time Cloudflare changes it.

[ ] Training crawlers: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot, Bytespider, Applebot-Extended (decide)
[ ] Search and user agents: OAI-SearchBot, ChatGPT-User, Claude-SearchBot, Claude-User, PerplexityBot (allow?)
[ ] Google-Extended: Gemini grounding trade-off
[ ] Content-Signal: search, ai-input, ai-train
[ ] Rules moved out of the managed block
[ ] Bot challenge lets verified fetchers through
[ ] Monthly citation check by city

• Content used for training without permission

  Keep training crawlers blocked; allow only retrieval and search agents.

• Bot traffic load

  Allow verified agents only and keep rate limits.

• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search (posted September 23, 2026): "AI Overviews now appear on the large majority of the local queries we track in North America. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini recommend places by name, and agents are starting to search, compare and transact without ever loading a page." The role owns "crawler and rendering policy across all markets, including AI crawler policy as a conscious decision rather than a default", "machine-discovery endpoints, structured deal data, connectors to Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini", measured "geolocated rather than nationally".Source
• Your websiterobots.txt (checked October 21, 2026) opens with a "BEGIN Cloudflare Managed content" block: "Content-Signal: search=yes,ai-train=no" with no ai-input value, then "Disallow: /" for Amazonbot, Applebot-Extended, Bytespider, CCBot, ClaudeBot, CloudflareBrowserRenderingCrawler, Google-Extended, GPTBot and meta-externalagent. Later rules include "Disallow: /search*".Source
• Platform documentationGoogle: "Google-Extended does not impact a site's inclusion in Google Search nor is it used as a ranking signal"; it controls use for Gemini training and "grounding in Gemini Apps". Anthropic: ClaudeBot collects content for training, while Claude-User fetches pages when people ask Claude a question and Claude-SearchBot indexes for search; Anthropic's bots honour robots.txt and anti-circumvention signals such as CAPTCHAs.Source
• Access checkFetched with a plain HTTP client (no browser) on October 21, 2026: robots.txt, the sitemap index and llms.txt return 200, but the homepage returns 403 and each of the 30 sitemap files listed in sitemap.xml returns a "Just a moment..." challenge page instead of XML.Source

Add the top city hubs and their category pages, a short note on how deal pages show price and availability, and a pointer to structured deal data. Remove /search. Regenerate the file when the Local index decision changes.

A clear map helps assistants send local intent to the pages Groupon wants to rank, and it is a one-file change.

• File grows too large

  Link city hub index pages instead of every URL.

• Your websitegroupon.com/llms.txt ("Last updated: 2026-10-15") describes Groupon and links national category catalogues (Nearby, Travel, Goods, Coupons, Gifts, Articles, Support) and /search, which robots.txt disallows. It links no city or category-in-city pages and says "the live deal or category page is always the source of truth for current price, availability, and terms".Source
• Your websiterobots.txt (checked October 21, 2026) opens with a "BEGIN Cloudflare Managed content" block: "Content-Signal: search=yes,ai-train=no" with no ai-input value, then "Disallow: /" for Amazonbot, Applebot-Extended, Bytespider, CCBot, ClaudeBot, CloudflareBrowserRenderingCrawler, Google-Extended, GPTBot and meta-externalagent. Later rules include "Disallow: /search*".Source
• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search, continued: the Local estate is "a six-figure number of live indexable pages in North America after pruning, sitting inside an addressable space of roughly 1,000 cities and 50+ categories, and only a minority of them earn"; four Local page types (city root, city things-to-do, category-in-city, deal); a "supply threshold" decides whether a page is viable; the role must hold "Supply to inventory density per city and category" and build "content so it travels: pages and assets that Display, SEM, Influencers and Social can reuse".Source

Run 50 city x category questions weekly in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Google AI Overviews from local locations, log whether Groupon is cited and which page, and feed gaps into the content and supply backlog.

What gets measured by city gets fixed by city, and it shows the effect of the crawler policy change.

• Answers vary run to run

  Run each question several times and average.

• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search (posted September 23, 2026): "AI Overviews now appear on the large majority of the local queries we track in North America. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini recommend places by name, and agents are starting to search, compare and transact without ever loading a page." The role owns "crawler and rendering policy across all markets, including AI crawler policy as a conscious decision rather than a default", "machine-discovery endpoints, structured deal data, connectors to Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini", measured "geolocated rather than nationally".Source
• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search, continued: the Local estate is "a six-figure number of live indexable pages in North America after pruning, sitting inside an addressable space of roughly 1,000 cities and 50+ categories, and only a minority of them earn"; four Local page types (city root, city things-to-do, category-in-city, deal); a "supply threshold" decides whether a page is viable; the role must hold "Supply to inventory density per city and category" and build "content so it travels: pages and assets that Display, SEM, Influencers and Social can reuse".Source

Publish one UTM and link standard for creators, push, SMS, WhatsApp and RCS, generate links from a single tool, and add a daily check that flags untagged traffic by channel.

Clean attribution decides which channels get budget; creator spend especially needs it.

• Partners ignore the standard

  Generate links for them.

• HiringSenior Marketing Analytics Engineer (posted October 5, 2026): journey data flows "through Keboola into Bloomreach (our CDP) and BigQuery"; "About 3% of traffic can't be attributed to a source"; the backlog includes "unknown traffic source, event attribute mapping, affiliate/referrer logic and push notification journey gaps".Source
• HiringSocial hiring: a Social Media & Influencer Manager, North America ("Groupon is rebuilding its brand, and North America is the main stage"; "affiliate links, promo codes, creator hub pages, and a scoring model that ranks the roster on engagement, deal-view lift, and attributed orders") and a Social Media Specialist (posted October 14, 2026) for organic TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, producing with generative video tools and speaking to Gen Z.Source
• HiringHead of Managed Channels (posted October 20, 2026): "Few companies on earth have sent more emails than Groupon"; the audience "now hears from us across email, push, web push, SMS, RCS, WhatsApp and the in-app inbox"; "Bloomreach runs as CDP and intent engine"; the role sets "one messaging strategy across channels" and proves it "with holdouts rather than last-click attribution", turning "Bloomreach affinity, intent and RFM signals" into triggers and journeys. "There is no agency, no studio."Source

Build a creator hub template: creator intro, 6-10 local picks, a creator code, and city links. Score each creator on hub visits, deal-view lift and orders.

Followers buy what a trusted person picked, and hubs keep the traffic on Groupon rather than in a link-in-bio.

• Thin pages indexed

  Noindex hubs until they have enough content.

• HiringSocial hiring: a Social Media & Influencer Manager, North America ("Groupon is rebuilding its brand, and North America is the main stage"; "affiliate links, promo codes, creator hub pages, and a scoring model that ranks the roster on engagement, deal-view lift, and attributed orders") and a Social Media Specialist (posted October 14, 2026) for organic TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, producing with generative video tools and speaking to Gen Z.Source
• HiringSenior Marketing Analytics Engineer (posted October 5, 2026): journey data flows "through Keboola into Bloomreach (our CDP) and BigQuery"; "About 3% of traffic can't be attributed to a source"; the backlog includes "unknown traffic source, event attribute mapping, affiliate/referrer logic and push notification journey gaps".Source
• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search, continued: the Local estate is "a six-figure number of live indexable pages in North America after pruning, sitting inside an addressable space of roughly 1,000 cities and 50+ categories, and only a minority of them earn"; four Local page types (city root, city things-to-do, category-in-city, deal); a "supply threshold" decides whether a page is viable; the role must hold "Supply to inventory density per city and category" and build "content so it travels: pages and assets that Display, SEM, Influencers and Social can reuse".Source

Put a rotating 5% holdout on each program, read incremental revenue per send weekly, and cut or slow programs with no lift.

Incrementality shows which sends earn their cost and protects deliverability.

• Short-term revenue dip

  Keep the holdout small and rotating.

• HiringHead of Managed Channels (posted October 20, 2026): "Few companies on earth have sent more emails than Groupon"; the audience "now hears from us across email, push, web push, SMS, RCS, WhatsApp and the in-app inbox"; "Bloomreach runs as CDP and intent engine"; the role sets "one messaging strategy across channels" and proves it "with holdouts rather than last-click attribution", turning "Bloomreach affinity, intent and RFM signals" into triggers and journeys. "There is no agency, no studio."Source
• Investor resultsSecond quarter 2026: global revenue and billings down 1%; North America Local revenue down 2% and billings down 1%, "reflecting softness in Health, Beauty & Wellness, partially offset by strength in Things to Do and recovery within our organic and managed channels"; active customers up 2% to 16.1 million; units down 7% to 8.5 million; "the rollout of our new consumer platform nears completion with conversion improving on nearly every surface".Source

Build one table: search and on-site demand per city x HBW subcategory against live deals. Give sales a ranked list of the 50 gaps with the most demand and least supply, and track revenue as gaps close.

Selling merchants into proven demand is the fastest way back to category growth.

• Demand data noisy

  Combine search and on-site signals.

• Investor resultsSecond quarter 2026: global revenue and billings down 1%; North America Local revenue down 2% and billings down 1%, "reflecting softness in Health, Beauty & Wellness, partially offset by strength in Things to Do and recovery within our organic and managed channels"; active customers up 2% to 16.1 million; units down 7% to 8.5 million; "the rollout of our new consumer platform nears completion with conversion improving on nearly every surface".Source
• HiringSupply hiring: a General Manager, Health, Beauty & Wellness Services (posted September 15, 2026), Enterprise Business Development roles for Health, Beauty & Wellness (September 16) and Food & Drink (October 4), and a Director / Senior Director, Marketplace Strategy & Operations (September 16) whose work ranges "from improving merchant supply in high-demand markets to strengthening deal quality and evaluating pricing and take-rate trade-offs".Source
• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search, continued: the Local estate is "a six-figure number of live indexable pages in North America after pruning, sitting inside an addressable space of roughly 1,000 cities and 50+ categories, and only a minority of them earn"; four Local page types (city root, city things-to-do, category-in-city, deal); a "supply threshold" decides whether a page is viable; the role must hold "Supply to inventory density per city and category" and build "content so it travels: pages and assets that Display, SEM, Influencers and Social can reuse".Source

Set the supply threshold per category, noindex or merge pages below it into the city hub, and rebuild the pages above it with real deal content. Re-open a page automatically when supply grows.

Fewer, stronger pages earn more clicks and give AI systems clearer answers.

• Short-term click loss

  State expected loss and upside before each batch.

• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search, continued: the Local estate is "a six-figure number of live indexable pages in North America after pruning, sitting inside an addressable space of roughly 1,000 cities and 50+ categories, and only a minority of them earn"; four Local page types (city root, city things-to-do, category-in-city, deal); a "supply threshold" decides whether a page is viable; the role must hold "Supply to inventory density per city and category" and build "content so it travels: pages and assets that Display, SEM, Influencers and Social can reuse".Source
• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search (posted September 23, 2026): "AI Overviews now appear on the large majority of the local queries we track in North America. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini recommend places by name, and agents are starting to search, compare and transact without ever loading a page." The role owns "crawler and rendering policy across all markets, including AI crawler policy as a conscious decision rather than a default", "machine-discovery endpoints, structured deal data, connectors to Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini", measured "geolocated rather than nationally".Source
• Site dataPublic site data (programmable.info): sitemaps list about 128,000 URLs, led by /deals (about 91,000), /hotels (29,000), /travel (3,600), /biz (1,300) and /articles (1,200); the Feedburner RSS feed's last post is from May 2015; a developer API page at /developers.Source

Add complete Offer and LocalBusiness markup to every deal page (price, discount, expiry, location, rating), expose a public read-only deal feed per city, and validate it weekly.

Structured data is how assistants and rich results quote a deal correctly.

• Stale prices

  Generate markup from live data only.

• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search (posted September 23, 2026): "AI Overviews now appear on the large majority of the local queries we track in North America. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini recommend places by name, and agents are starting to search, compare and transact without ever loading a page." The role owns "crawler and rendering policy across all markets, including AI crawler policy as a conscious decision rather than a default", "machine-discovery endpoints, structured deal data, connectors to Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini", measured "geolocated rather than nationally".Source
• Your websitegroupon.com/llms.txt ("Last updated: 2026-10-15") describes Groupon and links national category catalogues (Nearby, Travel, Goods, Coupons, Gifts, Articles, Support) and /search, which robots.txt disallows. It links no city or category-in-city pages and says "the live deal or category page is always the source of truth for current price, availability, and terms".Source
• HiringSenior PPC Specialist (AI-Native Search): "one of the largest local-commerce search books anywhere: Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Things to Do, Hotel Ads and Demand Gen across North America and 11 international markets"; bidding on "per-category forward-value models"; "pilots on new AI surfaces" and "the team's view on agentic buying"; feed and Merchant Center quality.Source

Split value models by city for Things to Do, improve feed coverage for experiences, and test Demand Gen with creator video from the social team.

Backing the growing category with sharper bids compounds its growth.

• Small cities lack data

  Group them by region.

• Investor resultsSecond quarter 2026: global revenue and billings down 1%; North America Local revenue down 2% and billings down 1%, "reflecting softness in Health, Beauty & Wellness, partially offset by strength in Things to Do and recovery within our organic and managed channels"; active customers up 2% to 16.1 million; units down 7% to 8.5 million; "the rollout of our new consumer platform nears completion with conversion improving on nearly every surface".Source
• HiringSenior PPC Specialist (AI-Native Search): "one of the largest local-commerce search books anywhere: Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Things to Do, Hotel Ads and Demand Gen across North America and 11 international markets"; bidding on "per-category forward-value models"; "pilots on new AI surfaces" and "the team's view on agentic buying"; feed and Merchant Center quality.Source
• HiringSocial hiring: a Social Media & Influencer Manager, North America ("Groupon is rebuilding its brand, and North America is the main stage"; "affiliate links, promo codes, creator hub pages, and a scoring model that ranks the roster on engagement, deal-view lift, and attributed orders") and a Social Media Specialist (posted October 14, 2026) for organic TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, producing with generative video tools and speaking to Gen Z.Source

Rank cities by food demand against live restaurant deals, target multi-location groups in the top gaps, and offer a launch package with featured placement on the city hub.

Demand-led selling shortens the pitch: the merchant sees the searches they are missing.

• Margin pressure

  Set a take-rate floor.

• HiringSupply hiring: a General Manager, Health, Beauty & Wellness Services (posted September 15, 2026), Enterprise Business Development roles for Health, Beauty & Wellness (September 16) and Food & Drink (October 4), and a Director / Senior Director, Marketplace Strategy & Operations (September 16) whose work ranges "from improving merchant supply in high-demand markets to strengthening deal quality and evaluating pricing and take-rate trade-offs".Source
• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search, continued: the Local estate is "a six-figure number of live indexable pages in North America after pruning, sitting inside an addressable space of roughly 1,000 cities and 50+ categories, and only a minority of them earn"; four Local page types (city root, city things-to-do, category-in-city, deal); a "supply threshold" decides whether a page is viable; the role must hold "Supply to inventory density per city and category" and build "content so it travels: pages and assets that Display, SEM, Influencers and Social can reuse".Source

Build three intent journeys (viewed twice, saved, near expiry) with channel chosen by past response, and test against email-only.

Triggered messages earn more per send and use the new channels for what they do best.

• Consent rules differ by market

  Check consent per channel before sending.

• HiringHead of Managed Channels (posted October 20, 2026): "Few companies on earth have sent more emails than Groupon"; the audience "now hears from us across email, push, web push, SMS, RCS, WhatsApp and the in-app inbox"; "Bloomreach runs as CDP and intent engine"; the role sets "one messaging strategy across channels" and proves it "with holdouts rather than last-click attribution", turning "Bloomreach affinity, intent and RFM signals" into triggers and journeys. "There is no agency, no studio."Source
• Investor resultsSecond quarter 2026: global revenue and billings down 1%; North America Local revenue down 2% and billings down 1%, "reflecting softness in Health, Beauty & Wellness, partially offset by strength in Things to Do and recovery within our organic and managed channels"; active customers up 2% to 16.1 million; units down 7% to 8.5 million; "the rollout of our new consumer platform nears completion with conversion improving on nearly every surface".Source

Publish a weekly short video per big city: three things to do for under $30 this week, with deal links and creator cameos. Track views and deal-view lift.

A repeatable format builds habit and links content directly to deals.

• Deals expire

  Pick evergreen experiences.

• HiringSocial hiring: a Social Media & Influencer Manager, North America ("Groupon is rebuilding its brand, and North America is the main stage"; "affiliate links, promo codes, creator hub pages, and a scoring model that ranks the roster on engagement, deal-view lift, and attributed orders") and a Social Media Specialist (posted October 14, 2026) for organic TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, producing with generative video tools and speaking to Gen Z.Source
• HiringEvery Groupon post: "Groupon connects 42 million customers with local experiences - restaurants, events, wellness and travel - and the million-plus merchants who deliver them" and is "moving from a deals marketplace to an experience discovery platform". A Head of Communications was posted on October 21, 2026.Source
• Investor resultsSecond quarter 2026: global revenue and billings down 1%; North America Local revenue down 2% and billings down 1%, "reflecting softness in Health, Beauty & Wellness, partially offset by strength in Things to Do and recovery within our organic and managed channels"; active customers up 2% to 16.1 million; units down 7% to 8.5 million; "the rollout of our new consumer platform nears completion with conversion improving on nearly every surface".Source

Produce city guides as modular blocks (picks, images, short copy) that feed the city page, ad assets and social posts from one source.

One production cost for four channels lowers cost and keeps the message consistent.

• Channel needs differ

  Allow channel-specific edits on top.

• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search, continued: the Local estate is "a six-figure number of live indexable pages in North America after pruning, sitting inside an addressable space of roughly 1,000 cities and 50+ categories, and only a minority of them earn"; four Local page types (city root, city things-to-do, category-in-city, deal); a "supply threshold" decides whether a page is viable; the role must hold "Supply to inventory density per city and category" and build "content so it travels: pages and assets that Display, SEM, Influencers and Social can reuse".Source
• HiringSenior PPC Specialist (AI-Native Search): "one of the largest local-commerce search books anywhere: Search, Shopping, Performance Max, Things to Do, Hotel Ads and Demand Gen across North America and 11 international markets"; bidding on "per-category forward-value models"; "pilots on new AI surfaces" and "the team's view on agentic buying"; feed and Merchant Center quality.Source
• HiringSocial hiring: a Social Media & Influencer Manager, North America ("Groupon is rebuilding its brand, and North America is the main stage"; "affiliate links, promo codes, creator hub pages, and a scoring model that ranks the roster on engagement, deal-view lift, and attributed orders") and a Social Media Specialist (posted October 14, 2026) for organic TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, producing with generative video tools and speaking to Gen Z.Source

Build an official read-and-book connector (search deals by city and category, check availability, hand off to checkout) for the main assistant platforms, starting with read-only search.

If agents do the buying, being a first-class source in them protects demand.

• Platforms change rules

  Keep the API generic and adapt connectors.

• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search (posted September 23, 2026): "AI Overviews now appear on the large majority of the local queries we track in North America. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini recommend places by name, and agents are starting to search, compare and transact without ever loading a page." The role owns "crawler and rendering policy across all markets, including AI crawler policy as a conscious decision rather than a default", "machine-discovery endpoints, structured deal data, connectors to Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini", measured "geolocated rather than nationally".Source
• Site dataPublic site data (programmable.info): sitemaps list about 128,000 URLs, led by /deals (about 91,000), /hotels (29,000), /travel (3,600), /biz (1,300) and /articles (1,200); the Feedburner RSS feed's last post is from May 2015; a developer API page at /developers.Source
• Your websitegroupon.com/llms.txt ("Last updated: 2026-10-15") describes Groupon and links national category catalogues (Nearby, Travel, Goods, Coupons, Gifts, Articles, Support) and /search, which robots.txt disallows. It links no city or category-in-city pages and says "the live deal or category page is always the source of truth for current price, availability, and terms".Source

Publish a quarterly index of typical prices and savings for massages, classes, dinners and activities by city, with city rankings for local press.

Original local data earns local press, links and AI citations every quarter.

• Small samples in small cities

  Publish only cities above a minimum.

• HiringEvery Groupon post: "Groupon connects 42 million customers with local experiences - restaurants, events, wellness and travel - and the million-plus merchants who deliver them" and is "moving from a deals marketplace to an experience discovery platform". A Head of Communications was posted on October 21, 2026.Source
• Investor resultsSecond quarter 2026: global revenue and billings down 1%; North America Local revenue down 2% and billings down 1%, "reflecting softness in Health, Beauty & Wellness, partially offset by strength in Things to Do and recovery within our organic and managed channels"; active customers up 2% to 16.1 million; units down 7% to 8.5 million; "the rollout of our new consumer platform nears completion with conversion improving on nearly every surface".Source
• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search, continued: the Local estate is "a six-figure number of live indexable pages in North America after pruning, sitting inside an addressable space of roughly 1,000 cities and 50+ categories, and only a minority of them earn"; four Local page types (city root, city things-to-do, category-in-city, deal); a "supply threshold" decides whether a page is viable; the role must hold "Supply to inventory density per city and category" and build "content so it travels: pages and assets that Display, SEM, Influencers and Social can reuse".Source

Add a demand forecast to the merchant deal builder: expected units at different discounts in their city and category, and a recommended structure.

Better-priced deals sell more units and lift merchant retention.

• Forecasts miss

  Show ranges and update after launch.

• HiringSupply hiring: a General Manager, Health, Beauty & Wellness Services (posted September 15, 2026), Enterprise Business Development roles for Health, Beauty & Wellness (September 16) and Food & Drink (October 4), and a Director / Senior Director, Marketplace Strategy & Operations (September 16) whose work ranges "from improving merchant supply in high-demand markets to strengthening deal quality and evaluating pricing and take-rate trade-offs".Source
• Investor resultsSecond quarter 2026: global revenue and billings down 1%; North America Local revenue down 2% and billings down 1%, "reflecting softness in Health, Beauty & Wellness, partially offset by strength in Things to Do and recovery within our organic and managed channels"; active customers up 2% to 16.1 million; units down 7% to 8.5 million; "the rollout of our new consumer platform nears completion with conversion improving on nearly every surface".Source
• HiringHead of SEO & AI Search, continued: the Local estate is "a six-figure number of live indexable pages in North America after pruning, sitting inside an addressable space of roughly 1,000 cities and 50+ categories, and only a minority of them earn"; four Local page types (city root, city things-to-do, category-in-city, deal); a "supply threshold" decides whether a page is viable; the role must hold "Supply to inventory density per city and category" and build "content so it travels: pages and assets that Display, SEM, Influencers and Social can reuse".Source

Remove the old feed link and, if useful, publish per-city deal feeds generated from live data for partners and readers.

Removing dead signals is cheap, and live feeds can feed partners.

• Partners depend on it

  Check referrals before removing.

• Site dataPublic site data (programmable.info): sitemaps list about 128,000 URLs, led by /deals (about 91,000), /hotels (29,000), /travel (3,600), /biz (1,300) and /articles (1,200); the Feedburner RSS feed's last post is from May 2015; a developer API page at /developers.Source

Test a city pass (for example a class, a dinner and an activity) with partner merchants, sold as a gift and to new residents.

Bundles increase units and introduce customers to more merchants.

• Redemption complexity

  One voucher per experience.

• Investor resultsSecond quarter 2026: global revenue and billings down 1%; North America Local revenue down 2% and billings down 1%, "reflecting softness in Health, Beauty & Wellness, partially offset by strength in Things to Do and recovery within our organic and managed channels"; active customers up 2% to 16.1 million; units down 7% to 8.5 million; "the rollout of our new consumer platform nears completion with conversion improving on nearly every surface".Source
• HiringSupply hiring: a General Manager, Health, Beauty & Wellness Services (posted September 15, 2026), Enterprise Business Development roles for Health, Beauty & Wellness (September 16) and Food & Drink (October 4), and a Director / Senior Director, Marketplace Strategy & Operations (September 16) whose work ranges "from improving merchant supply in high-demand markets to strengthening deal quality and evaluating pricing and take-rate trade-offs".Source

Each month, profile three merchants who grew with Groupon, pitch them to local press and add them to their city pages.

Local stories earn local links and show merchants the value of joining.

• Merchants decline

  Offer approval of every quote.

• HiringEvery Groupon post: "Groupon connects 42 million customers with local experiences - restaurants, events, wellness and travel - and the million-plus merchants who deliver them" and is "moving from a deals marketplace to an experience discovery platform". A Head of Communications was posted on October 21, 2026.Source
• HiringSupply hiring: a General Manager, Health, Beauty & Wellness Services (posted September 15, 2026), Enterprise Business Development roles for Health, Beauty & Wellness (September 16) and Food & Drink (October 4), and a Director / Senior Director, Marketplace Strategy & Operations (September 16) whose work ranges "from improving merchant supply in high-demand markets to strengthening deal quality and evaluating pricing and take-rate trade-offs".Source