GIVEN that the market for daily deals is saturated with offers from Web sites like Groupon, flash sale sites like Gilt.com and credit card companies offering cash back and airline miles, it might appear that small businesses are raking in profits from customers seduced by such great deals.


Not so, says Tom Beecher, president and chief executive of Cartera Commerce, a company that specializes in what are known as card-linked offers — part daily deal, part card reward program.


The company will announce a new service for small businesses on Wednesday called OfferLink Local, allowing those businesses to connect a customer’s credit or debit card to a merchant’s own discounts. Customers who use their cards at participating local businesses can then earn rewards on those cards in the form of airline miles, cash back or points.


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The service will help give local businesses a larger marketing platform though Cartera’s bank and airline partners, which include American Airlines, United Airlines, Wells Fargo, CitiBank and Barclays. “Its very much a chicken-and-egg business,” Mr. Beecher said. “It’s hard to get retailers interested if you don’t have the banks and airlines.”


In addition to working with small businesses, the company also provides card-linked deals for large retailers like Barnes & Noble, 1-800-Flowers, Macy’s and Home Depot.


With the OfferLink service, a merchant can create a deal for, say, 10 percent off a purchase and the discount will be applied automatically when a consumer uses a qualifying credit or debit card. Consumers will be alerted to the offers through e-mails from their banks or airline frequent-flier programs, bank statements, mobile alerts or though digital ads.


A consumer could earn frequent-flier miles simply by making a purchase at a local hardware store or bakery in addition to getting an in-store discount. And with each purchase, the retailers, banks and airlines collect data on the customer’s purchase history, including how much the customer spent, where the purchase was made and whether the customer was new.


Mr. Beecher said card-linked offers were important to small businesses that may not have had success with daily deal sites like Groupon. Many retailers using such sites find it difficult to keep track of their customers or to make sure those customers return. “There’s no way to know who’s coming back,” he said.


Eric Cozier, the senior director for marketing and product development for Barclaycard U.S., said the OfferLink program provided critical data for Barclaycard U.S. to use in making offers to specific consumers. Mr. Cozier said the danger with daily deal sites was that the same deals were sent to the same groups of people.


“You don’t want to overcommunicate and you don’t want to lose the power of the marketing message,” Mr. Cozier said. Instead, with data from OfferLink, the company can segment customers based on the types of places they shop, their location and how much they spent.


Dominique Lagleva, the United States marketing manager for the fashion retailer Karen Millen, one of the companies that participated in the testing phase for OfferLink, said the company’s goal was to reach a more affluent customer.


“I want women to come into the store looking for investment pieces,” Ms. Lagleva said, adding that daily deal sites encourage a type of clientele who will make purchase based on the deal they are getting and not on the actual quality of the merchandise. “You’ll purchase a spa day for 60 percent off but would you ever go back to that spa for regular price?”


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Kevin Culbert, a senior analyst at IBISWorld, said daily deal sites like Groupon created a sense of urgency that otherwise would not have existed.


“Groupon forces you upfront to purchase the deal,” Mr. Culbert said, adding that many customers who use such sites have no intention of becoming repeat customers. The combination of fervent deal-seeking and a lack of loyalty has contributed to many small businesses getting bad reviews on Web sites like Yelp when customers have a mediocre experience after a daily deal event, he said.


According to data by IBISWorld, 2012 revenue for daily deal sites is expected to reach $1.7 million. Mr. Culbert said he did not expect Cartera and services like OfferLink to be the death knell for daily deal sites. A reason is that, beyond offering the deals to consumers through e-mails and digital ads, the company will not offer large-scale, direct-to-consumer advertising.


Many consumers, especially those who do not read every bank e-mail in detail or pay attention to affiliate deal offers online, may even be unaware that their cards are loaded with discounts. “Can you tell me how much you saved when you used your Discover card buying gas?” Mr. Culbert said. “Probably not.”