Every day I get a handful of daily deal emails, but I very rarely buy any because they’re usually places I’m not likely to ever visit. That’s why I’m a big fan of GuideMe. It only shows deals for places I’ve been or have told it I want to go, making the deals I receive incredibly relevant and leaving me much more likely to buy.

You add the places you’ve been by marking them “done” on the GuideMe map and the places you’d like to go by marking them as “to-do.” Luckily they’ve provided a fast, easy way for foursquare users to fill in their “done” list by importing checkins directly from foursquare (sadly there’s no way to import foursquare to-dos to GuideMe’s to-dos).

When GuideMe finds a deal at one of the places you’ve marked on the map, they send an email and show a notification on the site to be sure you don’t miss it.

It’s clear GuideMe has thought through the privacy implications of importing your foursquare checkins. In a post on their blog, they say:

We’ve carefully built this import tool to have several privacy safeguards.  The tool won’t import check-ins at home, office, or more “mature” check-in categories, nor will it display imported places to the activity feed.  It also won’t show the time, date, or quantity of your actual check-ins. We’re mostly concerned with helping you build a list of the places that matter in your life.

The deals come from daily deal aggregator Yipit and a variety of other sources, often including deals from Groupon, Living Social and others. GuideMe currently offers deals in Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Cincinnati, OH; Eugene, OR; Las Vegas, NV; Los Angeles, CA; Montauk, NY; New Orleans, LA; New York, NY; Orange County, CA; Phoenix, AZ; Portland, OR; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; San Jose, CA; Seattle, WA; Tampa, FL. Many other cities have partial coverage.

Here in Cincinnati, I’ve seen quite a few relevant deals pop up (and Yipit doesn’t even have deals here yet). There have also been nice deals from places I’ve been in other cities.

The deals appeal to me much more than the ones I see daily from Groupon, Living Social and others because I’m already familiar with the places. It’s not a “sight unseen” purchase like buying from the daily deals, so I’m more comfortable putting down the money to secure a deal.

What do you think of GuideMe? Do you prefer to find daily deals for the places you’ve already been or to use them to find new places to try?

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