Groupon’s growth as a platform has been astounding, demonstrating the potential behind location-based marketing on a large scale.  It’s certainly something Google wanted in on, but through its open API offering, plenty of other businesses can benefit from Groupon’s established expanse as well.

CardStar is one such business, integrating Groupon’s location-based deals into its mobile loyalty cards service. The first of its kind to integrate with Groupon, CardStar’s move marks another exploratory implementation of Groupon’s method of marketing.  CardStar’s growing user base will now have access to Groupon deals through its service, delivered alongside the deals and perks a customer already gets from their favorite stores.

What this integration does is extend CardStar’s mobile couponing feature beyond loyalty card offerings, while also giving local businesses and retailers another opportunity to reach potential customers.  This is an interesting spin for CardStar, as it leverages current technology to incorporate more types of loyalty mechanisms, giving users access to savings beyond coupon-clipping, or carrying those plastic cards around on their keychains.

Becoming one of the largest loyalty applications worldwide, CardStar boasts over 1.5 million active users, spanning all 50 U.S. states and nearly 200 countries. “The mobile wallet is no longer a pipedream and consumers are looking for tools that combine location, mobility and loyalty in order to access the right deals, at the right time, in the right place. Bringing deal services like Groupon into platforms like CardStar is a major stepping stone towards making the mobile wallet a reality. CardStar will continue to announce partnerships in 2011 that demonstrate its commitment to developing a comprehensive platform for savings-focused consumers,” says Andy Miller, CardStar CEO.

It’s interesting that CardStar is tapping into Groupon’s deals API, seeing as the last time I spoke with Miller, it was in regards to Groupon’s rejection of Google’s acquisition offer.  Miller saw it as a good opportunity for Groupon to grow along its planned trajectory, and the API approach is certainly an integral part of the long-term benefits as it continues to carve out its location-driven marketing niche.

Yet the platform approach isn’t lost on CardStar, either.  Finding a way to give businesses access to its user base has been a primary goal for CardStar from the very beginning, and the Groupon integration only expedites CardStar along that path.  It not only allows CardStar to bypass the formal partnership route, but it lets the company focus on its next phase—consolidating information from users’ shopping experiences.  “The other side of marketing,” CardStar CTO Danny Espinoza tells me.

“CardStar as a platform is a marketing channel.  If you think about it, loyalty itself is a marketing channel.  How to manage that customer relationship, on the retailer side of things, is our focus—CardStar is a new way to do that on a mobile device.”

In that regard, CardStar retains its position as an aggregate platform, giving businesses an opportunity to present themselves to users without having to set up a loyalty program on their own.  “The big drive for us is to get more coverage, so more customers can get more relevant deals without bringing anything but their phone to the store,” Espinoza goes on.

It’s a unique partnership strategy that led me to question the consolidation of mobile apps as we move into a data market-driven economy, where business partnerships can be replaced with an open API, and mobile app interaction becomes much more fluid.

“An interesting question,” Espinoza pauses. “There’s a recognition that these things are going to merge and consolidate around mobile wallets.  That accelerates the timeline for building these partnerships, and you’ll definitely see consolidation.  People partner with us because we have a lot of users, he explains.  “Mobile commerce is going to be big.  For us, it’s certainly a race.  You may forget your wallet, but you never forget your phone.”