Rogers Digital Media is adding a name to the list of group buying sites available in Canada, with the launch of RDeals nationally, with the exception of Quebec.

Starting yesterday with a $32 deal that includes three gifts of a $25 Chapters Indigo gift card, plus two Rogers Media magazine subscriptions, Jason Tafler, chief digital officer, Rogers Media, tells MiC the site will differentiate itself because of the knowledge it already has of the subscribers to its media properties.

“We are confident that we will differentiate by the quality of the audience that we will be sending to the merchants,” says Tafler. “We have a highly engaged audience, we know more about our readers and are able to offer them specialized deals. We won’t be offering someone in downtown Toronto who loves sports a deal about some other [non-sporting] retail shop in Oakville.”

The group buying site will be promoted primarily through Rogers Media properties, in print magazines like Maclean’s, on radio stations such as 680 News and through online properties, including Sweetspot.ca.

Tafler says Rdeals is the first of a line of new initiatives coming from Rogers Digital Media. He says Q1 of 2012 will be host to the launch of initiatives like a program which will make it easier for Rogers Wireless customers to gain access to deals and promotions, and possible credit card and banking tie-ins, as the company applied to launch a bank earlier this fall.

Subscriptions to the site are already ahead of plan, says Tafler, who notes tens of thousands of users have signed onto RDeals. In addition to reaching out to local merchants and location-based offers, Tafler says the program is also available to national brands who want to work RDeals into a larger media buy with the company.