New Research from Pretarget and comScore Suggests that Buyer Conversion is More Highly Correlated with Ad Viewability and Hover than with Clicks or Gross Impressions

SAN FRANCISCO and RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, and Pretarget, the intent targeting company, today released results of an online advertising study which found that ad viewability and hover time are more strongly correlated with conversions (defined as purchases and requests for information) than clicks or total impressions.

“Your ad being seen matters more than your ad being clicked – if you have a back-end conversion metric,” said Pretarget Founder Keith Pieper. “After all, what good is an ad that can’t be seen? It’s intuitive that an ad must be seen to make an impact, and it’s even more intuitive than someone hovering and engaging with an ad might convert, even absent a click.”

Research Methodology & Approach

To arrive at these initial findings, Pretarget analyzed 263 million impressions over nine months across 18 advertisers in numerous verticals. Pretarget used comScore validated Campaign Essentials™ (vCE) to collect viewability and hover data and a DSP to collect click and cookie-based conversion data. Pretarget then performed a Pearson correlation analysis of the data, including gross impressions, “views” (75 percent of ad within screen, either above the fold or after scrolling)*, time in-view, hover/engagements and total hover/engagement time, clicks and conversions.

Traditional display ad impression measurement and reporting simply verifies the number of ads that were sent by an ad server to a user’s browser. For a variety of reasons, this way of counting impressions does not ensure that the ad ever rendered within a browser. In addition, ads can load below the fold (requiring a user to scroll down), which means that most users will probably never see the ad unless they scroll down. In the worst cases, some ads load within 1×1 pixels and therefore never render as viewable impressions.

Research Findings Show Ad Hover Most Highly Correlated with Conversion

The research findings indicate that the traditional way of buying mass impressions and hoping for conversions (aka “spray and pray”) is not the most effective approach. The results showed that ad hover/interaction (correlation = 0.49) and viewable impressions (correlation = 0.35) had highest correlation with conversion, while gross impressions (correlation = 0.17) was significantly lower. Perhaps most interestingly, clicks (correlation = 0.01) had the lowest correlation with conversion, far under-performing all other metrics analyzed in the study. These findings suggest that advertisers and media planners ought to break their addiction to clicks and instead look to more meaningful metrics for evaluating campaign performance.

“The Pretarget study helps illuminate several critically important findings for the digital advertising community,” said Kirby Winfield, SVP of Corporate Development, comScore. “First, it once again demonstrates the perils of relying on click-throughs for measuring the performance of display ad campaigns, with this metric showing virtually zero correlation with total conversions. Secondly, it highlights why the viewable impression – which is now easily measurable through vCE – is significantly more meaningful than the unvalidated impression. Finally, this study shows why other non-click metrics of engagement, such as interaction or hovering, may be much more important in evaluating campaign performance than the click ever was. It’s time to start measuring the impact of campaigns using metrics that really matter, not just the ones that are most easily measured.”

The Pretarget analysis supports several third party studies with consistent conclusions. MediaMind “2009 Benchmark Report” released in July 2010 found that “on average, increasing Dwell [hover] from 5% to 15%, increases conversion rate by 45%, from 0.4% to 0.6%.” Casale Media’s 2011 “Ad Visibility Report,” found that “ads appearing above the fold were 6.7x more effective at generating conversions than those appearing below the fold.”

Pretarget previously found that approximately 89 percent of display ads on its network load above the fold or appear after a user scrolls down, creating an opportunity for a user to see the banner. Pretarget’s position paper is available for download at http://www.pretarget.com

To participate in additional research as part of a broader study, please contact info@pretarget.com

*The Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) defines “in-view” as 50%+ of the pixels of an ad being visible in the browser, and comScore vCE adheres to this definition for its typical definition of “in-view”. The Pretarget studies, however, used a more conservative in-view requirement of 75% visibility.

About Pretarget
Pretarget offers keyword based intent ad targeting using patented and patent-pending internet search and behavioral algorithms that reach users “ahead of the click”. Pretarget’s hybrid contextual-behavioral targeting complements existing search and retargeting campaigns with custom keyword based segmentation. No site tagging is needed. Pretarget is well suited for online advertisers who have maxed out search, find site retargeting offers little scale, are fiercely competitive and see the value of an ad impression.

About comScore validated Campaign Essentials (vCE)
vCE is a holistic solution for complete campaign delivery validation and in-flight optimization. Unlike existing single-point solutions, vCE provides an unduplicated accounting of impressions delivered across a variety of dimensions, such as ads delivered in-view, to the right audience, in the right geography, in a brand safe environment and absent of fraudulent delivery. vCE reports on reach and frequency, comprehensive demographics and behavioral segments. This measurement eliminates all impressions that never had a chance to make an impact, providing a more realistic and accurate picture of campaign delivery.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

NEEDHAM, Mass. – In4mation Insights (www.in4ins.com) announced that its co-founders and partners Mark Garratt and Steve Cohen, along with Dr. Rafael Alcaraz, Vice President, Global Analytics, The Hershey Company (www.thehersheycompany.com), will be presenting at the ESOMAR World Congress, taking place in Amsterdam from September 18-21, 2011.

Messrs. Garratt, Cohen and Alcaraz are participating in the “Achieving ROI through Superior Modeling” track and will be presenting “From brilliant to actionable – it takes technical brilliance and constant questioning to achieve the truly actionable in Marketing ROI”.

This presentation will describe the collaboration between The Hershey Company and In4mation Insights to revolutionize how marketing ROI is modeled and how its results are spread throughout an organization. This is an ongoing engagement where optimization requires that we constantly adapt to changes in the marketplace, macroeconomics and internal priorities.

The development of new-to-the-world Bayesian statistical methods, coupled with scalable and speedy software run using parallel processing on the “cloud”, will be addressed. Results have then been placed in a marketing enterprise-wide simulation model, where the findings have been pressure-tested by senior executives. The presentation will document how a close relationship between a savvy client and advanced modelers led to groundbreaking results.

“We continue to be inspired by the possibilities of integrating Bayesian analytics and the optimization of marketing mix on the largest possible scale, and against an increasing awareness of understanding of the interdependencies in data,” said Mark Garratt.

About In4mation Insights

In4mation Insights is an internationally recognized firm in the marketing research and analytics field and is known for its industry-leading theoretical and practical leadership and advanced technology. The firm’s practice leaders each have more than 30 years experience in consumer research, data analytics, modeling and technology to deliver answers related to Pricing, Marketing ROI, New Product Development, Market Structure and Consumer & Market Segmentation. One of the firm’s key differentiating capabilities is the use of Bayesian techniques, which enhance the potential value of consumer and market data. The firm has a global footprint and has worked with a number of Fortune 200 companies; their experience includes industries such as consumer goods, IT, Telecom, Financial Services, and Media.

For more information, please visit www.in4ins.com.

Partnership with OptiMine Enables Search Marketers to Significantly Increase Paid Search Performance

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ:ADBE) today announced that Adobe® SearchCenter+, a comprehensive search marketing management system within the Adobe Online Marketing Suite, has added keyword performance predictive analytics through a partnering agreement with OptiMine Software, Inc. This agreement will enable search marketers to achieve significant increases in paid search performance (i.e. higher return on ad spend, increased leads, higher conversion rates, increased revenue, greater profit per keyword, etc.). Tests done with search marketers using OptiMine’s keyword modeling have shown improved performance of 25 percent or more.

“Digital marketers are examining their paid search spend in the context of many other digital channels, like social, display and email,” said John Mellor, vice president of business development, Omniture Business Unit, Adobe. “Having the ability to predict the return on paid search becomes critically important when deciding on marketing mix and budget allocation. SearchCenter+ helps our customers spend their paid search budget on keywords that will impact the metrics most important to their business.”

The addition of OptiMine predictive keyword analytics to SearchCenter+ is particularly powerful for Adobe customers because SearchCenter+ captures the actual performance of each keyword in every one of the customer’s paid search campaigns. The OptiMine algorithms will now leverage SearchCenter+ keyword performance data, giving these algorithms a highly valuable data source to more accurately predict keyword performance and automatically generate optimal bids accordingly. Adobe customers can begin adding this new feature to their SearchCenter+ contracts immediately.

“We are delighted to partner with Adobe SearchCenter+ and believe the relationship validates the significant customer returns generated through our unique ability to automatically model every keyword,” said Jim Moar, chief executive officer, OptiMine. “The integration of our automated bid optimization coupled with SearchCenter+’s robust data will enable Adobe’s Online Marketing Suite customers to be even more successful.”

About the Adobe Online Marketing Suite

The Adobe Online Marketing Suite, powered by Omniture®, offers an integrated and open platform for online business optimization, a strategy for using customer insight to drive innovation throughout the business and enhance marketing efficiency. The Suite consists of integrated applications to collect and unleash the power of customer insight to optimize customer acquisition, conversion and retention efforts as well as the creation and distribution of content. For example, using the Suite, marketers can identify the most effective marketing strategies and ad placements as well as create relevant, personalized and consistent customer experiences across digital marketing channels, such as onsite, display, email, social, video and mobile. The Suite enables marketers to make quick adjustments, automate certain customer interactions and better maximize marketing ROI, which, ultimately, can positively impact the bottom line.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

Company’s cross-media measurement solutions bridge gaps in traditional ad performance measurement to deliver faster, more accurate consumer insights

SAN FRANCISCO – Symphony Advanced Media, part of the Symphony Technology Group (STG), has announced their recent company launch. Symphony Advanced Media (SymphonyAM) provides cross-media advertising performance analytics and consumer insights to empower brand advertisers to make more efficient media allocation and segmentation decisions and track the performance of their live campaigns for a higher return on investment (ROI) on their media spend.

“As new media platforms emerge, brand leaders must navigate an increasingly complex array of options to engage and influence consumers. It’s more imperative than ever for marketers to fully understand how their media investments—strategically and down to the campaign level—are impacting their brand value and bottom line,” said SymphonyAM CEO Manish Bhatia. “SymphonyAM enables advertisers to get the full value out of their media investments with the right set of fast, actionable, granular insights.”

SymphonyAM recently expanded with the acquisition of San Francisco-based Factor Technology Group, a leading provider of advertising effectiveness measurement. Founded in 1999, FactorTG has executed more than 5,000,000 brand effectiveness surveys for global clients across the media, agency, automotive, CPG, financial services and pharmaceutical categories.

“Over the last two years, we have developed a great partnership with FactorTG to help our clients measure and optimize their advertising effectiveness,” noted Paul A. Pereira, vice president of analytics & search engine marketing at Hill Holiday. “We look forward to expanding this relationship and leveraging SymphonyAM’s access to even more consumer insights data.”

“SymphonyAM provides us with critical insights to help us understand the delivery and accountability of our direct-to-consumer media mix,“ said Pamela Stewart, director of consumer market research at Shire Pharmaceuticals. “We are pleased that FactorTG is now part of the larger Symphony Advanced Media organization and we are looking forward to a strengthened partnership.”

SymphonyAM’s advertising effectiveness measurement solutions utilize a unique methodological approach to combine qualitative consumer data with robust quantitative data. The result provides relevant and comprehensive insights about cross-media campaign performance—even on very short, live campaigns. This methodology enables SymphonyAM to address key shortcomings commonly found in traditional advertising measurement approaches, such as slow reporting and the inability to measure low-weight media.

SymphonyAM’s leadership team is comprised of seasoned executives from television, Internet, mobile, social media and consumer research organizations. SymphonyAM is headquartered in Palo Alto and San Francisco, CA, with offices in Princeton, New Jersey and New York City.

About Symphony Advanced Media

Symphony Advanced Media helps clients optimize their integrated channel strategies and media options to rapidly improve campaign performance, increase efficiency and drive more consumer response.

SymphonyAM’s analytics solutions combine behavioral data and survey-based solutions to provide actionable strategic insights on advertising performance across all media, including online, TV and mobile. Clients include leading global brand advertisers in the media, automotive, financial services, pharmaceutical, consumer packaged goods and telecom industries. Learn more about SymphonyAM at www.symphonyam.com.

SymphonyAM is part of part of Symphony Technology Group (STG), the global leader in marketing intelligence whose portfolio of companies include Symphony IRI, Teleca, and EYC.

“BuzzPlanner” helps advertisers instantly improve brand metrics and ROI at scale, leveraging online conversations with custom, rich and standard media placements

Enhanced input – system upgrades include the ability to analyze specific brand goals and translate them into conversation targets that deliver greater ROI
Improved output – plans not only define the best URLs to advertise on, but now includes the ability to scale, as well as to identify the opportunity size and additional conversation target opportunities

SAN FRANCISCO – BuzzLogic, an online media company that improves brand metrics and ROI through its scaleable media index and analytics platform, has upgraded BuzzPlanner, its conversational media planner and key buying component of its online advertising platform. Updates to BuzzPlanner include the ability to: 1) input specific brand goals which generate hundreds of URLs that can be targeted with ads, 2) optimize the placements according to conversation change metrics, and 3) scale the media plan to maximize return.

After inputting a query based around specific audience and campaign objectives, the planning module intelligently ranks and outputs hundreds of URLs for targeted ad placement, which the company then places on behalf of the brand. BuzzPlanner also allows the company’s media team to optimize during the campaign as it uncovers more dense, relevant and higher reach conversations to greatly improve ROI.

For example, a consumer package goods (CPG) company looked to target a seasonal product to audiences nostalgic about autumn. After utilizing BuzzLogic’s index and analytics module to identify the genesis of relevant discussions around autumn, the BuzzPlanner then generated a customized media plan to reach millions of potential customers across several hundred URLs. Specifically, BuzzPlanner found both traditional autumn sites around holidays, as well as those pointed toward Fall TV show premieres, football and leaf peeping. Once the plan was implemented, the campaign was optimized. The BuzzLogic program was the highest performing element of the brand’s buy based around this campaign.

“We did business with more than 70 of the Fortune 1000 companies last year providing them the ability to improve ROI through our integrated solution using conversational metrics as our levers of optimization,” said Dave Hills, BuzzLogic’s CEO. “In a world where all content is social and conversations take place throughout the visible Web, the improvements to BuzzPlanner help scale and optimize media plans and buys for the highest return.”

BuzzLogic can uniquely produce and place a customized, horizontal media plan across the visible web reaching 208 million people, according to Comscore. The company’s proprietary tech platform utilizes indexing and ranking, versus cookies or other user targeting techniques.

About BuzzLogic

BuzzLogic’s proprietary index of content, unique analytics and scalable media capabilities enables brands to identify, impact and measure increases to their online brand persuasion. The company’s all-in-one technology platform combines indexing and analytics to determine which conversations are most critical to advertisers; it allows for scaleable media placements using standard rich media and custom ad units, and ensures the greatest return via optimization and reporting.

BuzzLogic’s clientele includes Proctor & Gamble, Toyota, Best Buy, PlayStation, Microsoft, and Starbucks. BuzzLogic is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.buzzlogic.com.

NEW YORK – Online targeting platform leader [x+1], www.xplusone.com, announced it has promoted Leon Zemel to the position of Chief Analytics Officer and Greg Pier, to that of Senior Vice President, Platform Implementation and Production Support. Zemel had been Executive Vice President, Analytics, and Pier had been Vice President, Product Management.

Zemel, who came to [x+1] in 2004 from Digitas, has led the company’s analytics practice and been the innovator of [x+1]’s analytic offerings for site personalization and media optimization, including the development of its patented Predictive Optimization Engine (POE™). In this expanded role, Zemel is charged with leading the expansion and enhancement of the company’s multi-touchpoint analytics offerings, including cross-channel attribution (search, display, e-mail, etc.), audience targeting and optimization in emerging digital channels (e.g., social, mobile, video), and leveraging the Open Data Bridge for integrated third-party and first-party data.

Pier, a former Doubleclick executive who also came to [x+1] in 2004, will oversee development of the Media Platform for both pre-purchased and exchange-based digital media. The Platform enables a single point of management for all campaign buys and allows one-click access to bidding on exchange-based inventory. It also connects to all available biddable inventory, ensuring that ads are shown to a company’s target audience and purchased at the right price to deliver the most efficient media buy possible.

“Because we recognize the critical importance of our robust analytics and our Media Platform, we will continue to grow our teams around the ways that will best help clients expand their business,” said John Nardone, Chairman and CEO of [x+1]. “Given their deep expertise and service focus, as well as their industry savvy, no two people are more suited to lead this charge than Leon and Greg. We look for great things as they help [x+1] continue to set the standard in shaping a more personalized Internet as the leading online targeting platform.”

About [x+1]

[x+1], the online targeting platform leader, maximizes the return on marketing investment (ROI) of websites and digital media using its patented targeting technology. Providing the first end-to-end digital marketing platform for advertisers and agencies, it optimizes engagement rates and lift conversion in both media and on websites. Its predictive marketing solutions enable automated, real-time decision making and personalization so the right advertisement and content is delivered to the right person at the right time. Top companies in financial services, telecommunications, online services and travel have significantly increased the performance of their digital marketing using the services of [x+1]. The company is headquartered in New York City. For more information, please visit www.xplusone.com; follow us on twitter @xplusone.

Leading Trade Groups Take on Top Industry Challenge; Bain & Company and MediaLink engaged to support the effort

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – Three advertising trade groups have launched a major initiative to lead the industry in developing digital metrics and cross platform measurement solutions, with the goal of enhancing marketing and media management decision-making. The announcement was made during IAB’s fourth Annual Leadership Meeting, Ecosystem 2.0: The People vs. Data, at La Quinta Resort & Club, where leaders across the digital media landscape have converged to address the most critical issues facing the industry.

The initiative entitled “Making Measurement Make Sense” is a joint undertaking of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) and the 4A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies). These organizations, which represent the entire value chain in marketing and advertising, have engaged the management consulting firm Bain & Company and the strategic advisory firm MediaLink, to support the initiative.

The absence of a consistent approach to measuring and assessing the effects of digital media has resulted in a cacophony of competing and contradictory measurement systems, contributing to a complex and costly supply chain for the industry. “Making Measurement Make Sense” has three primary objectives:

- Define standard metrics and measurement systems that are transparent and consistent to simplify the planning, buying and evaluating of digital media:
- Analyzing the current digital measurement situation from a business perspective
- Defining a common currency for measuring online exposures
- Developing generally accepted standards for brand impact measurement online
- Creating an effective methodology for cross media measurement
- Drive industry consensus around the solutions:
- Gaining stakeholder input and driving consensus around the solution
- Engaging industry leaders to champion the measurement process
- Establish a measurement governance model which encompasses:
- Creating a structure for an ongoing measurement governing body
- Establishing a governance and standards-setting process
- Developing an implementation plan for the roll-out of metrics, standards and management structure

“As more consumers have migrated to digital media, marketers have sought to follow them by deploying interactive campaigns,” said Sherrill Mane, SVP Industry Services, IAB. “The ‘Making Measurement Make Sense’ initiative gives the industry the opportunity to understand how to follow and connect with the consumers targeted by these campaigns, and how to measure both within digital and across media platforms.”

“It is indeed time for the industry leaders to develop a ‘currency’ that is widely and consistently accepted and adopted,” said Bob Liodice, President and CEO, ANA. “Online media has an abundance of metrics, but none that serve as currency across the ecosystem. This process will allow the industry to use consistent measurements to evaluate a program’s return.”

“The leading marketing and media trade organizations have united to spearhead an ecosystem-wide solution to many of the critical issues in measurement,” said Nancy Hill, President-CEO, 4A’s. “The confusion in this area has added costs to advertising agencies, which have been forced to use, subsidize and staff around increasing numbers of metrics and data in order to plan, purchase and post-analyze their media buys. This initiative will streamline and simplify those processes.”

Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has joined the “Making Measurement Make Sense” initiative as a supporter, and outreach to the rest of the advertising ecosystem is ongoing.

This initiative is intended to expand and accelerate the work done to date by the IAB and the Media Rating Council (MRC), which have developed some standards for digital measurement including Audience Reach Measurement Guidelines and Click Measurement Guidelines.

About the IAB

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is comprised of more than 500 leading media and technology companies who are responsible for selling 86% of online advertising in the United States. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. The IAB educates marketers, agencies, media companies and the wider business community about the value of interactive advertising. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising. Founded in 1996, the IAB is headquartered in New York City with a Public Policy office in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.iab.net.

About the ANA

Founded in 1910, the ANA (Association of National Advertisers) leads the marketing community by providing its members with insights, collaboration, and advocacy. ANA’s membership includes 400 companies with 9,000 brands that collectively spend over $250 billion in marketing communications and advertising. The ANA strives to communicate marketing best practices, lead industry initiatives, influence industry practices, manage industry affairs, and advance, promote, and protect all advertisers and marketers. For more information, visit www.ana.net, follow us on Twitter, join us on Facebook, or visit our YouTube channel.

About the 4A’s

The 4A’s is the national trade association of the advertising agency business. Its membership comprises virtually all of the large, multinational agencies and hundreds of small and mid-sized agencies from across the country. The 1,200 member agency offices served by the 4A’s employ 65,000 people; offer a wide range of marketing communications services, and place 80 percent of all national advertising. The management-oriented association founded in 1917 helps its members build their businesses, and acts as the industry’s spokesperson with government, media, and the public sector. For more information, visit the 4A’s Web site at www.aaaa.org.

Paves the Way for Facebook ROI Monitoring by Launching the Market’s First Ever Solution for Measuring the Impact of Fans

SOPHIA ANTIPOLIS, France – How much does recruiting Facebook fans really cost? What real benefits can a business gain from it? What is the true value of a fan over time? These are just a few of many legitimate questions that until now were difficult or impossible to answer. Reactivpub has transformed the measurement of Facebook ROI by launching the first solution for monitoring the performance of Facebook fans.

For any business or advertiser, the interest to be present on a social network such as Facebook lies primarily in the recruitment of fans who are, in essence, hot prospects or loyal customers with a real influence on the brand. But what company ever dreamed it would be possible to analyze the effectiveness of its Facebook fan recruitment with its existing acquisition with a single solution? How many advertisers have ever wished they could measure the actual profit attributed to its presence on Facebook? For the first time ever, Reactivpub makes this all possible and allows the recruitment of Facebook fans to become an easily measurable customer acquisition and retention mechanism directly comparable with other online recruitment tools (emailing, coregistration, media campaigns, quizzes, etc.). This innovation is based on the R-Tracking tracking technology built into Reactivpub, which assigns a unique identifier (or RUID) to any user exposed to an advertising message, whatever the delivery medium – website, emailing, or social media. Just like a genetic marker, the RUID not only enables the identification of new fans of a given brand or advertiser in the same way as with classic recruitment, but it also tracks their value over time.

For brands, the prospects are enormous. For example, for acquisition purposes, Reactivpub uses membership as leverage for fan recruitment by offering a pay per performance compensation, the CPF (Cost Per Fan) advertising model in addition to the more conventional CPL (Cost Per Lead), CPS (Cost Per Sale), CPC (Cost Per Click) and CPM (cost per thousand views) models. With over 500 million Facebook users worldwide and a penetration rate in France that surpasses 30%*, the CPF offers tremendous potential for recruiting loyal prospects for a brand, which is characterized by a strong recommendation power (more than one person out of two is more inclined to buy a branded product or to visit a specific store if one of his friends is a fan of that brand or store). Moreover, as opposed to a qualified email address, the fan does not incur any additional operating costs, like routing fees for example. The CPF could very well in fact herald the dawn of a revolution in online recruitment methods.

Last but not least, among other benefits, Reactivpub also enables brands to measure the actual conversion (generated sales, registrations, traffic) from fans recruited on the Reactivpub network and monitoring installation of Facebook applications and impact on conversions. So many possibilities for developing a real Social Shopping strategy.

* Source:Facebook.

About Reactivpub
Reactivpub, the leading affiliate network in France and throughout Europe, is a global solution for performance marketing and a technology allowing advertisers and agencies to maximise the ROI of their online marketing efforts and enabling publishers to increase the yield of their advertising inventory. An expert of ROI and multichannel online acquisition, Reactivpub reaches more than 35 million* unique visitors in Europe and provides on-going innovations for its clients through new acquisition and tracking technology.
Reactivpub is a division of “R”, Europe’s performance marketing specialist.

www.reactivpub.com – presse@r-advertising.com

* Source : Reactivpub november 2010

About “R”
R designs innovative performance marketing solutions which allow companies to boost the sales of their products and services online, providing them with the interactive tools they need to scale their online business. R’s global expertise is grounded on his knowledge and experience within the main sectors of online marketing :

Performance marketing
Behavioral email marketing
Worldwide traffic sources
Websites, Optin databases, social media marketing
SaaS technology
This strategy is backed by the awarding of certifications and labels (Sender Score, Surety Mail, Yahoo Third Party Ad Server) that highlight the quality of R products and services and strengthen a lasting relationship with partners.

CJ PayPerCall Drives Millions in Commissions and Revenue for Advertisers and Publishers.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Commission Junction, a division of ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK), has brought online shoppers offers and deals from the internet’s largest retailers for more than 10 years. However, as prevalent as online buying is, most consumers still prefer to buy high-ticket, more consultative products and services offline. According to the August 2009 Harris Interactive Poll, 54% of online consumers want human interaction before making big-ticket purchases. The Commission Junction PayPerCall service is a solution that accommodates this cross channel buying behavior, when a customer browses online or offline but completes the sale over the phone.

PayPerCall provides marketers a simple way to use unique, trackable, phone numbers in all forms of media to attribute calls to various channels such as mobile, television, print, search, display, coupons, email and blogs. Marketers have several tools at their disposal to manage the return on investment of their campaigns such as payout based on time of day, IVR routing, originating phone numbers, and SMS opt-ins.

One of the benefits of PayPerCall is that it gives consumers the option to call for a consultation while giving advertisers an opportunity for an upsell. Given that calls convert on average 20-50% of the time, companies can stop thinking of call centers as being cost centers, but as potential revenue drivers.

“We have found that there is a whole new segment of publishers who are very adept at driving calls. Our PayPerCall program has introduced us to new publishers that we were previously not working with,” said Jarrett Embry, Director of Affiliate Marketing at Gen3. “In fact, about 70% of publishers participating in our PayPerCall program are not duplicative of our affiliate partners. Due to the nature of a call – we have seen significantly higher conversion rates on PayPerCall campaigns than with our online campaigns. Callers are more ready to buy, whereas online shoppers are often just browsing.”

Publishers specializing in mobile and offline are also seeing success with PayPerCall. Mobile Posse is one such company who, through driving high quality calls to advertisers, is earning significant income. “Our mobile campaigns through CJ’s PayPerCall program have been very effective,” said Jon Jackson, CEO for Mobile Posse. “Our engagement rates are consistently in the double digits often averaging well above 15%. Consequently, our conversion rates are very high, which translates to more revenue for our advertising partners.”

“During the past 12 months, CJ has focused heavily on building out a broad publisher base that knows how to drive quality calls for advertisers,” said Kerri Pollard, General Manager of Commission Junction. “We believe PayPerCall has the ability to help marketers drive a significant amount of incremental revenue given the higher conversion rate of calls. We are looking forward to helping our customers earn more by expanding their cross channel marketing initiatives on a performance basis.”

Advertisers looking to convert more consumer calls or publishers wanting to help drive calls, click here to sign up for PayPerCall. For more information, give us a call at 800-761-1072.

About Commission Junction

Commission Junction (www.cj.com) provides advanced performance marketing solutions that help marketers increase online leads and sales. By facilitating strategic relationships between advertisers and publishers, Commission Junction leverages its proven expertise in affiliate marketing to drive measurable results for clients.

About ValueClick, Inc.

ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK) is one of the world’s largest online marketing services companies, offering comprehensive and scalable solutions to deliver cost-effective customer acquisition for advertisers and robust revenue streams for publishers. ValueClick’s performance-based solutions allow customers to reach their potential through multiple online marketing channels, including affiliate and search marketing, display advertising, lead generation, ad serving and e-mail technology, and comparison shopping. ValueClick brands include Commission Junction, ValueClick Media, Mediaplex, Smarter.com, Coupon Mountain and Investopedia. For more information, visit www.valueclick.com.

New study proves the power of hyperlocal online ad targeting in driving sales

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced the launch of Yahoo! AdLabs, a group focused on providing scientific leadership to the industry and accelerating innovation in digital advertising products through Yahoo! Labs (http://labs.yahoo.com/), one of the world’s premier industrial research organizations.

“Yahoo! Labs has been instrumental in developing Yahoo!’s advertising products, laying a foundation of scientific research and innovative data analysis, supporting everything from the world’s most advanced display advertising marketplace to the world’s most effective ad targeting capabilities,” said Dr. Prabhakar Raghavan, Yahoo!’s chief scientist and head of Yahoo! Labs. “AdLabs will build on this success and break new ground in combining scientific rigor with a deep understanding of the practical needs of marketers.”

Since its founding in 2005, Yahoo! Labs has produced powerful studies on online advertising, created the new scientific discipline of Computational Advertising, and generated numerous insights into consumer behavior and advertising metrics (see addendum for a sample of recent projects).

With the launch of AdLabs, Yahoo! also released the latest results of its breakthrough, multi-part study of online advertising in the retail industry, that uses a controlled experiment conducted at unprecedented scale to quantify the effects of one of the most important new levers available to online marketers in 2011, hyperlocal ad targeting. The results included:

- Hyperlocal targeting of a retail display campaign generated more than five times return-on-ad-spend, measured by sales lift at the retailer.
- 75% of the total return in this phase of the study was generated by in-store purchases.
- Customers who live within two miles of one of the retailer’s stores represented 10.6% of the audience seeing the ads, but generated 56% of the revenue.
- Return-on-ad-spend was four times the spend for customers living within five miles of a store, and 21 times the spend for customers living within two miles of a store.

“Successful campaigns change perceptions about brands and increase sales. Marketers need new, breakthrough, scientifically-tested methodologies to drive these important metrics,” said Ken Mallon, vice president and head of Yahoo! AdLabs. “Yahoo! has the scale to measure the impact of many campaigns and the breadth of expertise to produce the new models and innovations that will move the digital advertising industry forward.”

“As media models fragment, so too do the models for understanding their effectiveness. At the same time, with more people doing more online and ad spend going up, marketers need answers more than ever,” said Ted McConnell, executive vice president, Advertising Research Foundation. “Yahoo!, with its diverse but integrated palette of options, provides a great Petri dish for experimenting with new measures. I, for one, am delighted that Yahoo! is taking this challenge head on, and I feel certain the entire industry will benefit.”

For more information on Yahoo! AdLabs, please visit the Yahoo! Advertising blog (http://www.yadvertisingblog.com/blog/).

At Yahoo! Labs Winter Science Week on February 1-4, 2011, Yahoo! gathered the company’s leading scientists to examine the most important trends and questions about the future of the Web. Research at the event showcased the company’s expertise in the field of online marketing and advertising – most notably in Yahoo!’s ability to rigorously measure and quantify the effects of advertising.

Highlighted topics include:

Location, Location, Location: Understanding the Effectiveness of Online Advertising in Driving In-Store Retail Sales – Using a clinical trial-like methodology never before conducted at true Internet scale (more than 3 million users), this multi-part, ongoing study quantifies the return on investment of online advertising campaigns. The most recent results focused on the impact of hyperlocal targeting on in-store and online sales, finding that hyperlocal targeting of a retail display campaign generated more than five times return-on-ad-spend, with 75% of the total return generated by in-store purchases.

Birds of a Feather, Shop Together – Measuring the extent to which friends’ behaviors predicts your own, this study found that in several consumer domains the effect is substantial, complementing traditional demographic and behavioral predictors.

Reach, Frequency, and Relevance – This study examined the impact of frequency, or number of times someone is exposed to an ad, on user engagement. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the experiment, conducted on the Yahoo! homepage, found that individuals are just as likely to click on the 20th impression as they would the first impression.

The Demographics of Web Surfing – This project examined the demographic composition of the top 100,000 domains on the Web, finding numerous prominent sites to have highly homogeneous audiences, which allowed researchers to uncover insights into consumer behavior.

Ad Relevance and Context – This eye-tracking study revealed that the relationship between editorial content on a webpage and the content of an advertisement has a direct effect on the amount of time a person spends looking at an advertisement. Further, when the editorial and advertising content are related, ad recall also increased.

Who Searches for What and How? – In a paper to be released at the 2011 WSDM Conference in Hong Kong, Yahoo! Labs conducted an in-depth segmentation analysis of an anonymous query log of 2.3 million Yahoo! users to evaluate and identify online search behavior in terms of who users might be (demographics), what they search for (query topics), and how they search (session analysis). A sampling of the full results revealed that:
- People with higher educational levels made fewer navigational queries.
- Searches related to actors and actresses were about three times higher in L.A. than in any other region.
- San Francisco had the highest percentage of travel queries out of any region.

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO) is an innovative technology company that operates the largest digital media, content, and communications business in the world. Yahoo! keeps more than half a billion consumers worldwide connected to what matters to them most, and delivers powerful audience solutions to advertisers through its unique combination of Science + Art + Scale. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit the pressroom (pressroom.yahoo.com) or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com).

Digital media specialists from Advanced Technology Ventures, RightMedia and Direct Channels Group will help drive product direction, development

NEW YORK – Online targeting platform leader [x+1], www.xplusone.com, announced it has hired a new product management team in order to more aggressively pursue its product development roadmap and help its major brand clients achieve still greater results from their digital marketing initiatives. The hiring comes on the heels of [x+1]’s recent $10 million Series C funding round, led by Intel Capital.

The new product management team – Tom Caputo, John Hutchison and Maggie Neuwald – will work closely with [x+1]’s engineering and operations teams to coordinate and communicate the company’s development efforts and deployments.

Caputo comes to [x+1] from Advanced Technology Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund with more than $1.5 billion under management. While there, he led investments in digital media and enterprise software, and was part of the team that drove ATV’s investment in [x+1]; he has been actively involved with [x+1]’s Board of Directors since 2008. Prior to ATV, Caputo was Microsoft’s Windows Group Product Manager, where he led the team responsible for defining Windows 7 Developer platform requirements and for driving ecosystem initiatives to support Microsoft’s Windows Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partners.

Hutchison had been Vice President of Technology at customer dialog agency Direct Channels Group, where he was responsible for Statements of Work, vendor management, analysis and documentation of all technology initiatives. Before that, he was Director of SaaS Operations and Compliance at corporate social network provider SelectMinds, where he was responsible for moving its organization to a Software as a Service business model.

Previously, Neuwald was Director of Optimization for Yahoo’s Right Media, managing the ad exchange company’s optimization department. Her team provided managed services and consulting to internal and external clients on enterprise-level analytics systems, data analysis services, and campaign optimization. She also worked with advertisers, agencies, demand-side platforms (DSPs) and publishers on their approach to data-driven media strategy and audience insights. Before that, she was a consultant with Right Media’s advertiser professional services team.

“This is an exciting time to be involved in the online advertising space, with growing investments in digital media and ever-expanding opportunities to help enterprises make those dollars more impactful,” said John Nardone, Chairman and CEO of [x+1]. “That is why we’re thrilled to bring on people of the caliber of Tom, John and Maggie, who can immediately apply their experience and skillsets to help us drive innovation, deliver results and stay on our robust growth trajectory.”

About [x+1]

[x+1], the online targeting platform leader, maximizes the return on marketing investment (ROI) of websites and digital media using its patented targeting technology. Providing the first end-to-end Digital Marketing Hub for advertisers and agencies, it optimizes engagement rates and lift conversion in both media and on websites. Its predictive marketing solutions enable automated, real-time decision making and personalization so the right advertisement and content is delivered to the right person at the right time. Top companies in financial services, telecommunications, online services and travel have significantly increased the performance of their digital marketing using the services of [x+1]. The company is headquartered in New York City. For more information, please visit www.xplusone.com; follow us on twitter @xplusone.

Latest Investment Will Enable Expansion of [x+1]’s Digital Marketing Hub That Empowers Marketers and Agencies to Reach Customers and Prospects across All Digital Touchpoints

NEW YORK – Online targeting platform leader [x+1] announced it has closed a $10 million Series B funding round led by Intel Capital, the global investment organization of Intel Corp. Existing investors Advanced Technology Ventures, Blue Chip Venture Company and Hudson Venture Partners also participated. The funding will be used to support [x+1]’s growth initiatives centered on its digital marketing hub, which empowers multi-channel audience targeting at scale.

“[x+1] has set the standard for excellence in end-to-end digital media targeting technology,” said Lisa Lambert, Vice President of Intel Capital. “We are excited to work with [x+1] to accelerate the adoption of their media software services and to expand their international reach.”

“Intel Capital’s investment reflects our ability to continually expand our client base among marketers and agencies and to develop new breakthrough solutions that deliver measurable results,” said John Nardone, [x+1]‘s chairman and CEO. “We are now in a great position to expand our growth initiatives. 2011 will be a big year for us, and for our major Fortune 500 clients to improve the scale, performance and cost-effectiveness of their online marketing initiatives.”

Recent significant enhancements to [x+1]’s leading digital marketing hub empower customer contact strategies by synchronizing their messages anywhere people are accessing the internet, including websites, landing pages, email, video and mobile.

About [x+1]

[x+1], the online targeting platform leader, maximizes the return on marketing investment ROI) of websites and digital media using its patented targeting technology. Providing the first end-to-end Digital Marketing Hub for advertisers and agencies, it optimizes engagement rates and lift conversion in both media and on websites. Its predictive marketing solutions enable automated, real-time decision making and personalization so the right advertisement and content is delivered to the right person at the right time. Top companies in financial services, telecommunications, online services and travel have significantly increased the performance of their digital marketing using the services of [x+1]. The company is headquartered in New York City. For more information, please visit www.xplusone.com; follow us on twitter @xplusone.

About Intel Capital

Intel Capital, Intel’s global investment organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software and services targeting enterprise, home, mobility, health, consumer Internet, semiconductor manufacturing and cleantech. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$9.7 billion in over 1,100 companies in 48 countries. In that timeframe, 189 portfolio companies have gone public on various exchanges around the world and 258 were acquired or participated in a merger. In 2009, Intel Capital invested US$327 million in 107 investments with approximately 50 percent of funds invested outside the U.S. and Canada. For more information on Intel Capital and its differentiated advantages, visit www.intelcapital.com.

LONDON – The Fournaise Marketing Group, one of the global leaders in all-media marketing effectiveness tracking to maximise customer acquisition, analysed that 75% of the ad campaigns it tracked and tested at pre-launch level across 20 countries worldwide in 2010 achieved low effectiveness scores and had to be reworked because of:

(1) Poor ad appeal

(2) Poor message understanding

(3) Poor message relevance

(4) Poor likeliness to engage by the target audience

Fournaise uses its Next Generation Creative Effectiveness Tracking solution CampaignTester® and its proprietary Scorecard-based 9-KPI (Key Performance Indicators) Ad Performance Tracking methodology to measure the degree of potential effectiveness of its clients’ ad campaigns in full independence and neutrality – to help both clients and agencies identify what works and what does not, and take the relevant creative corrective action.

It identified two key reasons why these ad campaigns test-scored poorly and had to be seriously reworked to boost their effectiveness:

1) In 60% of the cases, the clients’ briefs were too loose, too weak and not sharp enough, setting the agencies for failure right from the start:

- The campaigns’ objectives were either too vague or unclear
- Unique selling or value propositions were non-existent or terribly plain
- Appealing customer benefits were totally missing or simply overlooked
- Irrelevant, incomplete or misinterpreted customer insights were used
- Look, feel and style were thought to be able to overcome the lack of content
- Over-reliance on the agency to come up with the big idea in spite of vague or unclear directions in the brief

2) In 40% of the cases, the agencies’ creative delivery was off-brief or simply not good enough to generate an effective impact on the target audience:

- Understanding of the needs and wants of the clients’ target audience was too superficial, not deep enough or too much based on gut-feelings
- Unique selling or value propositions were overlooked, and customer benefits were put aside, not listened to or not properly taken into account (deliberately or not)
- Planning and/or creative process was rushed
- Planning and creative teams were not working hand in hand enough and were often guilty of infighting
- Lack of creative open-mindedness, objectivity and self-analysis when it comes to feedback/directions from the client

“The ad campaigns that test-scored well in 2010 and that went on to be successfully deployed with high effectiveness levels were all based on the winning formula of precise and relevant customer insights, solid value propositions and appealing customer benefits expressed through excellent-quality creative executions,” says Jerome Fontaine, CEO & Chief Tracker of The Fournaise Marketing Group. “This winning formula is basic and is not new, but is too often forgotten or ignored by both clients and agencies,” he added.

About The Fournaise Marketing Group – The Customer Acquisition Maximiser™

Fournaise is one of the world’s leading Customer Acquisition Maximisation companies. Called by organisations when they want to acquire more customers to boost sales, its unique Marketing Tracking & Maximisation solutions enable them to track and maximise the real-time effectiveness of all their marketing campaigns to (1) push them to deliver better results and (2) boost their Marketing ROI. Fournaise’s portfolio of clients includes MNCs from the FORTUNE 500 group of companies, leading International Advertising Agencies and Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Its Marketing Tracking & Maximisation solutions have been activated in more than 20 countries worldwide across more than 13 vertical industries.

www.fournaisegroup.com

Yield Web Marketing Suite and Marchex Call Analytics Enable Advertisers to Optimize for Telephone Conversions

SAN MATEO, Calif. – Yield Software, a leading provider of next-generation online marketing technology, announced that it has integrated its flagship Yield Web Marketing Suite for Advertisers and for Agencies with Marchex Call Analytics (NASDAQ:MCHX). Advertisers and digital media agencies can now track and optimize sales and conversions from search engine pay-per-click (PPC) ads that result in a telephone call as opposed to an online transaction.

“For many online advertisers, a call to a telephone number is the conversion event inspired by their search engine ad,” said Matt Malden, founder and CEO of Yield Software. “By integrating with Marchex, the leader in call analytics, advertisers or their agencies managing campaigns in the Yield Web Marketing Suite are now able to effectively track and evaluate the efficacy of their PPC ads with a call conversion event.”

Advertisers increasingly find search engine marketing is effective at identifying and targeting users at the peak of their product interest. In many product and service categories, and for most businesses, a phone call is the best way to answer questions or complete transactions.

While PPC advertising has been historically associated with the ability to effectively track ROI on campaigns, those who’ve relied on telephone calls as the conversion event have often been frustrated at the inability to attribute those calls to the advertising source. The Yield Software–Marchex integration eliminates this ROI tracking gap for online advertising.

“As specialists in search and directional marketing for small and mid-size businesses, a disproportionate number of our clients rely on calls as their conversion event for PPC advertising,” said Michael Cody, Vice President of Directory Assistants Inc., a Yield Software client using the Yield Web Marketing Suite for Agencies. “Now we’re able to effectively manage PPC campaigns across Google, Yahoo! and Bing search engines on behalf of our clients while accurately attributing each conversion – no matter how those might occur – to the right campaign source.”

Using built-in reporting tools and analyses in the Yield Web Marketing Suite, both advertisers and agencies now have greater visibility into the impact of their marketing initiatives and can ensure they effectively leverage search engine marketing as a key component of their marketing mix.

The integration is available as part of the Yield Web Marketing Suite for Advertisers and the Yield Web Marketing Suite for Agencies. For more information, email sales@yieldsoftware.com.

About Yield Software

Yield Software (www.yieldsoftware.com) delivers next-generation online marketing technology. Its flagship product, the Yield Web Marketing Suite, is a fully automated, totally integrated search marketing system that optimizes paid search, natural search rankings and landing pages.

Axe Deodorant and Tetra Pak use “Social Mushroom” approach to drive awareness in key demographics, demonstrate ROI-

CHICAGO – JB Chicago, a Chicago-based integrated marketing agency, launched Social Mushroom – the industry’s first social networking tool that easily allows organizations to measure social media campaign success and drive Return on Investment (ROI). With its main focus on growing customer sales, Social Mushroom allows organizations to become established on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, while also driving and measuring ROI.

“Measuring campaign effectiveness has long been an obstacle of using social media,” said Steve Gaither, president, JB Chicago. “With Social Mushroom, organizations can ensure their social media efforts are reaching the right audiences and most importantly having a positive bottom-line impact on their organizations.”

Major brands such as Axe Deodorant and Tetra Pak have used the Social Mushroom approach to power their social media campaigns. Axe Deodorant used it as part of its “Tweet Me I’m Irish” campaign which led to more than 3.5 million Twitter impressions over 10 days. Tetra Pak, one of the world’s largest suppliers of packing systems for milk, fruit juices, drinks and other products, used the Social Mushroom approach for a social media campaign with Hershey’s, Organic Valley and the World Wildlife Fund. The campaign generated more than 112 million impressions and over 90,000 Hershey’s and Organic Valley Coupons were printed.

Social Mushroom allows companies to establish their brands on both Twitter and Facebook and increase followers. This allows organizations to improve customer satisfaction, drive prospects to their Web sites and ultimately increase sales. From Fortune 500 companies to small start-ups, Social Mushroom is ideal for any sized organization seeking to increase its presence within social media and increase sales.

JB Chicago has worked with other marketing agencies such as GMR, Dig Communications, Euro RSCG and Energy BBDO to help execute their client’s social media campaigns. JB Chicago offers a separate Social Mushroom agency model tailored for the unique needs of advertising and marketing firms.

Social Mushroom is available now. For more information, visit, www.socialmushroom.com.

About JB Chicago

JB Chicago was founded on the principle that agency marketing partners should be nimble, hands-on and versed in the business, aesthetics and technology of what drives business today. JB Chicago’s fresh ideas and strategic thinking help clients execute marketing programs that further develop businesses and brands both now and over time.

Focusing on the Chicago and Midwest regional market, the firm was founded as a graphic design house 10 years ago, then incorporated four years later. During that time JB Chicago has grown from a sole proprietorship to an integrated firm with multiple departments. For more information, visit, www.jbchicago.com.

BlueKai Intent Data Running on Rocket Fuel Drives Efficiency, Action and Engagement for Major Brands

REDWOOD SHORES, CA – Rocket Fuel Inc., the company bringing rocket science to display advertising, announced campaign results stemming from its strategic partnership with BlueKai, the largest source of online consumer intent data. Rocket Fuel leveraged BlueKai data to help build custom campaign-specific audience models and automatically tuned each campaign to the advertiser’s key metrics in real time — lowering cost per action and engagement metrics by an average of 43.75% versus other targeting methods.

As online inventory continues to grow and brand marketers look for more effective targeting, identifying scalable in-market audiences has increased in difficulty. Rocket Fuel simplifies the problem of testing multiple kinds of data to target the right audience through rapid testing and automation. The company is finding success by leveraging third-party data from companies like BlueKai and blending it with its own suite of targeting algorithms, analytics, expert analysis and real-time impression-level bidding to make both brand and direct response campaigns perform better.

“There’s an enormous amount of data available that can make it much easier and less costly to find your customers — the trick is having the horsepower to harness, analyze and act on it,” said Richard Frankel, president of Rocket Fuel Inc.
“When someone who matches a campaign’s intended audience enters our network, BlueKai data helps us recognize these intenders at scale and target them with the most relevant ad. But it doesn’t end there. Our response prediction engines are looking at BlueKai behavior across sites, geographies, and many other variables to find the ideal impressions. Turning their data into value for advertisers takes the kind of technology that Rocket Fuel has developed.”

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with a company like Rocket Fuel that brings out the true value of our data,” said Alex Hooshmand, senior vice president of global product & operations for BlueKai. “Rocket Fuel clearly understands how to leverage quality data to better target audiences and deliver outstanding data strategies for the brands running on their platform. When advertisers say that BlueKai data runs better on Rocket Fuel — you can honestly believe it.”

Rocket Fuel Optimized BlueKai Data Segments Versus Other Targeting Methods:

Autos — Using BlueKai data, Rocket Fuel achieved a 64% lower effective cost per action (eCPA) versus the second best performing targeting method. Typical actions include getting a price quote, downloading a brochure, configuring a vehicle or scheduling a test drive.

Retail — Using BlueKai data, Rocket Fuel achieved a 24% lower eCPA versus the second best targeting method. Typical actions include purchasing items, driving traffic to an online store or driving in-store sales.

Travel — Using BlueKai data, Rocket Fuel achieved a 37% lower eCPA versus the second best targeting method. Typical actions include booking a hotel room or airplane flight.

Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) — Using BlueKai data, Rocket Fuel lowered engagement costs by 50% versus the second best performing targeting method. Typical actions include increasing brand favorability, downloading a coupon, watching a video or spending time on a landing page.

George John, Rocket Fuel’s chief executive officer, said, “We continue to set records in terms of monthly revenue fueled by repeat business and incremental budget from great brands — and BlueKai is one of our key partners helping us achieve that traction in the market.”

About Rocket Fuel Inc.
Rocket Fuel Inc. is the company bringing rocket science to online display advertising. The company provides turnkey media and campaign management to deliver better results faster for major agencies and brand advertisers. Unlike self-serve platforms that burden media teams with learning new tools and executing complex campaigns manually, Rocket Fuel makes it easier — not harder — for advertisers to efficiently find and buy their target audiences. And unlike ad networks whose value-add is in a cobbled collection of sites or audiences, Rocket Fuel’s data-driven advertising technology builds a custom campaign-specific audience model and automatically tunes campaigns to an advertiser’s key metrics — whether their objectives are brand-oriented or performance driven. If you can measure it, Rocket Fuel can optimize it. The Silicon Valley-based company was founded by veterans from Yahoo!, DoubleClick, Epiphany and salesforce.com. Rocket Fuel was named Best Startup for 2010 by the San Francisco Business Times. For more information visit www.rocketfuelinc.com.

About BlueKai
BlueKai created the world’s largest and highest quality online intent data exchange to better connect advertisers with their target consumers online. BlueKai aggregates valuable shopping and research activities across the Internet, offering non-personally identifiable actionable data to marketers, ad networks, and publishers on over 200 million retail, travel, auto, education and financial product shoppers online. In addition, through strategic partnerships with top-tier data providers — who earn revenue in a privacy friendly way — the BlueKai Exchange gives marketers access to over 10,000+ combinations of intent, demographic, geographic, lifestyle, B2B data and additional segments. The privately held company is based in Bellevue, WA, and is a recipient of the AlwaysOn 2009 OnMedia 100 award as a Technology Innovator in Advertising, and the OnMedia 100 Top Private Companies. More information can be found at http://www.bluekai.com.

Tool enables advertisers to optimize media spend based on weighted beacons and transactional data

Redwood City, CA. – Turn Inc., the industry’s only end-to-end platform for managing data-driven digital advertising, today announced the release of the ROI Optimizer. The tool optimizes media spend against weighted consumer events online as well as values like shopping cart transactional data. For the first time advertisers can now effectively measure and optimize multi-event conversion strategies within a single campaign.

“A consumer’s path online can be circuitous and uniquely their own,” said Eric Anderson, VP of Operations, Trading Desk at Omnicom Group. “Because of this, it’s been difficult to effectively optimize for ROI when a conversion can involve several events and various values.”

For example, without the ability to optimize against transactional data, a customer who makes a purchase of $10 would be equally valued as a customer who converted for $1,000. In both instances a shopping cart beacon would record a single conversion with no distinction to dollar amount. Similarly, for automotive brands a conversion for downloading a car brochure could be a less valuable event than scheduling a test drive at a local dealer. The ROI Optimizer solves these challenges by allowing advertisers to select multiple tracking beacons and assign individual values and metrics to each.

“With Turn’s ROI Optimizer, now I can easily select multiple beacons, assign different click through and view through values to each, and then the Turn Platform will optimize the campaign’s media spend based on my custom settings,” said Anderson.

“The ROI Optimizer is the latest example of Turn’s approach to innovation,” said Bill Demas, CEO at Turn, Inc. “We are committed to working alongside our platform clients to create solutions that effectively leverage the power of data and streamline the process of planning, managing, optimizing and measuring data-driven digital advertising.”

For more information about Turn, visit http://www.turn.com/.

About Turn Inc.
Turn was founded to bring the efficiencies of search advertising to online display, and empower the world’s premier advertising agencies and brands to reach custom audiences at scale. We are a software and services company with the industry’s only end-to-end platform for delivering the most effective data-driven digital advertising with unmatched performance. Our self-service interface, optimization algorithms, real-time analytics, interoperability, and scalable infrastructure represent the future of media and data management. The company is based in Silicon Valley with locations in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Charlotte. For more information, visit www.turn.com.

Companies Launch Partnership to Improve Television Advertising ROI

NEW YORK – Ace Metrix, a leading provider of real time television advertising analytics, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with WPP (NASDAQ: WPPGY), a world leader in communications services, to provide marketers with fast access to in-market television advertising performance metrics and insights. In addition, WPP Digital is making a strategic investment in Ace Metrix and Mary Ann Packo, CEO of Millward Brown North America, a WPP company, will join the Ace Metrix board of directors.

Under the terms of the new partnership, Ace Metrix will work with WPP companies including those within Kantar, WPP’s consumer insight network. This collaboration will result in the marketing of Ace Metrix syndicated products to clients of WPP companies and the development of new tools and approaches to help marketers increase the effectiveness of their advertising and marketing investments.

The Ace Metrix syndicated software service, first launched in June 2009, features the Ace Score™, a patent-pending measurement of television advertising creative effectiveness. The service provides standardized metrics that enable advertisers to quickly and easily benchmark ads within their own brands and against the competition. WPP joins previous investors Leapfrog Ventures, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Palomar Ventures.

“Our clients are looking for quick turn around and additional competitive intelligence in today’s fast-changing marketing environment, and we are delighted to be working with Ace Metrix to respond to this market demand,” said Mark Read, CEO of WPP Digital. “This partnership continues our strategy of combining third-party data sets with our own for the maximum benefit of clients.”

Key elements of the strategic partnership will include:

Expanded distribution of Ace Metrix data and software to clients
Joint approaches for mutual clients to develop enhanced television advertising measurement solutions
Joint development of technologies and insight, including integration of Kantar and Ace Metrix technology, data and products
Sharing of marketing insights and best practices
“Ace Metrix has developed a unique and innovative approach to measuring consumer response to competitive ads within 24 to 48 hours of launch,” said Mary Ann Packo of Millward Brown. “We look forward to working with Ace Metrix to provide this information to clients, develop new applications, and integrate their syndicated products into our suite of solutions.”

“This partnership enables us to vastly accelerate our go-to-market readiness and reach. WPP, and specifically Kantar, brings a wealth of product know-how, market knowledge and customer insights to us and we look forward to exposing WPP teams and clients to the transformative power of Ace Metrix. Together we can deliver a powerful combination to clients looking to improve their marketing and overall television advertising ROI,” said Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix.

About Ace Metrix

Ace Metrix delivers actionable analytics and competitive intelligence through the first syndicated software service measuring television advertising creative effectiveness. Featuring the patent-pending Ace Score, Ace Metrix is delivered through a SaaS delivery model to the desktops of national advertisers and agency executives. With Ace Metrix, advertisers and brand managers can make adjustments to creative and media schedules in near real-time resulting in savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ace Metrix works with leading national advertisers including Big Lots, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp., Microsoft, Nintendo, Nissan North America and others. For more information please see www.acemetrix.com.

About Kantar

Kantar is one of the world’s largest insight, information and consultancy networks. By uniting the diverse talents of its 13 specialist companies, the group aims to become the pre-eminent provider of compelling and inspirational insights for the global business community. Its 26,500 employees work across 95 countries and across the whole spectrum of research and consultancy disciplines, enabling the group to offer clients business insights at each and every point of the consumer cycle. The group’s services are employed by over half of the Fortune Top 500 companies. For further information, please visit us at www.kantar.com

About Millward Brown

Millward Brown is one of the world’s leading research agencies and expert in effective advertising, marketing communications, media and brand equity research. Through the use of an integrated suite of validated research solutions — both qualitative and quantitative — Millward Brown helps clients build strong brands. Millward Brown has more than 78 offices in 51 countries. Specialty practices include Millward Brown’s Global Media Practice (media effectiveness unit), Dynamic Logic (the world leader in digital marketing effectiveness), Neuroscience Practice (using neuroscience to enhance traditional research techniques), and Millward Brown Optimor (consultancy that helps clients maximize the returns on their brand and marketing investments). Millward Brown is part of Kantar, WPP’s insight division.

Ground-Breaking Methodology for Measuring Digital Advertising Effectiveness

Innovative Model-Based Approach Uses Validated Marketing Mix Modeling Methods, Eliminates Need for Control Group Impressions, Improves Accuracy and Statistical Reliability

Reston, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, announced the introduction of AdEffx Smart Control™, an innovative methodological approach representing the next generation  in measuring digital advertising effectiveness. The Smart Control methodology, based on validated and time-tested marketing mix modeling techniques, enables improved measurement of emerging segments of the rapidly changing digital advertising landscape, including homepage takeovers, integrated placements, and specific audience buys.

“The comScore AdEffx Smart Control methodology truly represents the next generation of digital ad effectiveness measurement,” said Anne Hunter, comScore vice president of Ad Effectiveness Solutions. “This new approach is superior to the traditional test-and-control methodology for most digital campaigns run today. Not only does it improve the accuracy and reliability in measurement of existing campaigns, but it allows us to measure the impact of advertising buys that were previously impossible to measure accurately. As the premier provider of digital marketing measurement solutions, comScore is delighted to introduce the innovative Smart Control methodology to the lasting benefit of publisher, advertisers and their advertising agencies.”

Current Challenges in Digital Ad Effectiveness Measurement
Digital ad effectiveness measurement is a fast-growing market that is improving media accountability in the digital environment. While current techniques, which are predicated on comparing a group of campaign-exposed individuals to a control group of non-exposed individuals, have significantly enhanced the ability to demonstrate the value of digital advertising campaigns, they have also had certain limitations.

Traditionally, the test-control methodology has required publishers to “burn” available inventory to use for the control groups (which do not receive the campaign ads). Consequently, publishers may have had to provide less desirable inventory for these control groups, resulting in a test which can cause substantial swings in data accuracy from publisher to publisher depending on how they are allocating inventory for the control groups. The test-and-control methodology also requires larger samples to be able to generate statistically significant results and does not measure the holistic impact of the campaign but only the impact to the point in time when the survey research was conducted. Finally, test-and-control is not feasible for new types of advertising formats such as homepage takeovers, audience targeted impressions and integrated placements, where using true control cells is cost prohibitive and usually not technologically feasible.

How Smart Control Works
Smart Control determines advertising impact without the traditional test-and-control methodology, yielding more comprehensive and accurate results. The methodology looks at the change in consumer response (either attitudinal or behavioral) by varying frequency of advertising exposure using a Bayesian regression model, from which the “control” response (i.e. frequency = 0) is derived. This approach is similar to marketing mix modeling techniques, which have been used in traditional media measurement for decades.

The Smart Control methodology has several clear benefits versus the traditional test-and-control methodology. It is more sensitive and therefore more likely to produce a statistically significant result, with an average lift variance 91 percent lower and average confidence interval 68 percent narrower than test-and-control. This means that campaigns can achieve the same statistical significance with substantially smaller sample sizes than traditional test-and-control designs.

“The Smart Control methodology will take digital ad effectiveness measurement light years into the future,” added Harvir Bansal PhD, SVP of research at comScore and inventor of the Smart Control methodology. “It can provide more accurate and granular measurement for a wider range of ad campaigns, with less operational complexity based on the way that digital advertising is being bought and sold today. We are confident that this solution truly has no peer in the industry.”

Clients and Industry Leaders Voice Support for Smart Control
“This is a welcome innovation from comScore. Smart Control aims to solve key industry challenges involved with implementing tests to measure impact of digital campaigns. We are looking forward to exploring and testing the product. Smart Control has strong potential for complementing traditional test vs. control and providing more accurate and granular survey results, greater efficiencies and a timelier reporting of advertising campaign effectiveness.” — Terry Cohen, SVP of Strategy & Analysis, Digitas

“Smart Control is potentially an exciting innovation for the agency and advertiser community. This model-based approach may offer the ability to overcome some of the inherent challenges in measuring the effectiveness of digital ad campaigns. Anything that could do this with accuracy and reliability would be a welcome solution in this industry.” — Andy Fisher, EVP, Global Data & Analytics Director, Starcom MediaVest Group

“A year ago, the Journal of Advertising Research published findings by comScore that proved ‘the click’ is only a small part of the impact that digital advertising creates. If not the click, then what? comScore should be applauded for attempting to more completely address the ROI of digital advertising in the context of fully integrated marketing campaigns.” — Joel Rubinson, Chief Research Officer of the ARF

“comScore’s Smart Control Methodology delivers an exciting solution that caters to today’s digital advertising landscape and fills a growing research need resulting from new forms of media buying.” — Hernan Lopez, President of .Fox Networks and COO of Fox International Channels

“Yahoo!’s innovative advertising opportunities for marketers are often difficult to measure accurately using traditional methodologies. comScore’s Smart Control methodology delivers a solution that enables more accurate measurement of the specific value that Yahoo! brings to advertisers. This new methodology helps address a number of publishers’ research challenges:  it reduces wasted impressions, simplifies campaign implementation, and aligns more closely with offline research techniques.” — Radha Subramanyam, VP, Head of Corporate and Media Research, Yahoo!

“Smart Control represents an important step forward in the field of online ad effectiveness research.  Finding adequate and representative control sample has been a persistent issue for the industry. By applying research theory long validated by offline marketers, Smart Control will help Disney Online more efficiently and effectively measure large integrated campaigns and demonstrate our value to advertisers.” — Kristi Manclow, Ad Sales Research, Disney Online

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Demand for its multi-channel platform combining website, landing page and digital media optimization continues among marketers and agencies

NEW YORK – [x+1], online targeting platform leader, announced it had achieved stronger-than-expected revenues, robust topline growth and operating income profitability for the first quarter of 2010. Revenue increased 77 percent over the first quarter of 2009.

The strong Q1 results were the result of a number of performance factors, including organic revenue growth of existing clients as they experienced increased, measurable conversion and ROI results on digital marketing campaigns.

[x+1]’s success in 1Q was also driven by expansion of relationships with major Fortune 500 firms implementing its multi-channel, demand-side audience targeting platform, a comprehensive solution that combines cutting-edge optimization capabilities for websites, landing pages and digital media.

“2010 is proving to be a year of significant adoption of new multi-channel digital solutions, reflecting how consumers are using digital media today,” said John Nardone, Chairman and CEO of [x+1]. “The next release of our platform, scheduled for late Q2, will raise the bar even higher, enabling marketers and agencies to quickly and easily increase digital marketing performance by instantly delivering relevant communications to the right audience, no matter where they are online.”

Other highlights of the quarter included [x+1]’s foundational work on data partnerships and data integration, the culmination of which was the release of its Open Data Bridge™. This next-generation technology seamlessly integrates consumer data from multiple sources, allowing greater precision in audience segmentation and targeting and enhancing conversion results.

About [x+1]

[x+1], the online targeting platform leader, provides the power of relevant communications by maximizing the return on marketing investment (ROI) of websites and digital media using its patented targeting technology. Providing the first end-to-end digital solution for advertisers and agencies, it optimizes engagement rates and lift conversion in both media and on websites. Its predictive marketing solutions enable automated, real-time decision making and personalization so the right advertisement and content is delivered to the right person at the right time at the right price. Top companies in financial services, telecommunications, online services and travel have significantly increased the performance of their digital marketing using the solutions and services of [x+1]. The company is headquartered in New York City. For more information, please visit www.xplusone.com.

Technology Serves as Operating Platform for the Premier Ad Network of Web Sites

BURLINGTON, Mass. – Burst Media, a leading provider of online advertising services, announced the signing of the Seed Corn Advertising Network as a new client of its adConductor™ ad management technology and services. The Seed Corn Advertising Network (SCA Network) has recently formed a premier vertical content network, serving more than 3,400 specialty-content web sites, organized in more than 400 channels. adConductor will provide ad serving and ad management support across this network.

The Seed Corn Advertising Network offers brand advertisers an efficient way to reach audiences online, and offers web publishers the opportunity to monetize their ad inventory with high quality targeted advertising. adConductor will allow The SCA Network to coordinate in a single system the various aspects of ad sales, delivery and campaign management. It will also allow the network to target and optimize ad campaigns to its highly engaged visitors without advertising waste.

“We are looking forward to launching “SCA Networks” – our premium ad network utilizing Burst Media’s Industry leading adConductor ad management and technology platform,” said Andrew Stern, President of Seed Corn Advertising. “In a survey of over 7 different solutions, the adConductor platform stood out as the most innovative and scalable system on the market today. With this move, we now have the ability to offer many new services and technologies to our clients such as full transparency, access to an exchange, re-targeting, network forecasting, custom RFP building tools and industry leading optimization strategies. We hope that this improved technology and more robust platform will help our network grow to the next level and are ready to offer the full suite of products to our base of over 300 advertisers.”

adConductor helps leading online companies deliver the advertising they sell on behalf of their publishers through a rich suite of targeting, campaign management, campaign reporting and billing tools. adConductor is one of the largest independent vendors of ad management technology, serving billions of ads every month on behalf of thousands of websites, ad networks, and other online publishing entities.

“There is an ongoing transformation of the advertising space and sophisticated vertical networks like the ones built by Seed Corn Advertising are taking part in the evolutionary process,” said Sean Keaveny, SVP of adConductor. “Advertising is finally moving toward the content-rich collection of sites that consumers visit and use. Advertisers who capitalize on the opportunities provided with this new approach will break through media clutter and reach the most interested consumers for their offer.”

About Seed Corn Advertising

Founded in 2002, Seed Corn Advertising, Inc (www.seedcornadv.com) is an online ad network and agency delivering over 3 billion impressions per month across its search and display networks. With over 300 advertisers and over 6,000 sites and 200 publishers in its network, Seed Corn Advertising has a robust and International reach and is highly regarded as one of the few one-stop-shops for online companies looking to reach active and qualified consumers at an affordable price. Seed Corn Advertising operates out of Studio City, California. For more information, visit www.seedcornadv.com or call 818-760-3999.

About Burst Media

An online media and technology company founded in 1995, Burst Media (www.BurstMedia.com) is a leading provider of advertising representation, services and technology to independent Web Publishers. Burst Media enables advertisers to reach finely segmented, engaged consumers as they visit Burst’s extensive number of interest-based sub-channels. Through its Burst Network and Burst Direct units, the company represents one of the broadest and deepest offerings of interest-based websites online. The company’s Giant Realm unit represents some of the leading gaming sites that attract males age 18-34. Burst also markets its ad management platform, adConductor™, which empowers content websites, online ad networks, and web portals to manage the complete process of ad sales and service. Burst Media is headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, with offices throughout the United States and in London, UK. For more information, visit www.BurstMedia.com or call 781.272.5544.

NEW YORK – TagMan, the one-tag/pixel solution to the problems of online campaign tracking, announced that Subaru of America, Inc has begun to use its tag management system to manage and track online marketing and advertising campaigns running across its main website (www.subaru.com) and dealer network of 550 websites across the US.

TagMan acts as a single, universal tag and interface through which tracking tags and pixels can be deployed to an advertiser’s web site, online marketers can save time and money in the way they track campaigns and see how all online channels are working together. A single TagMan container tag replaces all the tracking pixels on an advertiser web page used to track, for example, natural search, paid search, affiliates, display, email or site analytics. These tags are housed inside the TagMan container and can be managed directly through a browser-based interface.

Subaru is using TagMan as its global ‘container tag’, enabling its media agency, Carmichael Lynch, to track activity from display campaigns and paid and natural search and to see the entire path to conversion (including keywords used) that any user follows when  taking action on its main brand website.

TagMan will also allow Subaru to control campaign tags across their dealer network websites according to various regional groupings of campaigns at any given time. Subaru will now be able to add, edit and remove tracking tags more efficiently and manage its future spend much more effectively.

“Subaru has a superb global reputation in the automotive industry. We are proud to have them part of the TagMan family,” says Jon Baron, General Manager “With all tags from all channels sitting in the same system, Subaru and Carmichael Lynch can track the full customer journey and see which channel(s) delivered a particular user. This allows marketing attribution of credit/commission across all online channels. As the company continues to deliver a high number of marketing campaigns, the flexibility and control that TagMan provides will enable Subaru to keep IT costs to a minimum and improve ROI.”

Subaru of America, Inc.. (www.subaru.com) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. of Japan. Headquartered in Cherry Hill, N.J., the company markets and distributes Subaru Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive vehicles, parts and accessories through a network of nearly 600 dealers across the United States. All Subaru products are manufactured in zero-landfill production plants and Subaru of Indiana Automotive Inc. is the only U.S. automobile production plant to be designated a backyard wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation

TagMan (www.TagMan.com), the first independent tag and pixel management system, was built and developed by web analytics pioneer Paul Cook as a solution to the problems caused by the proliferation of website tracking tags and pixel weight. TagMan has revealed that up to 25% of a typical e-commerce advertiser’s affiliate commissions are duplicates. Uniquely, TagMan instantly deduplicates sales and attributes credit in real time across ALL online channels so that for every $1 spent with TagMan, clients can see up to a $9.50 return on their investment.   The negative impact of too many pixels on a client’s website (contributing to shopping basket abandonment) drove TagMan’s focus on latency and pixel reduction as a core part of the platform used by clients globally. Clients include online advertisers and agencies in the US and Europe, including Virgin Atlantic, Subaru, Boden, Laura Ashley, Thomas Cook and Alliance & Leicester.

Founded in 2004, TagMan is privately owned and funded and has offices in New York and London. It has received funding from Cambridge Angels and the London Business School E100.

Advertising.com Ad Desk Beta Opens Access for Advertising Agencies and Advertisers

NEW YORK – AOL Inc. (NYSE:AOL) launched a beta version of Advertising.com Ad Desk, a new display advertising platform that provides advertisers and agencies direct access to the premium audiences, technologies and insights of AOL Advertising. With Advertising.com Ad Desk, advertising agencies and advertisers are now able to directly manage campaigns and get a deeper level of access to AOL properties and the Advertising.com network. In its beta release, Advertising.com Ad Desk is targeted at medium-sized advertising agencies and advertisers.

Built for advertisers by advertisers, AOL Advertising has been working with clients over the past few months to develop the product and features that will allow Advertising.com Ad Desk to serve a broader and more scaled group of customers.

Advertising.com Ad Desk benefits:

- Direct access and control to media planning tools and analytics;
- Segmentation of AOL properties and the Advertising.com network based on interest, audience and/or geography;
- A tool built for advertising agencies that allows them to take more control and get more transparency across AOL’s ad platforms which reaches 184M unique visitors according to March 2010 comScore Media Metrix data.

“Transparency and control are the future of online advertising,” said Jeff Levick, Executive Vice President, AOL Advertising. “Providing clients with a greater level of personalized control over digital marketing campaigns is paramount as organizations continue to look for innovative ways to promote their brands and evaluate their ROI when planning campaigns. We believe Advertising.com Ad Desk is our client’s on-ramp to display advertising as it provides increased self-management and access to proprietary AOL information that has previously never been available.”

Today’s version of Advertising.com Ad Desk will be complementary to the high-touch sales needs of our larger partners. Over time, Advertising.com Ad Desk will evolve to serve the more sophisticated media planning and analytics needs of larger agencies and advertisers.

“This is a beta version of Advertising.com Ad Desk,” added Levick. “We are working directly with larger agencies and advertisers now to define the future updates of this tool to ensure it meets their needs and requirements as well.”

“We were part of the pilot launch of Advertising.com Ad Desk, and have been working with the AOL Advertising team to provide feedback on features that will help us better develop and implement the most successful and relevant campaigns on behalf of our clients,” said Chris Hansen, Vice President of Performance Marketing at 360i. “Working with AOL to test the functionality of this tool ensures we remain on the cutting edge of the digital media space, and we’re excited to partner with them to advance the solutions available in the industry for delivering high-performing and efficient advertising programs.”

Because this is a limited external beta, please visit www.addesk.advertising.com for more information.

About AOL

AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) is a leading global Web services company with an extensive suite of brands and offerings and a substantial worldwide audience. AOL’s business spans online content, products and services that the company offers to consumers, publishers and advertisers. AOL is focused on attracting and engaging consumers and providing valuable online advertising services on both AOL’s owned and operated properties and third-party websites. In addition, AOL operates one of the largest Internet subscription access services in the United States, which serves as a valuable distribution channel for AOL’s consumer offerings.

Omniture Customers Can Now Measure and Optimize iPad Content and Applications; Segmentation, Dashboarding and Reporting Enhancements Make It Easier to View and Share Actionable Insight

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Omniture, an Adobe company (NASDAQ:ADBE), and a leading provider of online business optimization software, announced new analytics and optimization capabilities within the Omniture Online Marketing Suite.

New capabilities within the Omniture Online Marketing Suite

- Omniture SiteCatalyst, an advanced online analytics solution
- New and innovative dashboarding capabilities making it easier to display, print and share critical online business insights across the organization.
- An expanded mobile device database now including recognition of the iPad, so customers can segment and run reports based on iPad user behavior.
- Ability to measure iPad applications and video usage on the iPad.
- Enhanced reporting and administration improvements that empower daily users with better visualization of data and easier management of broad account user groups.
- Omniture Discover, a solution for deep insight and advanced segmentation
- More accurate measurement of visitor engagement by time spent, time segmentation and more granular trending for greater insight into hourly visit dynamics.
- Improved segmentation features with time-based rules for better understanding of visitor behavior and new rule operators for building more concise segments.
- Better usability and workflow for easier access to projects and customizable default metrics for enhanced conversion and traffic reporting.
- Omniture Test&Target, a best-of-breed solution for real-time A/B and multivariate testing
- Ability to personalize and improve effectiveness and performance of iPad applications with A/B and multivariate testing, dynamic content targeting and audience segmentation.
- Optimize mobile Web content for display and interaction on the iPad.

The new features are available now.

About Omniture, an Adobe company

Omniture, a business unit of Adobe Systems Incorporated, is a leading provider of online business optimization software for managing and enhancing online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives. Hosted and delivered via on-demand subscription service and on-premise solution, Omniture software enables customers to capture, store and analyze information generated by their Web sites and other sources, providing business insights into the performance and efficiency of marketing and sales initiatives and other business processes. For more information, visit www.omniture.com.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information – anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

eBay Among Anchor’s First Customers to Improve Keyword Bidding Strategy

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Anchor Intelligence, the leading traffic quality solutions provider, announced that it is launching ClearMark for Keywords, a predictive, keyword bid optimization system, at Search Insider Summit in Florida. ClearMark for Keywords is the first and only system that predicts the value of each keyword in an advertiser’s portfolio, even in the absence of conversion data. Moreover, Anchor announced that eBay, the world’s largest online marketplace, has agreed to use ClearMark for Keywords to optimize its keyword bidding strategies and enhance the ROI of its search campaigns.

ClearMark for Keywords, Anchor’s predictive keyword scoring system, leverages traffic quality data within the Anchor network to provide advertisers with optimal bids per keyword. Unlike any other bid optimization system, Anchor’s ClearMark for Keywords enhances bid management by leveraging data that have historically been unavailable to search marketers. As the leading traffic quality solutions provider, Anchor Intelligence collects conversion information and best-of-breed network security intelligence from across the web to measure traffic quality and its impact on keyword performance. For example, by using information about what users did prior to clicking on an ad, Anchor’s ClearMark for Keywords predicts the likelihood that those same users will convert on an advertiser’s site. It then issues optimal bids that can be uploaded directly to search engines and 3rd party bid management companies, enabling search engine marketers to reallocate their ad spend and improve the performance of their SEM campaigns.

ClearMark for Keywords outperforms traditional optimization strategies that are based primarily on historical conversion data by providing advertisers with a proactive, predictive response to external factors that have a significant impact on the performance of each keyword. And unlike any other keyword bid management system, ClearMark brings to bear a tremendous amount of network data otherwise unavailable to advertisers to generate optimal keyword bids.

As a result of its unique traffic quality perspective, ClearMark for Keywords benefits not only belly and tail keywords that do not have enough conversion data to drive sound decisions, but also competitive head keywords, for which small percentage increases in lift yield large gains in revenue.

Recently, eBay completed a trial using ClearMark for Keywords across its U.S. based keywords campaigns and was encouraged by the results. After measuring the performance outcome from that test, eBay will continue to utilize ClearMark for Keywords. In the past 5 years, eBay has developed a world-class SEM platform built on strong technology and data analytics, and will continue to assess the insights derived from the Anchor network with this platform. Using Anchor Intelligence, eBay expects to acquire even more quality users with an increased likelihood to purchase on eBay.

“We are encouraged by the results of combining Anchor Intelligence’s unique data footprint and analytics with our own SEM platform. We look forward to a continued collaboration to drive ROI for eBay’s ad campaigns,” said Matt Ackley, Vice President of Advertising and Internet Marketing at eBay.

“Anchor Intelligence enables advertisers to achieve world-class performance from their keyword spend by leveraging our unique data assets and predictive analytics,” said Ken Miller, CEO of Anchor Intelligence. “We are confident that ClearMark for Keywords will fundamentally change the way online advertisers manage their SEM ad spend going forward.”

About Anchor Intelligence:

Anchor Intelligence Inc., headquartered in Mountain View, CA, provides ad networks, search engines, and advertisers from around the globe with rigorous, cutting-edge solutions to maximize advertiser ROI. With its diverse portfolio of data and predictive analytics derived from across the web, Anchor’s award-winning ClearMark suite enables industry players to improve the performance of advertising spend online by predicting click and keyword performance. For more information, visit: www.anchorintelligence.com. Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/AnchorIntel.

Research from Nielsen and SeeWhy Reveals a 23 Percent Average Conversion Rate for Top 10 vs. 2-3 Percent for Typical Ecommerce Sites

ANDOVER, Mass. – SeeWhy, Inc., the company that boosts website conversion with real-time remarketing, announced the 10 top-converting ecommerce sites listed in “Lessons Learned from the Top 10 Converting Websites,” a free eBook that identifies the top websites and the strategies they use to drive conversion. As a group, the top 10 have an average conversion rate of 23 percent compared to the 2-3 percent conversion rate of typical ecommerce sites.

“Ecommerce teams have an understandable fascination with the top 10 converting websites,” said Charles Nicholls, founder and chief strategy officer of SeeWhy. “As a group, the top 10 convert approximately 10 times more visitors than most ecommerce websites. Unexpectedly, four out of the top five converting websites force a full registration before purchase. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom which suggests that a full registration reduces your website conversion rate. Rather, the top 10 focus on capturing visitor details up front and building a relationship spanning many years of repeat sales.”

The Top 10

The ranking of the top 10 converting websites below is based on Nielsen data for six months, ending in November 2009. To qualify, a website needed to achieve a minimum of five million unique visitors per month. Conversion is measured based on the ratio of site visitors to purchasers in a given session. For comparison, Amazon has a conversion rate of 16.5 percent, almost two percentage points below the lowest-ranking member of the top 10, QVC. The top 10 are:

1. Schwan’s (food) 41.7 percent

2. ProFlowers (flowers) 26.5 percent

3. Vitacost.com (health and nutrition) 24.0 percent

4. Woman Within (catalog/clothing) 22.4 percent

5. Blair.com (catalog/clothing) 20.5 percent

6. Lands’ End (catalog/clothing) 19.5 percent

7. DrsFosterSmith.com (pet supplies) 18.6 percent

8. Office Depot (office) 18.4 percent

9. Roaman’s (catalog/clothing) 18.4 percent

10. QVC (jewelry) 18.3 percent

Visiting the top 10 sites reveals clear patterns. All are direct marketers, focused less on the initial sale, but on facilitating a lifetime of transactions. The categories of goods sold may differ, but all the companies are grounded in marketing directly to customers. Only two companies, Office Depot and Lands’ End, also have physical stores. The others use distance selling, so customers can only purchase online or by phone. Other key summary statistics include:

9 out of the 10 have a catalog
9 out of the 10 do not offer free shipping
8 out of 10 offer a simple sign up on their home page
4 out of the top 5 force a full registration before a first purchase
10 out of 10 use remarketing
9 out of 10 offer a 1-800 number on their homepage
“Ecommerce managers can learn a lot from the top 10 converting websites,” continued Nicholls. “These sites focus on identifying their prospects as early in the buying cycle as possible and remarket to them continually across channels to build relationships. This results in high quality, qualified traffic returning to their websites regularly to buy again, and again, and again. This is very different from the ‘drive more visitors’ tactics that are so common across the ecommerce sector.”

For information on SeeWhy, visit www.seewhy.com. For additional perspectives, please visit and subscribe to the SeeWhy RSS blog feed at http://www.seewhy.com/blog, and follow SeeWhy on Twitter at @seewhyinc.

Resources

SeeWhy website: http://www.seewhy.com

SeeWhy press releases: http://www.seewhy.com/about_press_releases.htm

SeeWhy blog: http://www.seewhy.com/blog

SeeWhy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/seewhyinc

SeeWhy on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SeeWhyInc

SeeWhy resource center: http://www.seewhy.com/resources.htm

About SeeWhy

SeeWhy is the industry’s only real-time shopping cart recovery service to follow up in real time via email and social networks. SeeWhy’s services (SaaS) deliver the highest ROI in ecommerce by responding immediately to shopping cart and web form abandonment with behaviorally triggered 1-to-1, real-time messages.

Powered by a unique “in-memory” event processing engine, the SeeWhy suite of real-time web analytics is delivered “on-demand.” Remarketing to abandoned visitors using the SeeWhy Conversion Manager service converts up to 50 percent of visitors that had abandoned their shopping carts, online forms, applications and registrations.

SeeWhy is a Red Herring Top 100 Company, was selected by AlwaysOn as an OnMedia 100 company in 2010 and was highlighted as a cool company by Gartner, Inc. SeeWhy has also been featured in publications such as The New York Times; Inc. Magazine; and TechCrunch. SeeWhy was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Andover, MA. More information can be found at http://www.seewhy.com/.

SeeWhy and the SeeWhy logo are trademarks of SeeWhy, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Tags: shopping cart abandonment, website conversion, web analytics, SeeWhy, ecommerce, internet marketing, email remarketing, marketing software, 1-to-1, social media, email conversion

Open AdStream Optimisation Powered by Maxifier Improves Web Publishers’ Ability to Prioritise and Enhance Campaign Performance

NEW YORK – 24/7 Real Media, Inc., the leading global digital marketing company, announced Open AdStream® Optimisation powered by Maxifier. This unique technology provides Open AdStream users with heightened capabilities to increase revenue and prioritise online advertising campaigns. This technology allows publishers to seamlessly leverage Maxifier’s technology through Open AdStream, improving efficiency and providing actionable insight in order to drive more profitable campaigns.

OPTIMISE CAMPAIGN PERFORMANCE

Publishers using Open AdStream, 24/7 Real Media’s renowned ad management platform for the targeting and delivery of multi-channel digital advertising, can now maximise their overall inventory performance by managing all campaigns simultaneously or improving the performance of a particular campaign, taking into consideration placement, targeting, and creative levels. This solution gives publishers more visibility into their data and control over inventory performance, helping to improve in-house monetisation and trafficker efficiency.

Maxifier has a proven track record of improving customer retention for publishers and ad networks by providing increased performance on CPM campaigns and overall inventory yield by optimising campaigns based on revenue. These advancements enable publishers to experience a significant return on inventory.

“Integrating Maxifier into 24/7 Real Media’s Open AdStream provides a new level of performance visibility across the network and each campaign alike; and, of course, to our digital advertising business in general,” said Ed Couchman, Commercial Controller, Future & Digital Advertising, Channel 4. “There is no doubt it provides uplift in click performance, revenues, on-time delivery, and ultimately a better advertiser experience that guarantees repeat business and wins us new business.”

OPTIMISE AD OPERATIONS

Open AdStream Optimisation powered by Maxifier makes ad operations more intuitive through visibility into the performance details across all campaigns and forecasts of results from planned adjustments. Publishers are able to deliver more campaigns on time and with an even distribution of impressions over the course of each campaign. Publishers can also create their own measurement parameters that align with their business goals, factoring in the overall budget, CPM and eCPM, as well as agency and advertiser criteria, in order to prioritise their campaigns. This makes click-through rates, on-time delivery, and revenue easier to assess and optimise against.

“24/7 Real Media’s partnership with Maxifier creates a great synergy between two powerful technologies for publishers looking to maximise inventory performance,” said Frank Lee, Chairman and CEO of Maxifier. “The knowledge and control that Open AdStream users will gain from having visibility into performance across all campaigns will enable them to optimise results and increase value across their inventory.”

DRIVE HIGHEST YIELD TO WEB SITES

“Publishers need the most advanced tools to drive revenue by managing individual campaigns in tandem with the entire campaign portfolio across all of their Web sites. The level of visibility and control that this integration between Open AdStream and Maxifier provides will greatly enhance and prioritise their decision-making capabilities,” said Nicolle Pangis, Vice President, Product Management, Global Media and Technology for 24/7 Real Media. “This furthers our objective of providing customers with the most innovative technology so they can yield the most revenue from their Web properties.”

For more information on 24/7 Real Media, visit www.247realmedia.com.

About 24/7 Real Media, Inc.

24/7 Real Media, Inc. a WPP company is the leading global digital marketing company, empowering advertisers and publishers to engage their target audiences with greater precision, transparency and ROI. Using its award winning ad serving, targeting, tracking and analytics platform, powerful search marketing technology and global network of specialised Web sites, the company has turned the art of reaching audiences across virtually any digital medium into a measurable science. The company is headquartered in New York, with 18 offices in 12 countries throughout North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. For more information, please visit www.247realmedia.com.

24/7 Real Media: The Science of Digital Marketing.

24/7 Real Media is a member of the NAI and adheres to the NAI privacy principles that have been applauded by the FTC. These principles are designed to help ensure Internet user privacy. For more information about online data collection associated with ad serving, including online preference marketing and an opportunity to opt-out of 24/7 Real Media cookies, go to: www.networkadvertising.org.

About Maxifier

Maxifier is a leading optimisation technology for publishers and ad-networks. Maxifier increases on-line advertising revenues by significantly increasing ad-performance (click though rates, yield etc) and on-time delivery. It uses advanced proprietary technology to optimise every campaign simultaneously with sensitivity to the impact of each campaign’s optimisation on every other campaign. Maxifier is a wholly owned division of Magenta Corporation, a UK based company and forms part of the Eurovestech (EVT) portfolio of companies, world leaders in optimisation technology.

For more information on Maxifier please visit www.maxifier.com.

AudienceScience Leverages AdXpose to Help Protect Clients’ Brands

Mpire Partners With comScore to Enhance AdXpose’s Demographic Campaign Performance

New York City – Mpire, the market-leading advertising verification and optimization technology company, announced that it has added proactive ad blocking to its patent-pending AdXpose™, a comprehensive suite of solutions and services that significantly improve the performance of online ad campaigns while protecting brands from fraud and content adjacency issues.

The new offering enables brand advertisers and agencies to set rules and guidelines that prevent their ads from appearing next to questionable content or on sites that could diminish the brand. AdXpose ad blocker was unveiled at the AlwaysOn OnMedia 100 event in New York, where Mpire was recognized for the second consecutive year as one of the top 100 private companies in the digital media space.

AdXpose analyzes the content on publisher sites in real-time, and cross-references it with the prescribed rules set by the advertiser.  If content adjacency issues are discovered, AdXpose prevents the ad from being served, which protects the brand, improves campaign performance and saves the advertiser money.

“With ad blocking, AdXpose gives brand advertisers an additional layer of security and peace of mind so they can promote their trusted brands online with greater confidence,” said Kirby Winfield, chief revenue officer, Mpire.  “But that’s just the beginning.  Only AdXpose offers the ability to see what is really happening with an online campaign beyond simple ad verification, in terms of site level transparency, viewable impressions, fraudulent activity, user engagement and performance – all within a single, integrated solution. We call this Safety+.”

“As a part of our brand safe initiatives we partner with AdXpose to provide third party validation,” said Jeff Hirsch president and CEO of AudienceScience.  “We appreciate AdXpose’s integrated tools, analytics and real-time reporting capabilities, which help us provide our clients with excellent service.”

The ad blocking service complements AdXpose’s existing campaign verification and optimization solutions, which ensure that advertisers get what they pay for; improve campaign performance and provide brand protection; combat fraud; and reduce wasted ad spend. The comprehensive domain analysis technology provides users with:

- Verification – AdXpose enables advertisers to track their campaigns at the impression level, so they know exactly when and where their ads appear online, whether they were visible, below the fold, daisy-chained across multiple ad exchanges or hidden among nested I-Frames.  AdXpose goes beyond traditional placement verification by tracking performance against domain, geographic, demographic, classification and other campaign goals.

- Media Optimization – Real-time, impression-level reporting provides unparalleled campaign transparency and actionable intelligence, enabling media buyers to shift their ad dollars to only the best performing sites.  It enforces performance agreements with ad networks, exchanges and direct publishers.

- Creative Optimization – Using AdXpose’s unique “heat mapping” user engagement technology, advertisers can see exactly how, and for how long, users interacted with their ad.  Armed with this information, advertisers and agencies can adjust the ad copy or creative to improve ad performance, resulting in higher click throughs and conversions.

- Security – By analyzing and comparing impression level verification, click-through and user engagement data, AdXpose can detect traditional click and impression fraud, as well as new fraud tactics such as URL Padding, Ad Stuffing, Domain Spoofing and more.  This helps media buyers optimize their campaigns and also pursue restitution for infringed performance agreements.  At the same time, ad blocking protects a brand from content adjacency issues before the ad is served.

- Alerting – Advertisers and agencies can set real-time alerts on any measured metric (geo, demo, impressions, in-views, etc.) to proactively manage their campaigns for activity that may fall outside predetermined limits or trafficking orders.  The new Alerts capability facilitates real-time campaign optimization during the campaign, versus reporting on the results post-campaign.

In addition to the new ad blocking, alerting, and other capabilities, AdXpose is using comScore data to provide better visibility into demographic and audience performance on a campaign. “We’re excited to be working with AdXpose to enhance the demographic and audience information they’re providing to their clients’ digital ad campaigns with their verification and optimization tools,” said Daryl McNutt, VP Marketing Solutions at comScore.

About AdXpose
AdXpose Analytics help advertisers and platforms verify and optimize billions of campaign data points captured in real time. Agencies representing the major holding companies, multiple Demand Side Platforms, and more than 20% of the comScore Ad Focus Top 40 Properties, currently run the AdXpose technology.

About Mpire
Mpire is the market-leading advertising optimization technology company that is evolving traditional online advertising into a more relevant and engaging medium for publishers and advertisers. Its patent-pending AdXpose™ is the first and only verification and optimization technology that gives brand marketers and agencies transparency and confidence anywhere their ads run across the Internet, including exchanges, ad networks and direct publisher placements. Backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Ignition Partners, Mpire is based in Seattle, Washington.

PALO ALTO, Calif. & PHILADELPHIA – Auditude, a leading video advertising management and monetization platform, announced that it has partnered with Comcast Interactive Media (CIM) to manage and serve CIM’s video advertising across its websites including Fancast, Fancast XFINITY TV and Comcast.net. The first implementation, which is now live, includes Fancast and Fancast XFINITY TV, with Comcast.net to follow. Auditude’s platform serves as the foundation to manage and integrate video advertising between CIM sites and its content partners.

“After a comprehensive review of the video ad platforms in the market, we decided to partner with Auditude because its platform excels in managing video content, while supporting the complex business rules required by premium and long-form video online,” said David Kappenstein, Director, Advertising Technology & Development, Comcast Interactive Media. “Auditude’s platform helps us manage multi-party sales rights to drive the highest performing ads, while maintaining the high-quality consumer experiences we want on our sites. We are excited to scale and expand the advertising options currently available.”

Auditude’s “content aware” platform enables Comcast Interactive Media to dramatically reduce the time and effort required to manage business and partner requirements, ad products, targeting, delivery and reporting on video content improving the economics of online video.

“While others in the industry are discussing the promise of bringing increasing amounts of premium content online, Comcast Interactive Media is truly delivering on that promise,” said Adam Cahan, CEO of Auditude. “Auditude is very pleased to have been selected as the platform to support Comcast Interactive Media’s initiatives. We see what they are doing as the next wave of consumer experiences for online video and are excited to provide the management and monetization solutions to CIM and their partners.”

About Auditude

Auditude is a video management and monetization technology provider that helps content owners and aggregators expand their video revenues. The Auditude Connect™ platform enables content owners and publishers to rapidly scale the business requirements and ad serving needs around premium video content.

Auditude works with some of the largest names in online video to help grow their revenue opportunities. Clients include Comcast Interactive Media, Major League Baseball, MySpace Music and Video, MTV Networks, Universal Music Group and Yahoo!, among others.

Auditude’s executive and technology team is made up of talent from some of the world’s most successful technology companies including Apple, DoubleClick, eBay, Google, PayPal, and Yahoo!, among others. Auditude is based in Palo Alto with offices in Los Angeles and New York City. For more information, please visit us at: www.auditude.com

About Comcast Interactive Media

Comcast Interactive Media (CIM), is a division of Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) (NASDAQ:CMCSK) dedicated to developing and operating online and cross-platform entertainment and media businesses, including Comcast.net (www.comcast.net) one of the country’s most visited websites. CIM’s other properties include Fandango.com, a top movie and entertainment destination, selling movie tickets at over 15,000 screens; Fancast.com, a national online entertainment site; DailyCandy, the daily e-mail newsletter and website; thePlatform, the industry-leading provider of digital media publishing solutions over broadband and wireless networks; and Plaxo an online social networking based platform.

VANTAGE 2.0 Gives Publishers Transparency into the True Value of Their Ads & Demand Channel Partners

LOS ANGELES – the Rubicon Project, the Internet advertising infrastructure company, has significantly enhanced VANTAGE, its proprietary Firefox browser plug-in that provides its premium Web publisher customers real-time perspective on their advertising space. Available through the company’s REVV for publishers™ advertising technology platform, VANTAGE gives publishers access to up-to-date revenue stats, impression stats and performance comparisons from their demand partners around the globe, all within their browser – saving time and improving efficiency with full visibility into all ad tags.

Today, publishers struggle to identify and address problems with ads served through third-party sales channels, such as ad networks – even more so when the publisher is working with multiple demand channels. VANTAGE enables publishers to see details for every ad optimized by the Rubicon Project across all of their sites, so they can instantly identify and locate the ad tags they want more information on, minimizing the time it takes to resolve potential issues. VANTAGE 2.0 gives publishers unprecedented, 24/7 access to complete information about every ad served on their site through the Rubicon Project’s REVV platform and in turn greater insight into their digital advertising business.

New and current features of VANTAGE 2.0 include:

Proxy settings that enable publishers to screen ads from locations all over the world, allowing publishers to “impersonate” a user in another country to see the actual ad those visitors would see when visiting the site
Direct link to the detailed REVV for publishers user interface and detailed reporting
Instant visibility into which ads are being optimized by the Rubicon Project with the VANTAGE overlay
Access to all tag details, including screenshots of the ad, details about where the particular network ad tag is serving on a publisher’s sites, and performance metrics for that tag
Multiple levels of access, so publishers maintain complete control over which team members can see account revenue and performance metrics
24/7 reporting tool that permits every member of the publisher ad operations and sales teams to screen ads whenever they visit their sites

“Publishers often share with us the challenges they face when trying to manage and control the ads served on their sites. In particular, their frustration with the lack of insight and technology they’ve had to determine the revenue impact of pausing a specific ad tag,” said Craig Roah, COO and Founder of the Rubicon Project. “Therefore, with VANTAGE we’ve provided publishers access to the tools and information they need to understand the true value of any specific ad served to them.”

About the Rubicon Project

Headquartered in Los Angeles, the Rubicon Project launched in 2007 with a mission to automate the $65 billion global online advertising industry. The company’s Yield Management Optimization platform, REVV for Publishers™, is engineered to accelerate revenue for premium Web publishers. Backed by $42 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures and GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund, the Rubicon Project serves premium publishers like NBC Universal, Gannett and CareerBuilder; optimizing more than 45 billion ads each month and reaching 500 million unique Internet users. the Rubicon Project also helps ad sales channels around the world gain access to precise audience-segmented inventory, at broad scale.

PubMatic Premier Includes Comprehensive Yield Analytics, the Industry’s Most Advanced Brand Control Capabilities, and the Ability to Understand and Monetize Audience Data

NEW YORK – PubMatic (http://www.PubMatic.com), the company that provides online publishers — including the majority of the comScore Top 10 — with the tools and services to significantly increase revenue and better manage their advertising inventory, unveiled a revolutionary new set of offerings to give publishers more revenue generating opportunities and more control over their brand.

For the first time ever, sales and ad operations teams can manage all ad revenue from a single dashboard and gain new insights into inventory and pricing across non-guaranteed and guaranteed inventory channels. This will allow publishers to find new ways of selling existing inventory and improve the value of the inventory sold by their direct sales force.

Online publishers will benefit from PubMatic Premier’s six core elements of technology and services, including: Impression-Level Ad Auction: Delivers every source of demand for non-guaranteed inventory into a unified, impression-level auction that ensures the most money for every ad impression. The auction includes over 400 ad networks, the largest pool of Real Time Bidding buyers available, and insertion orders sold directly by the publisher’s sales force.

Global Demand Representation: PubMatic represents publishers to ad networks and exchanges with feet on the ground in seven global locations while managing creative policy and revenue requirements.

Audience Analytics & Monetization: Aggregates data from leading data providers such as in market data exchange BlueKai, targeting data marketplace eXelate, Rapleaf, and audience segmentation platform provider Red Aril, for improved audience insight, audience acquisition, and re-targeting. PubMatic provides publishers’ direct sales forces with audience targeting solutions for higher CPMs and sell-through of guaranteed ad inventory.

Brand Control & Data Safety: Provides comprehensive tools and service to protect the publisher’s brand – automated blocklist and malware detection, pixel identifier, real-time ad quality screening and more.

Guaranteed Inventory Yield Management: Enables sales and ad operations to manage all ad revenue from a single dashboard and gain new insights into inventory and pricing. PubMatic integrates directly with the industry’s leading ad servers.

Enterprise Ad Operations Support: Includes a dedicated service team to consult on campaign trafficking and delivery, provide consolidated payments, and ongoing industry insights.

“Publishers require a new set of tools to capitalize on emerging revenue opportunities such as RTB ad exchanges and data monetization platforms within the context of their existing premium and non-premium display sales channels,” said William Morrison, Partner and Sr. Internet Analyst at ThinkEquity Partners. “PubMatic’s new platform should help publishers keep pace amid the increasing sophistication of ad buyers and a complex array of monetization opportunities.”

“Publishers have never had so much innovation and so many new opportunities to increase the value of their ad inventory and maintain control of their brand as they do today,” said Rajeev Goel, Co-founder and CEO of PubMatic. “However, taking advantage of those opportunities can be complex without the right tools in place to simplify the process, and PubMatic Premier brings together the tools and services publishers need in one solution.”

About PubMatic:

PubMatic’s ad monetization and management solution combines impression-level ad auction technology, the most comprehensive brand protection tools, and enterprise ad operations support to give the Web’s premium publishers the most control over their revenue and brand.

PubMatic has seven offices around the world in the US, Europe, and Asia. Some of the world’s most respected online publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including The Huffington Post, eBay, United Online, TV Guide, and the majority of the comScore Top 10. http://www.PubMatic.com

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. – ValueClick Media and Commission Junction, divisions of global online marketing leader ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK), have renewed agreements with Cyveillance, reaffirming their position among the safest networks for advertisers concerned about the security of their brands online.

Cyveillance provides both ValueClick Media and Commission Junction with real-time content monitoring to deliver early warning of potential violations of the networks’ publisher terms and conditions. In addition to monitoring thousands of URLs within both networks for objectionable content, Cyveillance monitors millions of domains across the Internet for instances of ad tags appearing on unapproved sites. Furthermore, the monitoring and collecting of data is fully automated, enabling ValueClick Media and Commission Junction to increase their proactive approach in protecting advertisers.

“Cyveillance is a strong complement to our internal network monitoring systems, providing another layer of security and giving advertisers further assurance of our commitment to protect their brands online,” said Tom Vadnais, chief executive officer of ValueClick, Inc.

Proprietary network monitoring technologies used by ValueClick Media and Commission Junction include real-time domain verification, fraud detection, traffic monitoring and site scoring systems. In addition, both networks maintain dedicated network quality teams and have some of the most stringent publisher acceptance criteria in the online advertising industry.

“We understand the critical importance ValueClick places on network quality and we are proud to be the technology provider they trust to monitor their network for potential content violations,” said Panos Anastassiadis, chief operating officer of Cyveillance. “Our proactive monitoring solutions go beyond simple flagging of violations and enable corrective action in real-time, continuously protecting the brands of advertisers.”

About Cyveillance

Cyveillance, a world leader in cyber intelligence, provides an intelligence-led approach to security. Through continuous, comprehensive Internet monitoring and sophisticated intelligence analysis, Cyveillance proactively identifies and eliminates threats to information, infrastructure, individuals and their interactions, enabling its customers to preserve their reputation, revenues, and customer trust. Cyveillance serves the Global 2000 and OEM Data Partners – protecting the majority of the Fortune 50, regional financial institutions nationwide, and more than 100 million global consumers through its partnerships with security and service providers that include Blue Coat, AOL and Microsoft. Cyveillance is a wholly owned subsidiary of QinetiQ North America. For more information, please visit www.cyveillance.com or http://www.qinetiq-na.com.

About ValueClick, Inc.

ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK) is one of the world’s largest online marketing services companies, offering comprehensive and scalable solutions to deliver cost-effective customer acquisition for advertisers and robust revenue streams for publishers. ValueClick’s performance-based solutions allow customers to reach their potential through multiple online marketing channels, including affiliate and search marketing, display advertising, lead generation, ad serving and e-mail technology, and comparison shopping. ValueClick brands include Commission Junction, ValueClick Media, Mediaplex, PriceRunner and Smarter.com. For more information, visit http://www.valueclick.com.

Demand Side Channels Must Innovate and Differentiate In Order to Thrive

LOS ANGELES – the Rubicon Project, the Internet advertising infrastructure company, reveals exclusive insight into emerging industry trends and market shifts that occurred in the fourth quarter of 2009, along with trends and predictions for what’s in store for 2010, in the seventh installment of its Online Advertising Market Report series.

Included within the report is the latest update on the Rubicon 20 Index, a measure of performance across a number of factors (including CPM, revenue and traffic volume) on a roster of 20 of the Web’s most heavily-trafficked properties. CPMs across the Rubicon 20 Index have risen by an average of 34 percent vs. Q3 2009, due to holiday ad spending and major online traffic drivers, such as celebrity news topics.

“Based on the serious spending increases from advertisers and innovation on both the supply and demand sides of the equation in the fourth quarter of last year, we believe 2010 is going to be a strong year for the digital advertising industry. As a market, we have spent the last few years working out the inefficiencies and identifying opportunities,” said Craig Roah, COO and Founder. “As many of our partners and customers can attest, the coming year will be focused on the next evolution of the market and identifying solutions that garner revenue that’s aligned with value – driven by the shift toward a truly open marketplace with transparency and controls that satisfy publishers and their demand partners.”

Additional key forecasts and trends addressed in this report include:

Audience-based buys in the REVV™ Marketplace captured rates four times the amount that was paid for more typical content and site targeted buys;
An advertiser side push for greater control and transparency, as marketers sought control over where and when ads appear;
Properly segmented and targeted online ad inventory changed attitudes about the definition and perceived value of unsold inventory;
Ongoing evolution in the ad network market: vertical ad networks will flourish and demand partners will differentiate through innovation, retargeting, audience segmentation and verification;
Online video ad market expected to bring more brand dollars online with new ad formats and standardization of metrics and measurement.
Also included in this report is market insight from industry leaders including Patrick Mersigner, Senior Director of Interactive at CreativeLoafing.com; Rob Beeler, Vice President, Content and Media at AdMonsters; Tommy Moreno, Principal and Managing Director at The Glenroe Group; Maureen Little, VP of Business Development at Turn; Jaan Janes, CEO of Pulse 360; Eric Franchi, SVP, Business Development at Undertone; Andrea Kerr Redniss, Managing Director and SVP at Publicis’ Optimedia; Charles Curran, Executive Director of NAI; Ben Abbatiello, Senior Director, Business Development at interCLICK; and Dan Greenberg, CEO of Sharethrough.

To access the full Q4 2009 Online Advertising Market Report, as well as past published reports for free, visit: http://www.rubiconproject.com/market-intelligence.

About the Rubicon Project

Headquartered in Los Angeles, the Rubicon Project launched in 2007 with a mission to automate the $65 billion global online advertising industry. The company’s Yield Management Optimization platform, REVV for Publishers™, is engineered to accelerate revenue for premium Web publishers. Backed by $42 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures and GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund, the Rubicon Project serves premium publishers like NBC Universal, Gannett and CareerBuilder; optimizing more than 45 billion ads each month and reaching 500 million unique Internet users. Ranked second in overall Internet reach by Quantcast, the Rubicon Project also helps ad sales channels around the world gain access to precise audience-segmented inventory, at broad scale.

2009 A Major Rebound Year For Publishers As CPMs Surge Past Pre-Recession Numbers

PALO ALTO, Calif. – PubMatic (www.PubMatic.com), the pioneer of Ad Revenue Optimization technology and full-service ad operations support for premium online publishers, announced the results of the 2009 Year-End Ad Price Index. The research brief indicates that 2009 proved to be a rebound year where ad pricing increased significantly and steadily. PubMatic, which has been providing public ad pricing data since early 2008, has the longest running ad pricing report in the digital display advertising industry. The latest report is a key indicator that rapid innovation of targeting technology from publisher vendors is helping unlock greater value of publishers’ ad space.

The recession hit online publishers the hardest in 2008 with ad prices falling to new lows, but each quarter since the beginning of the year saw big gains in premium publisher ad pricing, ending with a surge that raised December 2009 prices even higher than pre-recession prices:

Sequential Changes in Ad Pricing for Non-Guaranteed Inventory:

Q1 2009 – Q2 2009: 57% increase
Q2 2009 – Q3 2009: 31% increase
Q3 2009 – Q4 2009: 42% increase

Year on Year Changes in Ad Pricing for Non-Guaranteed Inventory:

Q4 2008 – Q4 2009: 111% increase

“Online publishers were hoping that 2009 would be a rebound year for ad pricing, but few predicted a comeback this strong,” said Rajeev Goel, PubMatic Co-Founder and CEO. “2010 is off to a promising start as well with new opportunities available to help publishers unlock the true value of their audience, including broader adoption of real-time bidding, increased abilities to better monetize audiences, and extending ad network optimization to the publishers’ mobile platform.”

The 2009 Year-End Ad Price Index can be downloaded at: http://www.pubmatic.com/adpriceindex.

*according to PubMatic data

About The Ad Price Index

PubMatic collects data from a large number of premium publishers that is then analyzed by our independent statisticians, and from which an aggregate monthly price index is produced. The 100 index reflects pricing from Q1 2008.

About The Ad Price Data Methodology

The PubMatic ad price data used in this brief is comprised of premium publishers using PubMatic. The data is prepared by leading independent statisticians and industry experts: Albert Madansky, Ph.D., H.G.B. Alexander Professor Emeritus of Business Administration at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and recipient of the 2005 American Statistical Association Founders Award, and Michele Madansky, Ph.D., a media and market research consultant and former VP of Global Market Research for Yahoo!

The pricing data reflects net publisher monetization for non-guaranteed ad inventory via ad networks and excludes ad networks’ share of ad spend as well as inventory sold directly by publishers to ad agencies or advertisers.

The pricing data is not representative of the performance of any particular ad network.

About PubMatic:

PubMatic’s Ad Revenue Optimization solution combines real-time ad decision technology with local service around the world to provide global publishers a holistic ad monetization platform. PubMatic’s real-time bidding (RTB) and Ad Price Prediction™ technology ensures that online publishers get the most money from their advertising space by deciding in real-time which ad network or exchange can best monetize each impression.

Some of the world’s most respected online publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including The Huffington Post, eBay, United Online, TV Guide, and the majority of the ComScore top 10. www.PubMatic.com

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – The world of advertising is changing dramatically with shifts in consumer behavior and growing online and pay TV video-on-demand (VOD) services, reports In-Stat (http://www.in-stat.com). These shifts among others are creating a growing market for advanced video advertising, which In-Stat projects will approach $5 billion by 2013.

Online VoD services, such as Hulu, CBS Interactive and ABC.com, are already driving growing advanced advertising revenue across their platforms. During the next five years, Pay-TV approaches to advanced advertising tied to popular TV shows, videos, movies and music content will come into their own.

“The online VoD industry has the early lead for delivering Advanced Video Advertising, but the Pay-TV industry is moving quickly and will surpass broadband VOD by 2012,” says Gerry Kaufhold, In-Stat analyst. “Because Pay-TV services deliver qualified, repeatable audiences, we expect them to be able to negotiate higher Cost per Thousand (CPM) fees than online services.”

Advanced Advertising is the next-generation approach that permits advertisers to dramatically improve their targeting, reporting, and overall return on investment (ROI).

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

TV Everywhere initiatives will extend ad-supported Pay-TV VOD services to online and mobile users.
Among the key companies enabling advanced video advertising are Adobe, Arris, Brightcove, Cisco, Motorola, Rovi, Sigma Systems, and thePlatform.
The Cable TV industry’s Canoe Ventures is working to help Pay-TV operators create large, plan-able audiences that can be cost-effectively sold directly to the large national advertisers.
The research, “US Advanced Advertising” (#IN0904467MBI), covers the US market for the value of Advanced Advertising services. It includes:

Examination of the next-generation approach to advertising.
Analysis of how this approach impacts new and old media outlets.
Descriptions of how advanced advertising works.
Forecasts for US households using ad-supported VOD, broken down by broadband and Pay-TV access, through 2013.
For a free sample of the report and more information, please contact a sales representative: http://www.instat.com/sales.asp

To purchase it online, please visit: http://www.instat.com/catalog/mmcatalogue.asp?id=289

The price is $3,495 (US).

About In-Stat

In-Stat’s market intelligence combines technical, market and end-user research and database models to analyze the Mobile Internet and Digital Entertainment ecosystems. Our insights are derived from a deep understanding of technology impacts, nearly 30 years of history in research and consulting, and direct relationships with leading players in each of our core markets. In-Stat provides its research through reports, annual subscriptions, consulting and advisory services to inform critical decisions.

Cost-Per-Engagement Pioneer Achieves 100 Percent YoY Global Sales Growth Fueled by Comprehensive Brand Advertising Offering

SAN FRANCISCO – VideoEgg, the engagement ad network, announced that it reached profitability in June 2009 with 100 percent year-over-year global sales growth and 2009 global revenues exceeding $25 million. 2009 represented a year of business maturation for VideoEgg as the company solidified operations across nine markets and four countries, expanded product offerings to more holistically meet the needs of brand advertisers and grew its network to reach more than 100 million consumers monthly. Today, VideoEgg works with more than 90 percent of the biggest digital advertisers in North America 1.

VideoEgg’s revenue growth is directly linked to its ability to anticipate and address the challenges faced by brands in today’s shifting media landscape. Historically, online advertising delivered brand messages with short, static images and success was measured by clicks and page views. As the industry evolved, time- and audience-based models emerged as a more effective way to reach consumers and bring value to non-traditional media environments. As a result, advertisers have moved beyond solely buying impressions and now demand customized ad solutions that deliver attention.

“We’ve always focused on solving the challenges brand advertisers face—whether it be helping them reach their audiences despite media fragmentation or simplifying their media buy,” said Matt Sanchez, CEO of VideoEgg. “VideoEgg’s growth is indicative of the company’s ability to consistently deliver the right mix of creative services, ad products and research to meet advertisers’ needs. As we move into 2010, we believe our distinctive solution set will continue to drive company growth and profitability.”

VideoEgg’s 2009 growth milestones include:

Seven consecutive months of profitability
100 percent year-over-year global sales growth
Global revenues exceeding $25 million
Successful operations in nine markets, include three international offices
Reaching 100 million global uniques across its network
Delivering one billion impressions per month
Attracting many of the nation’s largest brands including Unilever, Nissan and Microsoft

Brand Performance and Services Offering Fills Industry Void

Designed from the ground up to deliver engagement, VideoEgg is the only company that provides brands with an integrated network, services and technology solution that goes far beyond traditional ad network models and picks up where agencies leave off. By productizing an approach that was once incredibly labor intensive into something more manageable, VideoEgg is giving brand advertisers more of what they need – creative, custom media solutions, research and insight and brand safety – to make the digital medium more scalable and sustainable.

More than just an ad network, VideoEgg’s engagement network includes:

VE Solutions: Makes the technology work harder

Strategic solutions: Media and creative specialists develop powerful, custom brand solutions.
Creative studio: Designers and technologists develop data-driven ad experiences.
Research: Analytics experts provide insight into brand metrics and creative optimization.
“100% Happy”: Customer service promise guarantees advertisers’ satisfaction.

VE PeopleNetworks: Custom audience networks tuned to specific marketing objectives

Data-driven audience targeting: VideoEgg partners with data providers like Quantcast, Targus and Excelate to increase the efficiency of campaigns across its broad network.
Engagement and time are valued above impressions: Optimized with AttentionRank, the entire network is structured around a time-based performance model.
Designed for advertisers: With more than 400 quality online partners, VideoEgg creates highly customized and data-rich brand networks to meet advertisers’ precise needs. In addition, a strong combination of people and technology ensures environments are safe for brands.

VE Brand Platform: Immersive ad experiences that scale

Opt-in and opt-out: Unique and complementary advertising products—engagement, mobile and interstitial—run across any display ad space or within a mobile environment.
VideoEgg ToGo: Allows advertising creative on the VideoEgg network to run on any site within a broader media buy at no additional cost.
Designed for engagement: Pricing is triggered only when brands know they have users’ attention.
“VideoEgg has managed to stay one step ahead in a fiercely competitive market by delivering what brands demand today—a unique brand performance offering and superior services that make campaign execution easy, fast and effective,” said Heidi Browning, Global Digital Officer, Universal McCann. “With its ability to bridge services, technology and media, VideoEgg has simplified a complex process to make digital more manageable and scalable for brands.”

View some of VideoEgg’s work with brand advertisers at www.videoegg.com.

About VideoEgg, Inc.

VideoEgg, an engagement network that helps brands get the most out of digital advertising, is the only company that provides brands an integrated network, services and technology solution that takes the complexity out of online brand advertising. Designed for engagement, the company gives brand advertisers more of what they need – industry-leading research and insight, innovative ad products, advanced targeting data, sales and packaging, and guaranteed brand safety – to make the digital medium more accountable, scalable and sustainable. With successful operations in nine markets, including three international offices, VideoEgg’s engagement network reaches 100 million global uniques across quality online and mobile environments, delivering one billion impressions per month for many of the world’s largest brands.

Founded in 2005 and based in San Francisco, with offices across North America, in the UK and Australia, the company is privately held and backed by August Capital, First Round Capital, Maveron, WPP and Focus Ventures. For more information on VideoEgg, please visit http://www.videoegg.com.

Follow VideoEgg on Twitter: http://twitter.com/videoegg.

AdFrames and VideoEgg are trademarks, servicemarks or registered trademarks in the United States and other countries. All other brands, names, or trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

1 “Global Marketers 2009.” Advertising Age. Crain Communications, 30 Nov. 2009.

PubMatic Will Increase Ad Revenue Made From Publishers’ Mobile Web Sites and Applications

PALO ALTO, Calif. – PubMatic (www.PubMatic.com), the pioneer of Ad Revenue Optimization technology and full-service ad operations support for premium online publishers, announced a new solution that leverages real-time optimization technology to help publishers maximize revenue from their mobile ad inventory. PubMatic works with premium publishers to increase their ad network and exchange revenue by 30-100% and simplify operations, and will extend those benefits to publishers’ mobile ad inventory via an integrated solution.

“While the consumption of mobile content has grown exponentially, particularly with the iPhone and Android platforms, the ability to monetize the mobile web has become increasingly difficult for premium publishers,” said Rajeev Goel, Co-Founder and CEO of PubMatic. “Our integrated mobile solution gives publishers the ability to take full advantage of their highly lucrative mobile ad inventory by simplifying the process by which they manage and select the most effective ads for their mobile web sites and applications.”

Publisher benefits Include:

Ad Network Representation: PubMatic will help publishers connect to the optimal mix of mobile ad networks according to publishers’ content, audience, and brand safety requirements
Real-Time Decision Making: PubMatic will decide in real-time which mobile ad network can best monetize each impression and select the highest paying ad network every time
Brand Control: The same comprehensive brand control capabilities that protect PubMatic’s Web publishers from unwanted ads, channel conflict, and ad latency issues will also extend to the mobile platform
Audience Insight: Mobile-specific data points such as device, user location, and user demographics are considered as part of the ad network and exchange selection process to maximize publisher revenue
One Consolidated Management Dashboard (Web & Mobile): Publishers will be able to manage and review comprehensive reporting and analytics from one consolidated dashboard that tracks both their Web based ad sales and mobile ad sales.
Publishers interested in participating in the mobile platform launch can contact Andrew Rutledge, VP Sales. Andrew.Rutledge@PubMatic.com

About PubMatic:

PubMatic’s Ad Revenue Optimization solution combines real-time ad decision technology with local service around the world to provide global publishers a holistic ad monetization platform. PubMatic’s real-time bidding (RTB) and Ad Price PredictionTM technology ensures that online publishers get the most money from their advertising space by deciding in real-time which ad network or exchange can best monetize each impression. Some of the world’s most respected online publishers have chosen to work with PubMatic, including The Huffington Post, eBay, United Online, TV Guide, and the majority of the ComScore top 10. www.PubMatic.com

AdXpose’s Campaign Verification and Optimization Technology Helped MediaCom Optimize Display Ad Campaign for Leading Consumer Electronics Client

SEATTLE – Mpire, the market-leading advertising verification and optimization technology company, announced that its patent-pending AdXpose service was selected by MediaCom, one of the world’s largest strategic planning and buying agency networks, to help optimize display advertising campaigns for a leading consumer electronics company. After implementing AdXpose, the technology delivered substantial performance increases by reducing budget spent on wasted impressions and refining creative based on user engagement reports.

MediaCom began testing AdXpose in August to assess and improve the performance of its online display buys. The goal of this optimization was to reduce the cost per sale on a campaign running across numerous ad networks and exchanges where they were buying on a CPM and CPC basis. Mpire’s AdXpose technology was embedded into the client’s buy across thousands of sites within Mpire’s AdXpose-certified ad network, and via several other ad networks and direct buys, which were vetted by AdXpose.

Over the course of four months, the MediaCom team was able to achieve a significant increase in the number of unique viewers (+45%), viewer engagement (+33%) and click-through rates (+20%) across the AdXpose network by removing underperforming sites from the network buy, and providing enhanced visibility and transparency by quantifying the percentage of ads that were actually being viewed or interacted with.

MediaCom also used AdXpose’s “heat mapping” reporting feature to glean insights about how users interacted with the ads.  The technology captured what percentage of viewers “moused over” or clicked on the ad, which creative images or ad copy attracted their attention, and total time spent interacting with the ad. When viewed next to the overall campaign results at the individual site placement level, the AdXpose data illuminated a direct correlation between interaction with ads and increased click-through and conversion rates.   Armed with this information, MediaCom optimized site distribution and page location of the ads, as well as the creative images and copy, which led to a significant increase in conversion to sale.

“With AdXpose we have visibility of things we’ve never seen before in any reporting suite. We have a host of new reports to help us assess the quality of the inventory we’ve purchased, as well as reports to give us a deeper understanding of how users are interacting with our creative.  When combined these reports enable us to optimize our media buys and creative to deliver unprecedented efficiency,” said Justin Barton, digital group head at MediaCom.

“MediaCom’s campaign showcases the full breadth of performance enhancing capabilities of AdXpose, and demonstrates how savvy marketers can leverage data insights to create more targeted and effective campaigns,” said Kirby Winfield, chief revenue officer at Mpire.  “As the landscape for display advertising continues to grow and evolve, more and more marketers are turning to AdXpose to obtain greater transparency, efficiency, safety, and results from their campaigns.”

About Mpire
Mpire is the market-leading advertising optimization technology company that is evolving traditional online advertising into a more relevant and engaging medium for publishers and advertisers. Its patent-pending AdXpose™ is the first and only verification and optimization technology that gives brand marketers and agencies transparency and confidence anywhere their ads run across the Internet, including exchanges, ad networks and direct publisher placements. Backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Ignition Partners, Mpire is based in Seattle, Washington.

As technology improves, competition increases for niche market ad revenues

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – An MIT Sloan School of Management professor offers a cautionary note to merchants and others who think they can get better results at a lower cost by advertising on the Internet instead of through more traditional media: Be careful what you click for.

According to MIT Sloan Assistant Professor Alessandro Bonatti, the same search and other technology that has certainly enabled advertisers to target particular audiences, such as men between 25 and 35 years old who work on Macintosh computers, is also creating greater on-line competition for the same audience, thus reducing the profitability of advertising on any targeted web site.

“We know that newspapers have a very limited ability to target audiences,” says Bonatti, who worked with Yale University economics professor Dirk Bergemann on his research into the issue. “Specialized magazines can do better, while Google has a very good ability to target who’s browsing each page. So while online advertising certainly has the potential to drive out traditional advertising, it does not necessarily follow that online advertisers will make more money. That depends on the concentration of the online advertising industry.”

Facebook, for example, “is able to sell ads that are crafted specifically for me,” says Bonatti. “So if Facebook was the only online provider, it would make a fortune. But as technology keeps improving, more and more web sites can sell very narrow products to very specialized audiences. And with lots of people targeting the same audience, the profits to be made through specialized advertising become more and more spread out.”

So while online advertising has certainly hammered newspaper and other traditional media, “from a profitability point of view, competition for advertising between two super-targeted online media is worse than competition between the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal,” according to Bonatti. “Instead of competing for one large pool, one big market, you will have price war in each targeted segment as the slice gets more and more narrow.”

“The paradoxical result,” says Bonatti, “is that the better the technology, the lower the profits for advertisers. You can make a lot of money through super powerful targeting if you are a monopolist, but not in a competitive market.”

Leading Publisher-Side Platform Brings Advanced Method of Transacting Digital Ad Inventory to Europe’s Premium Publishers

LONDON – AdMeld (www.admeld.com), the leader in ad network optimisation for premium publishers, announced the introduction of Real Time Bidding (RTB) capabilities in the United Kingdom. The move allows publishers across Europe to harness the enhanced levels of efficiency, transparency and control that RTB provides. Since launching support for the technology in the US earlier this year, AdMeld has processed more than 6 billion real time bids from a variety of trusted demand partners. The company’s initial RTB partners in the UK are AdJug, AppNexus, Infectious Digital, Invite Media and MediaMath.

“We’re excited to continue our history of innovation – launching the first demand-side platform in the US – and as a first adopter of RTB in the UK”

“Real Time Bidding is the latest in a series of innovations that are changing the way digital ad inventory is transacted,” said Michael Barrett, CEO of AdMeld. “We are pleased to lead its introduction into the UK and surrounding region by offering premium publishers the tools they need to generate the most overall revenue while accommodating their unique needs and enforcing their business rules. RTB is one in a suite of technologies AdMeld uses to help publishers worldwide maximise the true value of every ad impression.”

“AdMeld and AdJug have had a very successful partnership this year and we are looking forward to driving further expansion of our relationship through AdMeld’s RTB in the UK,” says Michael Stephanblome, CEO of AdJug. “Real Time Bidding will enable us to drive more campaign performance for our advertisers through optimisation.”

“AppNexus is committed to helping its advertiser partners around the globe achieve superior results online,” said Brian O’ Kelley, CEO of AppNexus. “AdMeld’s introduction of RTB in the UK is a major step forward for the industry, and will open up exciting new advertising opportunities for our clients. We look forward to extending our already-successful partnership with AdMeld in this area.”

“It’s a big step forward for the industry that premium publishers’ inventory is going to be available via Real Time Bidding,” said Martin Kelly, Managing Partner at Infectious Media. “Through our partnership with AdMeld, this represents a huge new opportunity for our advertisers to more efficiently reach the quality audiences at scale that they are looking for.”

“AdMeld represents the world’s top publishers and highest quality inventory,” said Zach Weinberg, CEO of Invite Media. “This partnership enables us to leverage the efficiency of Real Time Bidding to connect with those audiences in the UK, and do it in a way that benefits the publishers and generates increased ROI for our advertisers.”

“We’re excited to continue our history of innovation – launching the first demand-side platform in the US – and as a first adopter of RTB in the UK,” says Ari Buchalter, MediaMath’s Chief Operating Officer. “Expanding our partnership with AdMeld will produce incremental scale and performance for our agency-client’s campaigns today, and will help them better serve their advertisers in 2010.”

Today more than 130 of the world’s top online publishers use AdMeld’s technology to increase ad revenues and reduce operating costs. For AdMeld’s trusted network and demand partners, the platform provides access to quality audiences totaling more than 150 million unique users in the US and 270 million unique users worldwide, according to Quantcast.

AdMeld’s technology leverages Real-Time Bidding (RTB) and dynamically optimised ad tags to select the most lucrative mix of ads across hundreds of ad networks and exchanges. The company also provides a range of services that eliminate the complexities of working with multiple ad networks, such as consolidated performance reports and payments. Lastly, AdMeld protects publishers’ brands by aggressively enforcing ad block lists with FireMeld, an innovative tool that makes it quick and easy to identify and eliminate unwanted ad units.

AdMeld’s European headquarters are in London.

About AdMeld

AdMeld (www.admeld.com) helps the world’s premium online publishers maximise revenue from ad networks and exchanges, reduce operating costs and protect their brands from unwanted ads. AdMeld’s real time optimisation technology generates the highest possible yield from each ad impression, and its suite of tools and services enhance publishers’ understanding and control of their discretionary ad inventories. Current AdMeld customers include Answers.com, AccuWeather, Discovery Communications, FOX News, Hearst Television, IAC, New York Post, World Wrestling Entertainment® and more than 130 others worldwide. Founded in 2007, the company is headquartered in New York City with offices in San Francisco and London.

LOS ANGELES – Ace Metrix, the leader in online television advertising analytics, announced the closing of a $6.0 million “B” round of financing, led by Leapfrog Ventures. The new funds will be used to expand sales and marketing of the company’s fast-growing online television advertising effectiveness measurement service. Existing investors Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Palomar Ventures also participated in the funding. Pete Sinclair, co-director at Leapfrog Ventures, will join the board of directors of Ace Metrix.

“In this market very few companies are hitting their numbers, let alone exceeding them. This early market acceptance is one reason we are thrilled to become part of the Ace Metrix team”

The new funding caps a year of growth for Ace Metrix. Since launching the Ace Metrix online service in June of 2009, the company is on-track to exceed first year bookings and targeted monthly recurring revenue by a significant margin. Customer momentum is demonstrated by the addition of brand names such as Nissan North America, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, HP, Coldwell Banker Real Estate, Chrysler, CBS and others.

“In this market very few companies are hitting their numbers, let alone exceeding them. This early market acceptance is one reason we are thrilled to become part of the Ace Metrix team,” said Sinclair.

“Our growth this year illustrates strong customer value in the real-time, actionable television advertising effectiveness analytics that we deliver,” said Steve Goldman, co-founder and CEO of Ace Metrix. “Leapfrog, with their proven expertise in building companies, is a natural partner to help take us to the next level.”

Prior to Ace Metrix advertisers had no way of quickly assessing the impact of their television advertising creative, wasting millions of dollars on misdirected media spend. Legacy services are focused only on measuring standard recall and often take weeks to deliver results. Ace Metrix goes well-beyond this by measuring the actual effectiveness of advertising creative and delivering results in real-time through an online analytics dashboard.

About Leapfrog Ventures

Leapfrog Ventures invests in companies with identifiable customers and proprietary technology over the competition. Information Technology, software, communications/wireless, and technology-heavy consumer spaces are Leapfrog preferred markets. Leapfrog Venture’s mission is to help its portfolio companies leapfrog their competitors and achieve industry-leading levels of competitive and market performance as quickly as possible. For more information please see www.leapfrogventures.com.

About Ace Metrix

Ace Metrix delivers actionable analytics and competitive intelligence through the first online service measuring television advertising effectiveness. Featuring the patent-pending Ace Score, Ace Metrix is delivered through a SaaS delivery model to the desktops of national advertisers and agency executives. With Ace Metrix, advertisers and brand managers can make adjustments to creative and media schedules near real-time resulting in savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ace Metrix customers include CBS, Chrysler, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corp., Deutsch Inc., HP, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft and Nissan North America. For more information please see www.acemetrix.com.

VideoEgg ROI Directly Links Online Ad Exposure to Consumer Purchasing Behavior

SAN FRANCISCO – VideoEgg, the engagement ad network, announced VideoEgg ROI, a comprehensive online advertising measurement service for consumer packaged goods (CPG) advertisers. In collaboration with comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, VideoEgg is helping CPG brands evaluate the effectiveness of their VideoEgg online rich media campaigns by drawing a direct connection between online ad exposure and its impact on retail purchases. Using the comScore AdEffx ad effectiveness measurement platform, VideoEgg ROI provides CPG advertisers with the ability to measure the impact of exposure to online video and rich media advertising.

“We’ve always been able to measure brand engagement of our unique ad units”

As advertisers deliver increasingly rich experiences to reach consumers online, accurate and timely metrics are critical to gauge the impact of advertising initiatives on consumer buying behavior. VideoEgg ROI provides CPG brands the ability to quantify the success of their efforts by going beyond reach and engagement to actual sales and ROI for campaigns run on the VideoEgg network. By leveraging comScore’s in-depth data capabilities and proven expertise, VideoEgg empowers advertisers to identify best practices, make decisions that maximize the value of their media buy and increase sales.

“We’ve always been able to measure brand engagement of our unique ad units,” said Troy Young, CMO at VideoEgg. “We’re pleased to be able to close the loop in measuring CPG sales by leveraging the comScore AdEffx measurement platform. Our AdFrames platform is particularly effective for CPG brands because it enables delivery of richer content experiences that drive engagement, such as instructional videos or coupon downloads, in ways that passive exposure doesn’t. AdFrames also provides a more cost effective solution than the expensive process of driving consumers to microsites.”

As the pioneer of the cost-per-engagement (CPE) approach, VideoEgg works with its advertising partners, such as AT&T, Unilever and Toyota, to ensure that each campaign is custom designed to maximize marketing objectives and deliver time spent with a brand message. With the introduction of VideoEgg ROI, advertisers can evaluate the effectiveness of their campaigns with any of VideoEgg’s rich media formats—AdFrames, Spot or Mobile—to see the connection between digital ad spend and offline purchasing behavior. VideoEgg ROI also complements other VideoEgg research offerings in areas of brand lift, creative services and network optimization.

“VideoEgg helps advertisers create innovative ways to engage with consumers online, and the comScore AdEffx platform enables us to evaluate the effectiveness of this engagement on driving important behaviors, including offline sales,” said Lesle Litton, vice president, Media, at comScore. “Though CPG brands have traditionally relied heavily on TV advertising for reaching consumers, the Internet continues to emerge as a medium that can deliver reach and have an impact on the perceptions and behaviors of consumers. The VideoEgg ROI offering helps advertisers quantify this impact and justifies further allocation of their ad budgets online.”

View some of VideoEgg’s work with CPG advertisers:

http://preview.videoegg.com/adframes09/salon.html?ccid=14355

http://preview.videoegg.com/adframes09/serious_eats.html?ccid=13440

http://preview.videoegg.com/adframes09/film.html?ccid=13487

About VideoEgg, Inc.

VideoEgg is a new kind of rich media advertising network that guarantees brand engagement. The network is composed of over 100 million uniques across more than 1,000 quality digital environments, bringing outstanding consumer reach and engagement to its advertising partners. Founded in 2005 and based in San Francisco, with offices across North America, in the UK and Australia, the company is privately held and backed by August Capital, First Round Capital, Maveron, WPP and Focus Ventures. For more information on VideoEgg, please visit http://www.videoegg.com.

Follow VideoEgg on Twitter: http://twitter.com/videoegg

AdFrames and VideoEgg are trademarks, servicemarks or registered trademarks in the United States and other countries. All other brands, names, or trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

Magazine Brand Expands Suite of Services with Performance-Based Online Advertising

NEW YORK – New York Media, parent company of the weekly New York magazine, twice-yearly New York Weddings, nymag.com Web site, Grub Street network of food blogs, and restaurant and menu resource MenuPages.com, announced a partnership with Clickable to add online lead generation to the advertising opportunities offered to clients. “New York Connects” will provide online presence and new customer leads through search engine marketing (SEM) to local businesses that have not yet fully tapped into the Web’s potential. New York Media has been a leader among media brands in developing its online business, and will be the first Northeast media sales partner for Clickable’s Platform.

“Online performance-based marketing offers local businesses tremendous opportunity to acquire new customers with measurable ROI”

With most consumers turning to the Web to find local businesses, online advertising is a must. Combining New York Media’s expertise in the New York market with Clickable’s online advertising leadership, New York Connects is the most effective way to take advantage of the Web for new customer generation.

New York Connects drives growth through an online presence that connects local businesses with new customers actively researching products and services. New York Connects optimizes advertising across multiple channels, including major search engines, resulting in more leads and profitable customers. The service delivers measurability and self-reporting, and full transparency into campaign performance.

New York Connects now is available for wedding vendors, a business sector familiar with the “New York” brand through its weddings issues and one that will be well-served by year-around marketing. New York Connects also is available to dentists, a group for which there is untapped marketing demand. Additional categories will launch in 2010, such as spa services, architects, home renovations and interior designers among others.

“Online performance-based marketing offers local businesses tremendous opportunity to acquire new customers with measurable ROI,” says Larry Burstein, publisher of New York Media. “Through our partnership with Clickable, we can truly provide a one-stop shop for local businesses to meet their marketing needs.”

“Clickable Platform enables premium partners like New York Media to rapidly deploy large-scale online marketing offerings to thousands of local businesses under their own brands,” said David S. Kidder, Clickable co-founder and CEO. “Powered by Clickable, New York Connects delivers real-time leads directly to local business, empowering them to survive and thrive with real customer growth.”

Clickable Platform is a white-labeled software solution that delivers all the necessary components for advertising success, including lead generation, self-managed advertising tools, managed-assist services, reporting, support, training, community, billing and full CRM integration.

About New York Media

New York Media is the parent company of the ground-breaking weekly New York magazine, founded in 1968; the up-to-the-minute news and service website nymag.com; the national-restaurant-search website MenuPages.com; the Grub Street network of food blogs; and the twice-yearly New York Weddings magazine.

About Clickable

Clickable is a platform that makes online advertising simple, instant and profitable. It empowers beginners through professionals to maximize their advertising investment. Clickable makes you more efficient, effective, and confident. That’s why customers often say: “Clickable is like having a trusted advisor by your side ensuring success.” To learn more, visit www.Clickable.com.

Premium Web Publisher Customers Regain Power This Year with REVV for Publishers

LOS ANGELES – the Rubicon Project, the Internet advertising infrastructure company, extends a thank you to its premium publisher customers and demand partners for making 2009 a year full of innovation, growth and success. This year alone, more than 350 billion ads were served and 31,000 ad tags trafficked and managed through the Rubicon Project platform.

“When we started the company in 2007, we knew there was a need for a technology to help combat the fragmented landscape. Now with just two years under our belt and hundreds of millions of dollars flowing through the REVV Marketplace – it’s a clear indicator that the industry is responding to the innovation and technology we’ve brought to market,” said Frank Addante, CEO and Founder. “We could not have come this far without the consistent feedback and support of our valued customers and partners. Their insightful suggestions on how to expand our offerings to further meet their business needs have been the driving force behind our growing publisher and partner base that has resulted in 270% year over year growth.”

Watch the video to hear the Rubicon Project executives discuss highlights from 2009. Milestones include:

- Grew to 150 employees and honored by AlwaysOn as Company of the Year

- Announced $13MM follow-on B round with funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and IDG Ventures Asia. In September, followed with $9MM Series C funding round lead by GE/NBCU’s Peacock Equity Fund – bringing total funding investments to $42MM.

- Expanded scope beyond Ad Network Optimization by introducing REVV™ for publishers – a complete Yield Management Optimization solution.

- Acquired Others Online, the audience optimization company, to further build out the REVV for publishers platform™.

- International expansion entailed opening office in London, Sydney and Hong Kong. New hires included; Jay Stevens, former SVP at MySpace, appointed as VP of International, and former Google Executives, Kaylie Smith appointed Managing Director of Asia Pacific and Jayne Leung appointed Director of Publisher Development in Asia.

- Introduced Targeted Audience Program (TAP), enabling Web publishers to target their own visitors and other Web users just like them on their own sites and beyond as they travel around the Web. As a result, more than 10 percent of advertising dollars flowing through the Rubicon Project’s REVV Marketplace were spent exclusively on audience-targeted buys this month.

- Partnered with the World Food Program to launch the inaugural, Good Impressions, a charity program for customers to donate a portion of their site impressions to non-profit organizations through the REVV™ platform.

- Employees donated countless volunteer hours around the globe to a number of non-profits including Midnight Mission, Meals on Wheels, Tree People and LA’s Best After School Program. Additional corporate social responsibility initiatives included Green Week, in-house recycling program and Rubicon University.

- To further develop the organization’s thought leadership, it published four quarterly market reports on topics such as; real-time bidding, channel management and buying by audience. In addition to becoming involved with Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), Interactive Advertising Sales Houses (IASH), Association of Online Publishers (AOP), Online Publishers Association (OPA) and AdMonsters.
About the Rubicon Project

Headquartered in Los Angeles, the Rubicon Project launched in 2007 with a mission to automate the $65 billion global online advertising industry. The company’s Yield Management Optimizatio platform, REVV for Publishers™, is engineered to accelerate revenue for premium Web publishers. Backed by $42 million in funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund, IDG Ventures and GE/NBC Universal’s Peacock Equity Fund, the Rubicon Project serves premium publishers like NBC Universal, Gannett and CareerBuilder; optimizing more than 45 billion ads each month and reaching 500 million unique Internet users. Ranked second in overall Internet reach by Quantcast, the Rubicon Project also helps ad sales channels around the world gain access to precise audience-segmented inventory, at broad scale. Yield Management Optimization drives revenue lift ranging from 30-300% for the Rubicon Project’s customers.

Suite Uses Unified Platform to Measure the Actual Delivery of Online Media Plans and the Impact of Ad Campaigns on Attitudes, Behavior and both Online and Offline Sales

RESTON, VA – comScore (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, announced the launch of comScore AdEffx™, an integrated campaign effectiveness measurement suite that enables clients to accurately “measure what matters” depending on their particular campaign objectives. The comScore AdEffx suite resolves many longstanding measurement challenges that have precluded advertisers and publishers from accurately accounting for ad delivery against its intended targets and the resulting brand and sales lifts on audiences exposed to the campaign.

The Problem

Since the advent of digital display advertising, campaign effectiveness has traditionally been measured by clicks. More recently, numerous comScore studies have demonstrated why the click is a flawed measure of advertising effectiveness for most campaigns; most notably because it neglects the brand building value of the campaign and does not measure whether the intended target was impacted. As the digital media industry has come to understand that the click is not a relevant  metric of advertising performance, there has been a movement towards more relevant methods of measuring the effectiveness of online advertising by examining their impact on other variables, including brand awareness, online site visitation, trademark search and lift in both online and offline sales.

Despite these innovations, the industry currently remains mired in a situation where different measurement solutions from individual research suppliers reside in separate silos based on fundamentally differing methodologies. Because these methodologies typically employ cookie-based measurement rather than person-centric panel measurement, they can be subject to errors caused by cookie deletion and misattribution of consumer behavior because a cookie fails to identify which individual is using the computer at any given point in time. Importantly, these cookie-based approaches also prohibit the ability to perform accurate post-buy analyses to ensure that the correct audience targets were actually reached by the ad campaign. The result is often an inaccurate measurement of campaign effectiveness where clients cannot isolate whether it was the media, creative or other factors that influenced their results.

The Solution
comScore understands that not every campaign has the same objective and that many require a customized measurement approach. With the introduction of the comScore AdEffx suite, advertisers and publishers can accurately measure campaign effectiveness according to their particular objectives based on a unified person-centric audience measurement platform. This approach enables clients to obtain a 360-degree view of the delivery of their online media plans and their campaigns’ impact on consumer attitudes and behavior and be confident that they are measuring what matters correctly.

“Other digital ad effectiveness solutions tend to see each client’s campaign as a nail because their only available tool is a hammer,” said Anne Hunter, comScore vice president of ad effectiveness. “The comScore AdEffx suite offers our clients the complete toolkit for measuring ad effectiveness for any campaign objective with unparalleled accuracy. We understand that clients want media accountability and optimized performance, and only comScore AdEffx provides the ability to measure what matters using an integrated measurement platform based on the high quality media planning methods clients have come to trust from comScore.”

The comScore AdEffx™ suite currently includes five core services:

Campaign Essentials – Provides critical measures of the actual delivery of every campaign including reach, frequency, GRPs / TRPs and demographics of those exposed to the advertising in a post-buy analysis. This module provides advertisers and their agencies with the type of campaign reporting information they are used to obtaining through TV post-buy analyses, helping make online advertising consistent with traditional media.
Action Lift – Demonstrates the lift in online behaviors over time following the viewing of a marketer’s ad at any Web site and in any ad format, including search, display and video formats. Behavioral changes that are measured include site visitation and trademark search query activity.
Brand Survey Lift – Demonstrates the lift in consumer attitudes and intentions subsequent to advertising exposure in any online ad format. Can also include an evaluation of the lift from mobile advertising.
Online Sales Lift – Measures the lift in sales over time at an e-commerce site following exposure to an online ad in any format. This module includes a measurement of latent purchase behavior that is not accurately captured by click-based metrics, giving marketers a unique view into their online market share.
Offline Sales Lift – Measures the lift in offline sales resulting from online ad exposure in any ad format, also including latent buying following ad exposure. The solution matches the comScore panel with third party offline databases to create single-source data marts that combine online activities (including ad exposure) with offline buying behavior.

“comScore’s continued innovation in the field of advertising effectiveness has helped us provide added value to our clients. Their suite of products allows us to measure advertising impact across delivery, attitudinal changes and offline sales impact” said Theresa LaMontagne, Carat SVP of Data Analytics and Insights.

“Campaign Essentials finally provides the visibility into the actual demographic make-up of campaign audiences reached with particular media buys. It allows us to optimize media delivery on the fly and to demonstrate the value of online advertising in reaching specific consumer segments – in comparison to offline media buys,” said Yaakov Kimelfeld, SVP, Director of Analytics, MediaVest Worldwide.

“We’ve chosen comScore’s AdEffx suite because campaign performance should be determined by more than clicks and actions alone. Our innovative applications of these products really reinforce the value of our targeting capabilities by showing clients how their audience segments are responding to campaigns,” said Minal Kamlani, Director of Planning & Insights at Undertone Networks.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including, but not limited to, expectations regarding the impact and benefits to comScore of the comScore AdEffx product, financial or otherwise. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially, including, but not limited to: the features and characteristics of the products, the rate of development of the digital marketing intelligence, Internet advertising and e-Commerce markets; the growth of the Internet as a medium for commerce, content, advertising and communications; and the acceptance of new products and methodologies by the industry, including existing and prospective clients.

For a detailed discussion of these and other risk factors, please refer to comScore’s most recent respective Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Annual Reports on Form 10-K and from time to time other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), which are available on the SEC’s Web site (http://www.sec.gov).

Stockholders of comScore are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date such statements are made. comScore does not undertake any obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements to reflect events, circumstances or new information after the date of this press release, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

ClickMail Marketing to Resell Goodmail CertifiedEmail to Ensure Best Practices Approach to Online Reputation Optimization and Improvement

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. & FOSTER CITY, Calif. – Goodmail Systems, the creator of CertifiedEmail™, the industry’s standard class of trusted email, and ClickMail Marketing, a leader in email services and optimization, announced a partnership and reseller agreement to put companies on a fast track to increasing the ROI from their marketing campaigns. Online reputation is key to email deliverability, and ClickMail Marketing’s best-practices approach to online reputation management readies companies to meet Goodmail’s rigorous accreditation standards. The new partnership enables companies to quickly improve their reputation, optimize deliverability, and increase their email marketing ROI.

“Many organizations today lack the expertise to make certain their email campaigns satisfy the dozens of unwritten rules that improve deliverability,” said Peter Horan, CEO of Goodmail Systems. “ClickMail Marketing fills this gap by providing a best-practices approach to improving online reputation. Goodmail’s tough accreditation process for email marketers ensures these best practices are fully executed upon for optimal delivery and a better end user experience. This allows our joint clients to stop worrying about the mechanics of sending campaigns, and instead stay fully focused on their marketing strategy.”

ClickMail Marketing’s Email Optimization service helps marketers to improve their online reputation and email score. Ultimately, this best practices approach results in an enhanced user experience and significantly higher ROI for email marketing campaigns. As part of its reputation improvement services, ClickMail Marketing will now resell Goodmail’s CertifiedEmail delivery platform, which includes a rigorous sender accreditation process and sends email campaigns with a cryptographically secure token that assures recipients of the sender’s authenticity. Because the messages are marked in the inbox with a unique blue ribbon envelope icon, consumers are more likely to open the authenticated and secure messages.

“A solid online reputation is more important than ever, but even a few innocent mistakes can jeopardize online reputation and email scores,” said Marco Marini, President and CEO at ClickMail Marketing. “Our goal is to help marketers measure their delivery rates and follow the best practices that will improve their online reputation. Our Email Optimization services are designed to educate and enable well-intentioned senders who are experiencing issues to get a fresh start, repair their reputation, and achieve Goodmail accreditation. In addition, our implementation and support services ensure optimal performance of CertifiedEmail. Together, ClickMail and Goodmail offer customers a unique path to achieve their maximum possible ROI.”

About ClickMail Marketing, Inc.

ClickMail Marketing is a value-added reseller of Email Service Providers and email related services. We offer the nation’s largest selection of ESPs and stay vendor neutral so we can recommend the one that will best suit your needs. The ClickMail Advantage offers top tier products with more flexibility and superior support, and ClickMail’s eMarketing Services support your team and campaigns to achieve maximum ROI.

ClickMail Marketing is a privately held California Corporation with headquarters in Foster City, CA. For more information, visit www.clickmailmarketing.com.

About Goodmail Systems

Goodmail Systems – www.goodmailsystems.com – is the creator of CertifiedEmail™, the industry’s standard class of email. CertifiedEmail provides a safe and reliable means for consumers to easily identify authentic email messages from legitimate commercial and nonprofit email senders. Each CertifiedEmail is sent with a cryptographically secure token that assures authenticity and is marked in the inbox with a unique blue ribbon envelope icon, enabling consumers to visually distinguish email messages which are real and sent from email senders with whom they have a pre-existing relationship. Available to email senders meeting strict standards for best practices and low complaint rates, it is the only class of e-mail available that assures delivery of all opt-in e-mail messages to the inbox, with links and images automatically rendered intact, and embedded multi-dimensional applications like CertifiedVideo™ for streaming video, yielding measurable improvements in e-mail effectiveness. CertifiedEmail has been adopted by seven of the nation’s top 10 email mailbox providers and is in use by 500 commercial, government and non-profit senders. It is supported in North America and Europe by a wide network of email platforms and service providers.

Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2009

CHICAGO – Today at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) Chicago conference, experts from Clix Marketing, Click Forensics, Pepperjam and Page Zero Media will participate in a panel discussion titled: “Ads in a Quality Score World.” Panelists will explore the impact that the quality of online advertising campaigns has on overall ROI and performance. This includes a detailed overview of various ad quality factors as well as tips on increasing the perceived relevancy of campaigns.

Search Engine Strategies (SES) is the leading international conference series for webmasters, digital agencies, online marketers and corporate decision makers. Over the years SES has guided search marketers of all skill levels through the fast changing and complex world of search.

Panel Participants:

Moderator: David Szetela, CEO, Clix Marketing
Steve O’Brien, Vice President of Marketing & Sales, Click Forensics
Kristopher Jones, President & CEO, Pepperjam
Andrew Goodman, SES Advisory Board & Principal, Page Zero Media
When:

Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 12:45-2:00pm

Where:

Hilton Chicago
720 S. Michigan Ave
Chicago, IL 60605

About Click Forensics, Inc.

Click Forensics is the industry leader in audience verification and traffic quality improvement for the online advertising community. Click Forensics provides audience verification and traffic quality management solutions for leading online advertisers, publishers and ad networks, including companies such as Yahoo!, Progressive Insurance, GenieKnowsMedia.com, Experian, Nextag, Moxy Media, Turn, Traffic Engine, Vegas.com and many others. The company also publishes data on online advertising audience quality, including the Click Fraud Index®, the top independent source of industry click fraud data. Click Forensics is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and is privately held with funding from Sierra Ventures, Austin Ventures, Shasta Ventures and Stanford University. More information on Click Forensics and its offerings is available at www.ClickForensics.com.

Real Life Lessons in Maximizing Advertising ROI Online

SOMERVILLE, N.J. – Adblade, the web’s largest premium only advertising platform, serving ads on over 1000 premium portals, released a list of 5 common but deadly mistakes committed by online advertisers. The results were compiled over the last 12 months by speaking with advertisers and by reviewing hundreds of campaigns placed on the Adblade Premium Publisher Network.

Failure to change or rotate ad creative – All online advertising creative experiences user fatigue over time. Campaigns which run out of steam quickly are those that fail to change or rotate their ad creative. This includes changing images, headlines, descriptions and landing pages. The most sophisticated advertisers are constantly testing and rotating in new creative.

Too ambitious with design or creative – Engagement and click through rates for standard IAB Units continue to fall, yet many advertisers fail to think critically about what will generate the most engagement by users, even after time and money is poured into their designs and concepts. You may have a nice logo and a stunningly attractive ad but will your target audience notice and what reason will they have to click?

Using Long Tail Sites and Ad Networks – Ad Networks that serve long tail publishers have a much higher incidence of click and impression fraud resulting in lower ROI for advertisers. Is a $.40 CPM really a bargain when half of the impressions and 95% of clicks are fraudulent? Sticking with premium distribution will not only increase your brand value but will also deliver increased ROI.

Unable to get over the learning curve – Many advertisers have grand plans to scale their business using digital media but are disappointed with their first attempts. It takes patience and time to optimize successful online campaigns, from finding the best creative and placements to optimizing landing pages, user experiences and offers. Advertisers too often give up before they have found their secret formula.

HTML/Browser warnings – Landing pages look different in every browser type. Certain browsers also display warnings based on the HTML of the website. Internet Explorer for example asks users to decide if they would like to see web pages which contain both secure and non-secure information before the page loads. Make sure your landing pages don’t cause warnings which interrupt and inhibit the conversion process. Any warnings or errors will have a dramatic negative effect on campaign performance.

About Adblade

Adblade has quickly become a leader in online display advertising by offering advertisers and publishers unique features and technology which improve the economics of online advertising for everyone. Adblade represents much of the advertising seen on over 1000 premium branded local and national websites. Adblade’s News Bullets have a much higher engagement and click through rate than traditional display advertising. Adblade now reaches over 150 million unique US monthly users making Adblade the largest premium ad platform on the Web. More information at www.adblade.com