SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), the search advertising network and management company, announced the launch of Optimal Pricing: a new initiative to deliver better performance to search advertisers by segmenting and pricing traffic according to that traffic’s value. Optimal Pricing offers advertisers a unique opportunity to reach and attract audiences outside of the major search engines, while managing to meet and exceed return-on-investment (ROI) goals.

“LookSmart is focused on delivering search advertisers the most effective advertiser networks and services for reaching customers outside of the big three search engines; building Optimal Pricing into the AdCenter platform is a major advancement to that end,” said Ted West, CEO and President of LookSmart. “Optimal Pricing is consistent with our longstanding track-record of innovation and improved search advertiser performance.”

Optimal Pricing aggregates keyword search traffic on the LookSmart Advertiser Network, and classifies performance data so that the full spectrum of that traffic is priced appropriately according to traffic type, quality, and volume. The model relies on information about advertiser campaign objectives and network structure to provide each advertiser a chance to bid on the most valuable traffic at all price points. As the customer case diagram illustrates, this approach, when compared to a simple “blended pricing” approach more common in the search advertising industry, allows advertisers to generate more paid clicks and conversions, and to realize conversions at a lower cost-per-conversion.

Built on over a decade of experience optimizing search traffic, LookSmart is able to leverage the scope and scale of its network and partnerships to the best advantage for its advertisers, offering access to incremental traffic at optimal value. The Optimal Pricing initiative was introduced to a small group of search advertisers, in beta release during the second quarter, and based on success in these cases, is now being rolled out to a broader cross-section of advertisers in the third quarter.

Eventually, LookSmart expects most advertisers with larger campaigns to adopt Optimal Pricing in their campaigns on the LookSmart Advertiser Network.

LookSmart continues to drive performance innovation in search advertising networks. The release of Optimal Pricing follows the full release during the second quarter of SmartRotation, an industry-first CPA-optimized ad rotation feature that serves the best-converting ad creative based on tracking pixel data. These two innovations helped the company gain recognition as a finalist for the 2009 Search Engine Watch “Best Search Ad Platform” award, which LookSmart took home last year.

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), the search advertising network and management company, announced that LookSmart’s AdCenter platform has been named a finalist in the annual SEW Awards’ “Best Search Engine Ad Platform” category for the second year running. LookSmart took the SEW award home in 2008.

“LookSmart has been recognized for its innovation for two years in a row by a panel of industry experts and thought leaders in the search advertising community,” said Ted West, CEO at LookSmart. “We have pushed the scalability and performance of our ad serving and keyword auction platform in order to create better return for the advertisers and publishers who work with us.”

The award winners were announced at SES San Jose throughout the day on Tuesday and Wednesday, August 11th and 12th. The mission of the SEW Awards is to recognize excellence, as well as inspire innovation and encourage new ideas in search marketing. Now in its 11th year, SES San Jose is organized and programmed by the SES Advisory Board and SearchEngineWatch.com, the leading authority on Search Engine Marketing (SEM). LookSmart was showcased at booth #609 in the exhibition hall. For more information about SES 2009 San Jose, please visit: http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sanjose/

For more information, please contact sales@looksmart.net or 888-403-5665. Follow LookSmart on Twitter @LookSmartSearch.

About LookSmart, Ltd.

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. Dedicated to the quality of PPC search advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. For more information call 888-403-5665.

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), the search advertising network and management company, announced the full release of SmartRotation, a cost-per-action (CPA) driven tool that automatically serves the best-performing ad creative in an ad group based on conversion data from a tracking pixel. The new tool, a feature of LookSmart’s ad rotation, allows advertisers to optimize campaigns by conversion events like sales, sign-ups, downloads, and registrations to drive higher performance.

“It doesn’t matter how many clicks you have if it doesn’t convert,” said Michael Schoen, Vice President and General Manager of Advertising Platforms at LookSmart. “While other platforms only offer even ad rotation or optimization by click-through rate (CTR), LookSmart’s SmartRotation analyzes conversion rates and serves the best-converting ad creative, giving advertisers a better rate of return on their search investment.”

SmartRotation
Automatically serves the ad creative with the best CPA in a campaign
Provides detailed information about which keywords and traffic sources are performing
Easy to integrate into online campaign management
Built on LookSmart’s award-winning AdCenter platform

SmartRotation is the latest addition to LookSmart’s award-winning AdCenter, a powerful ad serving and keyword auction platform. AdCenter processes more than a billion daily queries for LookSmart’s syndicated network and is used by thousands of advertisers via self-service accounts, dedicated managed services and bid management through advanced API technology.

For more information, please contact sales@looksmart.net or (888) 403-5665.

About LookSmart, Ltd.

LookSmart (NASDAQ: LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. Dedicated to the quality of PPC search advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. For more information call (888) 403-5665.

“LookSmart is pleased to know that Furl’s loyal user base will benefit from a reliable platform run by a team highly focused on bringing users the most advanced features and functionality in the marketplace. The relationship drastically changes the social bookmarking landscape and we look forward to being a part of it,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart.

The integration of Furl with Diigo, in conjunction with the upcoming release of Diigo 4.0, will advance the Diigo team’s goal of taking the social bookmarking/annotation to new heights. “Diigo is pleased that Looksmart has chosen us to support Furl’s one million users,” said Dr. Wade Wei Ren, founder and CEO of Diigo. “Our platform has been widely recognized as providing users one of the most feature-rich and robust social bookmarking/annotation services on the web today, and we look forward to extending our services to the Furl community.”

About LookSmart:

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management solutions company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own branded vertical advertising networks, LookSmart also licenses and manages search ad networks using its award-winning AdCenter platform. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com.

About Diigo:

Diigo.com enables user to process, manage, share and discover online information more productively and effectively. Diigo aims to be the best knowledge sharing and management platform for individuals, work groups, and companies. Diigo has received rave reviews from leading IT publications, and many awards, including 2nd Open Web People Awards – Best Social Bookmarking category, Nevada’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology’s “Tech Start-up of the Year” Award, and Technology Innovation Foundation’s “Technology Innovator of the Year” Award. Diigo is privately held, and is based in Reno, NV. For more information, visit www.Diigo.com.

“We are very pleased to have Gill join our sales and management teams,” said Ewert. “As a veteran of Internet media, Gill brings with him a wealth of experience, having held leadership positions with Yahoo!, Deja.com and CMP Media. I look forward to working with Gill as we build on LookSmart’s success in the market and seek to enhance our leadership position in search advertising networks.”

From 2000 to 2007, Brown worked at GoTo.com, Overture Services, and Yahoo! Search Marketing where he evangelized the paid-search advertising model for Yahoo! and built the company’s entire Northwest Regional Sales operation.

“For online advertisers targeting a specific industry or market, search ad networks can be a source of quality traffic. LookSmart has a proven reputation for helping leading brands run successful campaigns every day, allowing marketers to maximize value, regardless of the size or scope of the campaign,” said Brown. “I am delighted to be able to join the company at this stage of its growth and I look forward to leveraging my experience in the industry to help the company continue its success.”

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a premier search advertising network and management company, today launched a new geo-conversion reporting tool that enables online advertisers to improve return on investment by focusing their budget on the geographic locations best responding to a campaign.

Unveiled today at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago, these geo-conversion tracking reports can be as granular as needed, measuring results at the account, campaign, ad and keyword level, and returning conversion rates by country, designated market area (DMA), state, city and ZIP code. In addition, cost-per-action (CPA) can also be measured.

“We have worked with LookSmart for years. They are a cost-effective lead source for some of our customers, and have also provided cost-effective extended reach and distribution from local search engine marketing,” said Jeff Werner, communications director, WebVisible. “With LookSmart’s enhanced targeting capabilities it just keeps getting better every day and we look forward to continue working with them in the future.”

LookSmart continually enhances the AdCenter, its award-winning search advertising platform. During the past year, the search network veteran has made it easier for advertisers to target niche audiences, manage bid prices and control traffic quality via new features and services. At the same time, LookSmart has expanded its network of high-quality distribution partners and strengthened traffic quality by providing reporting tools and services that give greater insight into the network, enhancing its value to advertisers.

“Advertisers can trust that LookSmart works hard to meet all our customers’ needs; the addition of geo-conversion reporting is just the latest of many enhancements we’ve made this year,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president, LookSmart. “Our continued quality improvements help advertisers target their campaigns toward the most effective audiences. Used well, the LookSmart platform can provide advertisers with a leg up on the competition.”

“While advertisers of all sizes are challenged by the economy, search advertising networks like LookSmart offer a clear benefit for smaller businesses, which often market to a specific city or region,” said Anita Campbell, editor-in-chief of Small Business Trends (www.smallbiztrends.com), an award-winning, comprehensive online publication for small business owners and entrepreneurs. “Small and local businesses can especially profit from search ad networks that not only help them target their desired audience but also enable them to fine-tune their campaigns to be the most effective.”

LookSmart will be exhibiting at SES Chicago in Booth 410 at the Hilton Chicago on Dec. 9 and 10. For more information about LookSmart at SES Chicago or to schedule a press briefing during the conference, please contact Raymond Deplazes at 415-694-6715 or email LookSmart@racepointgroup.com.

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management solutions company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own branded vertical advertising networks, LookSmart also licenses and manages search ad networks using its award-winning AdCenter platform. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500.

SAN FRANCISCO – Advertising agencies and search engine marketers (SEMs) continue to achieve positive results for their clients with LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a premier search advertising network and management company. dBase Media (www.dbasemedia.com), a leading SEM firm specializing in managing brand and direct marketing campaigns for leading advertisers, leverages LookSmart to generate quality clicks for its clients in the travel and tourism, political issue and advocacy, entertainment, and non-profit industries.

“LookSmart understands marketing better than any other search advertising network out there; we know we can rely on the quality of the LookSmart network to generate the consistent visitor traffic that our clients have come to expect,” said Mitch Johnson, president of dBase Media. “LookSmart’s Managed Service staff has gone out of its way to offer help and accommodate our frequent optimization requests, making it a valuable complement to our clients’ search campaigns.”

“dBase Media customers have come to expect solid marketing campaigns that generate leads and elevate brand awareness,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “Agencies like dBase trust LookSmart to help them drive positive ROI for customers on the LookSmart network, easily manage several campaigns at once, and demonstrate solid value to their clients. Our teams work closely with agencies and search engine marketers, delivering the customer service and results they need at an affordable price. Our goal is to be the marketer’s marketer and the smartest choice among search advertiser networks.”

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management solutions company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own branded vertical advertising networks, LookSmart also licenses and manages search ad networks using its award-winning AdCenter platform. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500.

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), the search advertising network and management company, highlighted metrics that demonstrated the company’s delivery of superior value for search advertisers who seek broad and cost-effective reach for their keyword text advertising campaigns.

During this year’s second fiscal quarter, LookSmart’s network averaged nearly 500 million queries per day, providing search advertisers with a quality complement to their campaigns on the major search engines. According to a research paper from search engine marketing solutions provider Efficient Frontier, “Search Engine Performance Report Q2 2008,” Google, Microsoft Live and Yahoo delivered CPCs of approximately 71 cents, 59 cents and 51 cents, respectively. LookSmart’s average cost-per-click during the same period was 8 cents.

“In these tough economic times, search advertisers seek quality and value for their campaigns. As prices on proprietary search engines continue to rise without proportionate added value to search advertisers, search advertising networks such as LookSmart offer an attractive value proposition by presenting a large volume of quality clicks at a very reasonable cost,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “The quality of our network is monitored to ensure value to our customers, and we work closely with our advertisers to manage their campaigns for strong return on investment. Our award-winning, proven platform scales to meet advertiser needs and efficiently targets search audiences on our growing network of non-proprietary search queries. LookSmart’s advertisers benefit from the quality and service offered.”

Kyle Koch, SEM Manager at RealtyTrac, the leading online provider of resources for home seekers, investors and real estate agents, said, “Working with LookSmart provides RealtyTrac with incremental business that we would not have realized otherwise. The LookSmart staff is very knowledgeable and helps to ease our workload with keyword expansion, bid management, and custom distribution for our campaigns. They provide clever insights and show us ways to better optimize our account for the best possible ROI.”

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own vertical advertising networks, LookSmart also licenses and manages its award-winning AdCenter platform. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500.

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising network and technology solutions provider, today announced the launch of its Thought Leadership Series, a blog featuring online advertising industry visionaries such as John Battelle, Danny Sullivan, Charles Knight and Anita Campbell.

“We are proud to sponsor this educational series in the hopes that the insights provided will help advertisers make smarter choices in online advertising,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “Providing value to advertisers is our top priority and doing that through great service and lower cost-per-click on a quality network isn’t enough – we need to provide them with the best insights in the business.”

The Thought Leadership Series will feature some of the most influential voices in the online advertising industry covering a diverse range of topics including search advertising, search engine optimization, alternative search engines, small business trends and the conversion of media and online communities. Among the contributors are:

- John Battelle, founder/chairman/CEO of Federated Media Publishing, Inc.
- Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land
- Charles Knight, editor of AltSearchEngines
- Anita Campbell, editor-in-chief of Small Business Trends

You can follow LookSmart’s Thought Leadership Series at: http://blogs.looksmart.com/thought_leadership.

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is the premier search advertising network and management company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own vertical advertising networks, LookSmart licenses and manages its award-winning AdCenter platform to companies such as Ask.com. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB click measurement panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising network and technology solutions provider, announced it is partnering with Click Forensics, the industry leader in scoring, auditing and improving traffic quality for the online advertising community, to receive third party PPC quality reports. LookSmart is leveraging Click Forensics’ FACTr reports to improve the speed and flow of feedback from advertisers on the value delivered through the LookSmart network.

“LookSmart is focused on maintaining and enhancing our network quality assurance processes, which are key to delivering the highest return on investment to our search advertisers,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “The FACTr reports represent one more way we are delivering on our promise to advertisers to help them make smart, dependable choices that will make a real difference for their business.”

LookSmart is dedicated to continuous improvement and was a founding member of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. FACTr, or Fully Automated Click Tracking Reconciliation, is an important ingredient in continuing that improvement because it provides search advertisers an easy, automated method for electronically reporting unwanted traffic to search providers such as LookSmart. LookSmart will use these reports to strengthen the integrity of its targeted PPC advertising services.

“By using live campaign data and patent-pending analytics, FACTr makes it easier for targeted search providers such as LookSmart to ensure their clients are receiving quality clicks and the best value for their ad spend,” said Tom Cuthbert, president of Click Forensics. “FACTr is an easy way for search advertising networks to increase loyalty and trust with their clients.”

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own vertical advertising networks, LookSmart also licenses and manages its award-winning AdCenter platform. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is one of the five founding members of the IAB Click Measurement Panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising network and technology solutions provider, today announced the release of valuable enhancements to its award-winning text advertising platform that make it even easier for advertisers to target niche audiences, manage bid prices, and control traffic quality.

Enhancements to the LookSmart AdCenter platform include:

- Day Parting – advertisers can target the right message at the right time by scheduling campaigns to run at specific times of day and days of the week
- Easy Price Adjustments – advertisers can save time and effort by adjusting bid prices and reserve amounts on millions of keywords and thousands of campaigns at once
- Negative Keyword Management – advertisers can decrease campaign administration time by applying keywords at the campaign level

“We work hard to provide the very best search advertising platform and tools so advertisers can make smart choices and maximize ROI,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “Our proven platform makes it easy for search advertisers to properly scale and manage campaigns to reach highly qualified audiences with the right message at the right time.”

LookSmart’s talented account managers also can tailor “custom distribution channels” on the LookSmart advertising network that provide finer control over where advertisements appear. Selecting from among LookSmart’s base of 500 million queries per day, account managers work closely with advertisers to create white-lists that specify the types of traffic they want, create black-lists to block unwanted traffic, and decide how much budget to spend on specific categories and feeds. These proven tools and techniques provide advertisers with traffic quality control on individual campaigns or hundreds of campaigns at once, using thousands or even millions of keywords. Search advertisers can further target their audience in the U.S., Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand using the geo-targeting capability of the AdCenter, which enables them to more effectively connect with the targeted customers they seek.

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ:LOOK) is a premier search advertising network and management company. A trusted provider of quality search advertising products and services to text advertisers, LookSmart offers targeted pay-per-click search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network. For publishers seeking to create their own vertical advertising networks, LookSmart also licenses and manages its award-winning AdCenter platform. Dedicated to the quality of text advertising, LookSmart is committed to safeguarding against invalid clicks and is one of the five founding members of the IAB click measurement panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500

SAN FRANCISCO – LookSmart, Ltd. (NASDAQ:LOOK), a pay-per-click (PPC) search advertising network and technology solutions provider, announced its ad network has been bolstered by the addition of 30 high-quality distribution partners, some of which resulted from expanding internationally into the UK and Australia. High-quality traffic, which offers search advertisers improved click-through and conversion rates in categories such as travel, technology and retail, has doubled while low-quality traffic has been cut in half.

“As we add top-quality traffic, we work vigilantly to maintain unsurpassed excellence throughout the network – our goal is to deliver superior ROI and conversion rates for all our search advertisers,” said Ted West, chief executive officer and president of LookSmart. “Our LookSmart Network Management team weighs user conversion data and employs statistical models to gauge network quality and reporting in real time – ultimately delivering better value to our customers.”

LookSmart makes it easy to run successful ad campaigns. Search advertisers work directly with dedicated account managers, who are skilled at creating customized distribution channels across LookSmart’s optimized network. This service advantage allows search advertisers to attract highly targeted leads and maximize ROI, whether the campaign is global or targets a specific country or local market. Search advertisers also have the option to manage their campaigns easily through LookSmart’s self-service ad-serving interface.

About LookSmart

LookSmart (NASDAQ: LOOK) is a provider of trusted products and service solutions for pay-per-click (PPC) text advertising. The company offers search advertisers targeted PPC search and contextual advertising via its proven Search Advertising Network and award-winning AdCenter platform technology. It also licenses its Ad Center technology to top publishers and networks. Dedicated to the quality of its network, LookSmart is committed to safeguarding against advertiser fraud and is one of the five founding members of the IAB click measurement panel. For more information, visit www.LookSmart.com or call 415-348-7500.