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The Washington Post is reporting that Cox has purchased Adify (the white-label online ad network) for about $300 million and an earnout. Coverage was also picked up by TechCrunch. Russ, Adify CEO, described Adify as “a platform and services company built for entrepreneurs, startups, and media companies looking to build and run their own online advertising networks. 100+ ad networks run on Adify’s technology platform and use Adify’s back-office services today. As a platform, we have no reason to show up in comScore’s ad network ranking report—our customers would look to be rated by comScore.”

Always good to see ad platforms/networks gaining traction and transacting. Reply! certainly believes it is time for platforms and exchanges to go mainstream.

comScore recently released their Top 50 list for March ‘08. There is an overview of the top 50 ad-focused networks that I find interesting. “Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking The top 10 Ad Focus properties also maintained their February rankings with Platform-A, the ad network combining Advertising.com, Tacoda, AOL, and Quigo, leading the ranking in March, reaching 91 percent of Americans online. interCLICK gained 9 spots in the ranking to position 14, reaching 58 percent of the 188 million Americans online. Real Cities Network and YuMe Video Network both entered this month’s rankings in positions 38 and 43, respectively.”
For More—please read their release: http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp

DoubleClick – I participated in a conversation with folks from DoubleClick. They hinted at future integration capabilities they have gained now that they are inside Google. Scary or not, they mentioned the ability to integrate cookies between DoubleClick and Google to blend reporting between banners, rich media, videos, behavioral targeting—all the way through search. They believe search gets too much credit, because consumers use it as a navigation toolbar. Then advertisers attribute a lot of value to the “final action” to get to their site, versus attributing the proper value to the 4 branding banners the consumer viewed that may have reminded them to search in the first place. Now imagine you can attribute value back upstream to the various media types, and share in that revenue. Pretty interesting.

Oh yeah, go Google go!!! In case you didn’t catch Google’s earnings yesterday, they crushed their numbers and the stock was up 17% in after-hours trading. This is obviously great news for the whole internet advertising market.

Click Forensics – An interesting company that bills itself as a click fraud prevention company. They have partnered with numerous advertisers and publishers—and now Yahoo and Lycos—to stem the massive issue of click fraud. Anyone that is acquiring traffic through SEM should consider their solution to help reduce fraud and optimize spend. We are currently evaluating their solution. I wonder how Google feels about stemming click fraud? Will they embrace Click Forensics, too?

Rubicon Project – Cool company that served beer at the show—how can you beat that? After several conversations, I believe they could be a smarter and more lucrative AdSense. Basically, they are a self-serve platform that rolls up ad networks into one interface, and uses matching technology to place the right advertiser with the right publisher to maximize effective revenue per page. If I understood the process correctly, it is as easy to integrate as AdSense. We’ll see. We are going to be testing them, too. Check back for a further update.

Widemile – A landing page optimization company that uses a SAS multivariate platform to streamline your landing pages and improve conversion. We used Offermatica last year and had great success in improving our conversion rates. Why switch from Offermatica? Widemile offers comprehensive professional services so we don’t have to pig-pile our optimization requests inside the overloaded IT queue, and then try to justify the project’s worth. We are thrilled to be testing the Widemile solution outside of IT… Yippee!!!

There were traffic exchanges, ad network exchanges, banner exchanges, and probably exchanges of exchanges—but we were the only Lead Marketplace (exchange) at the show. Come on, people. It’s time to Go Beyond the Click™ and just take the lead.

Just a quick update from AdTech and some photos of our booth. The launch went great last night (3am believe it or not—with only three hours before the press release dropped). Special thank you to the tech team for doing an amazing job over the past 10 months.

We finally get a chance to officially market our product. The reception from numerous publishers and advertisers at AdTech has been very positive. Not sure of the number of attendees, but it feels like 10-15K and the show floor is really packed. If you are at the show, please stop by the booth for a demo/walk through. Plus, you can check out our swanky new booth in person.

More tomorrow as I comb through the show floor.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (SAN RAMON,CA) APRIL 15, 2008—Reply.com announces the launch of the worlds most liquid lead marketplace, offering the highest level of control and putting the power back in the hands of online lead buyers and sellers.While anyone can click on a website, whether or not they are interested in the products or services offered, a single click offers extremely limited potential. Clicks dont walk into your store or call you on the phone.

A lead, on the other hand, represents an interested party that wants to be contacted by a service provider. For online marketers, this has always been the promise of the Internet. Reply.com believes that it is time for businesses of all sizes to Go Beyond The Click and only pay for measurable results.

Reply.com has created a unique platform that delivers the worlds most efficient and liquid marketplace for buying and selling leadsat a cost that represents the true market value of each lead.

We, at Reply.com, are leading the evolution of the web from CPM (cost-per-thousand) to CPC (cost-per-click) to CPL (cost-per-lead), states Chairman and CEO Payam Zamani. We have made the process of buying and selling leads as easy and empowering as buying clicks from Yahoo and Google.”

With traditional online lead generation companies, the lead advertiser (buyer) cannot effectively control and match quality, volume, and price to meet their desired ROI. The lead seller (publisher) is often left with unmonetized or under-monetized inventory.

With Reply.com, businesses of any size can access the online consumer without significant investment in infrastructure or personnel—all while maintaining ultimate control.

Reply.com’s auction format for pricing and distributing leads provides a stunningly efficient platform that unleashes the potential of performance-based marketing.

Reply.com was founded in 2001 by a veteran team of Internet entrepreneurs as an online lead generation and performance-based marketing company. In 1994, Reply.com CEO Payam Zamani co-founded the first online car buying service, Autoweb.com, and in 1999 helped take that company public. Autoweb became the first service to price its traffic on a per-lead basis, as opposed to per-click or per impression. Reply.com’s six-year history as one of the leaders in the lead generation business has resulted in direct relationships with over 5,000 lead buyers, plus thousands more through enterprise-level partnerships with other networks and national brands. Reply.com is a profitable, venture capital-backed company, and to-date has raised over $20 million in funding.

The promise of online marketing has been realized by Reply.com. Businesses will now be able to Go Beyond The Click™ and only pay for measurable results.

Additional information is available at: http://blog.reply.com/?p=4

Contact: Brian Bowman, CMO
925.983.3519
brian@reply.com

LeadsCon—The Lead Generation Conference finished Friday, April 4th, in Vegas.

It was the first conference dedicated to lead generation. To me, the show was fantastic. I enjoyed the entrepreneurial passion and perspective shared during the sessions. I left the show energized by the magnitude of the opportunity we have in lead gen to significantly grow our market. As Dick Larkin from Spot Runner said, “Imagine being able to sell advertising to businesses that are currently only advertising using yellow pages. Imagine the potential of shifting billions of dollars from offline to online.”

From my perspective, the major themes from the conference were: Lead Exchange, Improving Quality, and Data Sharing. If you attended the show and other things struck you, please post your impressions.

Some highlights from the various sessions:

M&A, Exists and Investment Landscapes (Arbor Advisors, Halyard Capital, Redpoint Ventures, Think Equity Partners)

Why are exchanges attracting so much attention? The VCs felt that, in more established media businesses, exchange business models have been very attractive investments and disruptive to established businesses. As an example, they presented Google’s keyword exchange as one of the most successful online businesses today. They felt the overall value of an exchange created liquidity for sellers and efficiency for buyers. The VCs were unclear if liquidity in one vertical translated into benefit in other verticals, and if one large exchange would win or there be numerous small vertical exchanges.

Transparency about price discovery and quality are good for both sides, and was discussed multiple times throughout the day. On the point of transparency, I am left wondering why no one brought up how Google Ad Words is the most opaque platform around, but still extremely successful. Hey Google, are you willing to share the margin you earn on each click? Are you deducting fraudulent clicks from my CPC campaigns and issuing credits automatically? Why can’t I see all the keywords that drove clicks? Why are negative keywords so difficult to discover? What are the parameters of the quality score, and is there such a thing as a level playing field for advertisers? Seriously, at the end of the day, aren’t countless companies driving consumers to landing pages to fill out forms? Are some forms better than others, and how are you weighting the value of the consumer experience?

Ahhh, but I digress.

Some additional perspective was shared that I tend to agree with. A benefit of using an exchange for lead sellers is the chance to sell leads without building and maintaining deep retail and wholesale relationships. For buyers, an exchange will allow them to focus on their individual strengths (SEM, offline media buying, landing page optimization, cross selling, etc). By plugging into an exchange, buyers don’t have to build all aspects of lead gen business and the corresponding technology.

Shared vs Exclusive Leads: According to Chris Moore of Redpoint Ventures, “Exclusive leads are a misnomer.” It was discussed that the average consumer fills out three different lead forms and visits five sites during their research process. While the consumer may be ‘exclusive’ to your site, they may not be a “new and exclusive” lead. Bottom line: a determined buyer can find significant opportunity in purchasing shared leads—they just have to know how to work them.

What is the next great innovation in lead gen?

• Data: Fine-grained access to inventory and leads. Figuring out the value of leads and media is the next frontier. Companies like eBureau and Targus may help with quality, and companies like Leads360, LeadMailbox, LeadROI, and Kaleidico can help buyers better-manage leads after the purchase, but is that enough?
• Media: The use of data for targeting is not being used to its full potential. There is an opportunity to package media on behalf of advertisers and provide targeting across media types (banners, SEM, etc.) geared toward maximize ROI.
• Monetizing Remnant Inventory: There is an opportunity to capitalize on the explosion of low-quality, remnant inventory on social media sites. They are waiting for a performance marketing company to properly ascribe value to remnant inventory and start to resell it properly. As an example of the severity of the issue and the corresponding opportunity, check out the post, Fox Interactive Media to Miss Revenue Targets.

Understanding Lead Exchanges (Reply.com, LeadPoint, Detroit Trading). For the Reply.com perspective on lead marketplaces/exchanges, please see our post, “Why Build a Lead Marketplace“).

Benefits to buyers/sellers. Anik, from DTC, had some compelling points on the benefits of exchanges. He said there are transactional efficiencies to be gained by adopting the exchange model. Prior to exchanges, lead gen had been conducted through a series of one-on-one negotiations. For every negotiation, there is a legal agreement, a technical integration, and each buyer and seller has the individual burden of dealing with and managing accounts receivables. He went on to discuss some of the economic efficiencies — when sellers come to an exchange they have maximum likelihood their lead will get sold and earn the best price at that time (”the market price”). Additionally, buyers’ appetites are fulfilled and they can be assured they are getting the best price on that day for each lead purchased.

Quality. Quality was a major focus of just about every session. It is clear that the days of the cavalier lead generator or affiliate network selling and reselling leads independent of consumer intent and data integrity are gone or numbered, at best. In an exchange, quality will rise and junk will quickly sink.

While quality is critical, the best ways to define and achieve quality have yet to be agreed upon. Components that were discussed during multiple sessions were:

• Data integrity. Step 1 of all quality discussions, you need valid consumer contact information (name, phone, email).
• De-duplication. The industry needs a way to reduce the frequency of credits and returns by intelligently sharing enough teaser information to make sure a lead hasn’t already been purchased by a buyer. This is good for both the buyer and seller.
• Quality of origination. Was the user intent clear, and do they wish to be contacted by a service provider? The role of the consumer and their understanding of what will happen after they submit their information are critical in order to keep lead generation growing.
• Lead scoring. Beyond valid contact information, what is the propensity of the lead to transact? How do we separate and dynamically charge for quality leads. I know the people at Targus, Urban Sciences, Polk, and others are working hard at solving that issue.
• Tracking of lead origination. If you can track a poor provider, you can quickly shut them down.
• Lead buyers need to inform you of their “needed” filters.
• Commoditized types are very important across verticals.
• Lead management and life cycle. The holy grail of online customer acquisition. If the industry can track a lead to the transaction/sale/close and feed that data back up the chain to the lead generator, everyone will benefit.

Overall Take Away:

• Today, we are at the tipping point of innovation that will make online advertising accessible to millions of new advertisers. While lead gen is a subset of the overall online advertising market, it is a fast growth segment with the potential to move billions of advertising dollars online to help service-based businesses more easily acquire customers.
• Lead exchanges will help legitimize and grow the lead generation business. Many, if not all of the exchanges, will work together to create meaningful scale and liquidity across categories.
• Dynamic pricing with user-defined controls are critical.
• Data sharing, analysis, and segmentation will quickly grow in importance. Much like direct marketing 15-20 years ago, lead buyers and sellers that embrace segmentation and statistical analysis will find significant financial rewards.
• Quality is king.
• Improving quality is critical to the entire lead generation market. The core components of quality are well understood, but the path to implementation is yet to be sorted out. The opportunities are boundless for smart, entrepreneurial companies to enter and make their mark.

At any given moment, there are millions of consumers using the Internet to research products and services, and there are countless businesses trying to reach those consumers. At Reply.com, we see a multi-billion dollar opportunity in providing access to businesses that need to speak with online consumers to close a deal.

• We understand that clicks don’t walk into a store or call on the phone.
• We realize a consumer that requests to be contacted is significantly more valuable than a visit to a website.
• We believe it is time for businesses to Go Beyond the Click™.

There is a tremendous opportunity to drive the evolution from CPM to CPC to CPL (Cost-Per-Lead), but there are significant problems with how lead generation is done today.

Problems with lead generation today

• Generating leads requires a significant investment in the right talent and infrastructure. Companies that engage in their own lead generation often find it difficult to develop controls that optimize their advertising spend and acquire the right quality, volume, price, and ROI. These internal lead generation efforts often result in a large number of unmonetized and under-monetized leads, which then requires a business to build and maintain a network of retail and wholesale buyers to help offset their acquisition costs.
• Companies that purchase leads through external, third-party (and often single category-focused) providers often find it difficult to get to their desired ROI. As a result, these companies frequently switch between providers in search of that ever-elusive “profitable cost-per-sale.”
• Today, there are limited controls for both buyers and sellers:
  • Pricing is generally static and does not respond to changing market conditions in an efficient manner.
  • Quality is not communicated effectively, delivered consistently, or reflected in price paid for leads.
  • Controls over volume, price, quality, and ROI are missing.

Problems for Lead Sellers (Publishers)

• Significant unsold or undersold inventory of leads
• Sub-optimal pricing on sold leads
• Limited incentive to improve quality
• No reliable way to align lead generation efforts with lead demand
• Expensive to build and maintain retail and wholesale relationships

Problems for Lead Buyers (Advertisers)

• Limited control over pricing, quality, and volume of leads received
• Static prices don’t reflect the current value to a buyer
• Quality not consistently known or communicated
• No reliable way to manage lead flow and return on investment (ROI)

The Reply! Solution

• A patent-pending platform that facilitates efficient, market-driven pricing and distribution of online leads
• Dynamic pricing that responds to market conditions
  • Sellers will find liquidity to maximize under-priced, unsold, and undersold inventory
  • Buyers have control to set and change price based on today’s value
• Rating system to communicate lead quality
• Controls to maximize results (budget, geography, quality, lead age, etc.)
• Liquidity in many categories, access to thousands of buyers and sellers, and over one million leads-per-month. Available lead types include:
  • Automotive: New Vehicle Purchase, Special Finance
  • Real Estate: Home Buyers, Home Sellers
  • Mortgage: Purchase/Finance, Refinance, Home Equity Loan
  • Insurance: Home Owner, Automobile
  • Many more categories coming soon!

The Reply! Difference

Lead Sellers (Publishers)

• Earn a premium price for quality leads
• Increase revenue for under-priced leads
• Eliminate unsold and undersold leads
• Generate leads with our no-cost, plug-and-play technology
• Many lead types available

Leads Buyers (Advertisers)

• Measure results and increase ROI
• Control price, quality, & volume
• Buy leads only when needed
• Cancel anytime without cancellation fees
• Many lead types available

Go Beyond The Click™ and unlock the potential of the Internet with ROI-based marketing. You’re in control of Price, Quality, Volume, and the profitable acquisition of customers.

Today is a special day for Reply!. I’m excited and honored to write our first blog post. We have talked and talked about having a blog, but we wanted to wait until we had something major to talk about. We have been working on the Reply! Lead Marketplace for over 10 months, and we are finally ready to talk about it (read about it in our next post).

With the launch of our official blog, we welcome conversations between Reply! employees, people visiting our site, companies/individuals involved in lead generation (of course, the press), and VCs covering those areas, too. Most importantly, we want to give our readers perspectives on Reply.com and share our thoughts on the migration we see happening from CPM -> CPC -> CPL (cost-per-lead).

About Reply!

Reply!’s mission is to unlock the potential of the Internet as a marketing platform for any business to profitably buy or sell online leads.

Reply! believes it is time that businesses Go Beyond The Click™ and only pay for measurable results. We offer a platform that makes the process of buying and selling leads as easy as getting clicks from Google or Yahoo. Unlocking the potential of performance-based marketing and allowing everyone to profitably acquire prospects has always been the promise of online marketing, and Reply! is making that promise a reality for advertisers worldwide.

Reply! Inc. was founded in 2001 by a veteran team of Internet entrepreneurs as an online lead generation and performance-based marketing company. In 1994, Reply!’s CEO co-founded the first online car-buying service—Autoweb.com—and in 1999 took that company public. Autoweb became the first company to price its traffic on a per-lead basis vs. per-click or per-impression. Today we have direct relationships with over 5,000 lead buyers and thousands more through our partnerships with other networks as well as national brands. With Reply! Lead Marketplace, our buyers today have access to over one million leads per month in many lead categories. We are continually adding new lead categories, and will be extending our highly-scalable, patent-pending platform internationally.

Brian Bowman, Chief Marketing Officer · April 2^nd, 2008, 15:06

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