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Aug

28

Reply.com One of the Fastest Growing Private Companies In Silicon Valley

Posted by Reply! Public Relations
Filed Under Press Releases | Leave a Comment 

San Francisco Business Times Lists Reply! Inc. Among Top 100 Private Companies in the San Francisco Bay Area

San Ramon, CA – August 26, 2008 – Reply.com, the world’s most liquid online lead exchange, today announced its recognition by the San Francisco Business Times as one of the top 100 Largest Private Companies in Silicon Valley.

“We are honored to be recognized as one of Silicon Valley’s largest private companies. In a few years, we have gone from a business concept to a company with over 120 employees, occupying 40,000 square feet of space in San Ramon, California,” said Payam Zamani, Reply! Inc. Chairman & CEO. “In a difficult business environment, we are thrilled to be profitable, growing, and recognized as the 82nd largest private company in the Bay Area.”The annual list of the largest private companies in the Bay Area is a leading component of the Book of Lists published by the San Francisco Business Times. The list ranks Bay Area-based private companies by total revenue.

About Reply! Inc.
Reply.com is the world’s most liquid online lead exchange, offering the highest level of control.  Reply! offers an exchange that makes the process of buying and selling leads as easy as getting clicks from Google. 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! has received significant recognition for its revenue growth and business, including: Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America (2007) and Deloitte’s prestigious Technology Fast 50 Program (2007) for the Silicon Valley, a ranking of the 50 fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, and life sciences companies.

The privately-held company was founded in 2001, and is based in San Ramon, California. For more information about Reply!, please visit www.reply.com or blog.reply.com.

About San Francisco Business Times
The San Francisco Business Times is owned by American City Business Journals. American City Business Journals is the largest publisher of metropolitan business news weeklies in the United States, with 41 papers across the country reaching more than 500,000 subscribers each week. BizBooks, Inc. is a retail division of American City Business Journals that began operations in 1992.

100 Largest Private Companies (2008)

Aug

20

Search Engine Strategies (SES 2008) Presentations (updated)

Posted by Brian Bowman, CMO, Reply.com
Filed Under Online Marketing, Research, Search, Tradeshows | 1 Comment 

I have spent the last couple of days at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose.  I have found the show very helpful in a number of ways with online marketing.  I will update this post with more information and context but I wanted to broadcast that all presentations can be found here.  (user name:  sessj2008, password:  august08).  It is a wonderful resource for those that couldn’t attend the show. I found search economy and trends useful. Slide 2 and 3 have a nice overview of the overal advertising market, provided by Collins Stewart LLC.  Slide 14 graphically shows the erosion of Yahoo and MSN’s search share.  It is a powerful graphic to see how much seach volume Google controls. From slide 19, “if the Google Yahoo deal is approved then look at the shifts and allocation, Monetization, Click Share and CPC Escalation.  This is an interesting point, by Google starting to monetize a larger percent of Yahoo’s traffic, they gain even more insight to the overall search market.From the Long Tail presentation – 30-40% of all searches are made with local intent. And while I agree with the basic concept that “Long tail traffic has relatively cheap CPCs,” they failed to discuss the importance of making head terms work to achieve the 80/20 rule for volume and use the long-tail to lower costs. Tools for keyword research:

If you are new to search / PPC advertising, I recommend you read all this documentation before you jump in. 

  • Google: http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter
  • Yahoo: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/ysm/sps/index.
  • Microsoft: mostly inside application, but also at http://advertising.microsoft.com/microsoft-adcenter/faqs

 Bid Management

Aug

19

Web 2.0 Businesses

Posted by Brian Bowman, CMO, Reply.com
Filed Under B2B Lead Generation, Lead Generation, Lead Marketplace | 1 Comment 

From time-to-time, I check out Dion Hinchcliffe’s blog.  Today, I came across an interesting graphic that lays out his view of the Evolution of Networked Applications and Business.  What does this have to do with performance advertising and lead generation??  Everything!!! Reply! believes the old-school way that small- to medium-size businesses have used to acquire customers online is changing rapidly.  The days are numbered when realtors, car dealers, lawyers, doctors, etc. advertise on Google just to see their name appear in the right column without measuring their performance and understanding the financial return for their media spend.    As anyone who has bought clicks from Google knows, setting up a campaign to buy clicks is easy, but measuring performance and optimizing the advertising spend is extremely difficult. Consider, for a second, the plethora of technologies that are necessary to make CPC advertising work:

  • Bid Management:efficient frontier, did IT, iCrossing, Marin, DoubleClick, etc.
  • Keyword Expansion: AdGooroo, SpyFu, WordTracker, Google, iSpionage.com, etc.
  • Landing Page Optimization with Multivariate Testing: Google, WideMile, Offermatica, etc.
  • Quality Filtering: Targus info, eBureau
  • Click Fraud: Click Forensics
  • Analytics: Optimost, Omniture, Coremetrics, Web Trends, etc.
  • Web Design, Information Architecture, Engineering, Hosting, and Maintenance: GoDaddy, NetworkSolutions, etc.

Reply! understands there is a multi-billion-dollar opportunity to expand online advertising by providing easy access to businesses who need to speak with online consumers to close a deal. It is clear that clicks don’t walk into a store or call on the phone. It is time that businesses move away from CPM and CPC marketing towards more efficient Cost-Per-Lead marketing that we call Lead Generation 2.0. Lead Generation 2.0 will be transacted in an exchange, where market-driven pricing and dynamic distribution of leads are possible. The result is a powerful ecosystem for service-based businesses to easily access multiple sources of targeted consumer leads, purchase only the leads they want with easy-to-use filters, purchase the right quality, and set the price they will pay per lead. On the seller side, the lead generators and publishers increase the size of the network they access, tap into a highly liquid marketplace that maximizes yield-per-lead, and more efficiently liquidate undersold and unsold inventory of leads.A lead marketplace provides local businesses with an easy-to-use, geo-targeted, performance-based marketing solution. As these businesses shift their offline advertising budgets to capture online consumers, marketplaces are strategically positioned to capture a significant share of these advertising budgets. If you are ready to “Go Beyond the Click™,” try Reply!’s marketplace for efficient acquisition of consumer leads.

Aug

14

SUV Pile Up!!!

Posted by Brian Bowman, CMO, Reply.com
Filed Under Autos, Lead Generation | Leave a Comment 

Interesting article published today in the New York Times that highlights the massive problem of too much inventory of SUVs.  Last July, auto dealers held a 92-day supply of GMC Yukon XL Surburbans, and this July the inventory has ballooned up to 174 days.  The story doesn’t get much better for other large vehicles like Surburban (116 days, July ‘08 vs. 63 days, July ‘07) or Ford Explorer (111 days, July ‘08 vs. 64 days, July ‘07).

But demand for fuel-efficient cars has exploded.  Inventory of Toyota’s hot-selling Prius has gone from 15 days to 8 days (year-over-year), Chevrolet Cobalt has gone from 62 days to 28 days, and Ford’s Focus has gone from 61 days to 39 days.  Clearly, consumers are demanding cars that get better mileage at the pump. 

The article also highlights the significant drop in residual values for large SUVs.  This will put additional pressure on buyers, because the cars are more difficult to lease and worth less when you trade them in (double ouch).

Last month, Automotive Lease Guide—the company whose estimates of vehicle value, after several years of depreciation, are used to calculate lease payments—made unprecedented downward adjustments to many sport utility vehicles’ residual values. The company now says a Ford Expedition will retain 32 percent of its value after three years, and a Chevrolet Suburban will be worth just 30 percent of its original price. A few years ago, such vehicles were estimated to keep about half their value after three years.

If there is any good news for lead generators, it is this: where there is inventory, you will find dealers trying to move it.  Clearly, there is large dealer demand to move SUVs.

Aug

13

Lehman Brothers’ Bullish Forecast on U.S. Online Ad-Spending Growth

Posted by Brian Bowman, CMO, Reply.com
Filed Under Lead Generation, Research | Leave a Comment 

Lehman Brothers is forecasting a growth rate in online ad spending of 23.4% in 2008 and 19.4% in 2009.  Video is forecast to experience breakaway growth at double those rates.  Lead generation is bundled in with email and is forecast to grow from $1,950M ’07 -> $2,301M ‘08 -> $2.669M ‘09 -> $3,043M ‘10 -> $3,408M ‘11 -> $3,789M ‘12.

Lehman is showing that online will represent 6.6% of total U.S. ad spend in ‘10, more than double its share in ‘07. More information can be found at TechCrunch.

Aug

4

Reply.com to Present at RBC Capital Markets Technology, Media and Communications Conference

Posted by Brian Bowman, CMO, Reply.com
Filed Under Tradeshows | Leave a Comment 

Reply!’s CEO & Chairman, Payam Zamani Will be speaking at RBC Technology, Media, and Communications Conference, to be held August 5-7, 2008 in San Francisco. The conference will bring together leaders in the tech, media, and communications industries and will serve as an opportunity for Reply! to highlight its performance-based marketing platform and its newly launched lead exchange/marketplace.

The event is by invitation only. http://www.rbccm.com/0,,cid-17267_,00.html

Aug

4

Payam Zamani Speaking at Building Blocks 2008

Posted by Brian Bowman, CMO, Reply.com
Filed Under Tradeshows | Leave a Comment 


Reply!, a leading performance-based marketing and online lead generation company in the automotive, real estate, and financial industries announces that Payam Zamani, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman, and Founder will present at Building Blocks 2008 in San Jose this Thursday, August 7. Zamani will be featured on a panel entitled, “The Advertising and Commerce Platform,” focusing on how technologies such as Reply!’s are redefining the performance-based advertising system. The panel is set to begin at 12:50 p.m. and run through 2:00 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

Aug

4

Reply! Covered in Ward’s Dealer Business

Posted by Brian Bowman, CMO, Reply.com
Filed Under Reply! Coverage (Autos), Special Finance | Leave a Comment 

Nice piece of press coverage from Ward’s Dealer Business: Reply! Expands Lead Bidding to Auto Finance.   Reply! is widening its online marketplace for the bidding and selling of auto-sales leads to now include auto-financing leads.

WardsDealerBusiness

The process essentially is the same as that for a sales lead. An Internet user on one of many auto-related Websites would fill out an online credit application and submit it.

That “lead,” and others like it, would then be put up for bids on a cost-per-lead automotive finance exchange created in conjunction with Detroit Trading Co. Exchange participants include dealers, lenders, and third-party lead providers.

The auto financing feature—including special financing for consumers with credit problems—is a new category on Reply.com’s lead exchange.

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