martes, 16 de diciembre de 2008

ShoppingAds News: Moving to a New Datacenter

Due to company wide consolidation, we will be moving ShoppingAds to a new data center this month. We can assure you our technical department is doing all that is necessary to ensure that our network transition is as smooth as possible. Thanks for your support, thanks for using ShoppingAds!

jueves, 13 de noviembre de 2008

SCRIBEFIRE OFFERS IN-TEXT SOLUTIONS POWERED BY KONTERA’S CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS TECHNOLOGY

Kontera®, a leading provider of In-Text Advertising and Information Solutions for web publishers and advertisers, announced that ScribeFire will be utilizing the company’s patent-pending contextual analysis technology to power In-Text offerings to its vast base of publishers.

Through this technology partnership, ScribeFire publishers benefit from an easy, one-click implementation of Kontera’s In-Text Advertising solution directly from their respective publisher consoles.

Kontera analyzes the content of the ScribeFire®-enabled publishers, and highlights contextually relevant keywords. The technology discovers the keywords on a web page, blog, or widget in real-time and automatically matches them with contextually relevant advertising or information. When a user mouses-over a double-underlined keyword, a contextually relevant ad, known as ContentLink®, is displayed.

The real value of the ScribeFire / Kontera (ContentLink) integration is in its ability to engage users. Publishers running ContentLink experience engagement rates that are higher than with other pay per click advertising solutions. Publishers of user-contributed media regularly report equal or greater click-through rates with Kontera than with Google’s AdSense®.

“Today, bloggers and small publishers are looking for more opportunities to monetize their content,” said Patrick Gavin, founder and President of ScribeFire. “Thanks to Kontera’s proprietary technology, we’re among the first ad platforms to offer publishers the ability to run both high ROI in-text advertising as well as fully optimized banner ads. Contextually relevant ads will generate revenue for thousands of ScribeFire-powered publishers.”

“From reality TV to social networking and the blogosphere, user-contributed media is changing the monetization models for all forms of content,” said Mathew Haugen, VP of  Business Development, Kontera. “With Kontera’s technology being utilized by MediaWhiz (ScribeFire), we’re enabling thousands of bloggers and online publishers of all sizes to tap into a new revenue stream.”

martes, 9 de septiembre de 2008

SCRIBEFIRE QUICKADS™ LAUNCHES OUT OF BETA

We are proud to announce that ScribeFire QuickAds, our ad optimization product for website publishers, will launch out of beta today marking three months of significant business growth and technological innovation. QuickAds is the first ad platform to enable publishers to serve both optimized banners and in-text ads on their sites via a single platform.  Since its launch in July of 2008, more than 5,000 website publishers have signed up with QuickAds to increase their revenue earning potential.

ScribeFire QuickAds greatly simplifies ad inventory management with a powerful optimization decision engine, which matches each impression with the highest revenue producing ad.  Ads are selected from the MediaWhiz ad inventory pool, which is fueled by MediaWhiz’s experienced sales team and relationships with over 100 ad networks.

ScribeFire’s advanced in-text advertising solution guarantees site publishers the highest degree of relevancy between content, keywords, and ads.  In-text ads appear as double underlined keywords that reveal a relevant advertisement upon rollover.  It is an easy way to add subtle, contextually relevant, and eye-catching advertisements to a web site.

ScribeFire’s display advertising solution accepts high impact Flash and Video banner ads, along with static JPEG, Pop-Unders, and animated GIF ads in IAB-standard ad sizes (e.g. Leaderboard: 728x90, Wide Skyscraper: 160x600, and Medium Rectangle: 300x250).

“It is very exciting to launch ScribeFire QuickAds out of beta after just three months,” said Patrick Gavin, President of ScribeFire. “Small publishers the world over now have a powerful and incredibly easy way to generate top dollar for their web site’s ad space.”

“ScribeFire is making it easy for websites to optimize all the ad networks, and take advantage of our substantial and highly experienced sales force,” said Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of MediaWhiz. “To be the first ad platform to offer publishers the ability to run fully optimized banner ads as well as high ROI in-text advertising is a remarkable accomplishment by the ScribeFire team.”

"Any blogger, with any level of technical know-how, can get these ads going and start making money on their blog…almost immediately," said Barry Schwartz of the Cartoon Barry Blog.

"I am thrilled with this new discovery… it has opened new avenues (for web site publishers) to earn money from (their) blog or website,” said Jobin Sebastian of TechMartini.

Shane of Ask Shane.org wrote, "I’m really impressed with the QuickAds interface.  Very clean and easy to use...they’ve definitely worked hard (and successfully) to create a very nice system.”

ScribeFire QuickAds is available for FREE download at the ScribeFire website.

martes, 26 de agosto de 2008

MediaWhiz Offers Publishers Faster and Easier Payment Solution

MediaWhiz announced a new payment option for its web publishers that provides their earnings on reloadable, Prepaid MasterCard® cards. The service is provided by Payoneer, Inc., an approved Member Service Provider of First Bank of Delaware.Publishers that use MediaWhiz’s highly successful link marketing product, Text Links Ads, and its innovative blog product-review network, ReviewMe, can elect to receive payments to fully functioning Prepaid MasterCard cards instead of standard paper check or PayPal options. The cards can be used worldwide at any store, ATM, or online location where Debit MasterCard is accepted.

Payoneer’s service provides a global-friendly alternative to checks, wire transfers and other online payment methods. Publishers benefit by having immediate access to their money while avoiding the hassles associated with lost or stolen checks, hold times and fees, and the lack of availability of PayPal in certain countries. Additionally, cardholders can spend and/or withdraw funds in their own currency without the need for a bank account.

According to MediaWhiz, publishers who opted for this payment method during a six-month trial rollout reported tremendous satisfaction with getting their earnings faster, lowering foreign currency exchange rates, and gaining 24x7 online account management access from anywhere in the world.

This service allows MediaWhiz to turn the payment process into a brand-affirmation opportunity. Cards bear the MediaWhiz logo, reminding publishers of where their earnings came from with each use. MediaWhiz also found that Payoneer was a significant cost-saving option considering its large number of publishers, 40% of whom are located outside the United States.

“Publishers perform just about every business function at online speed and expect the same when they get paid,” said Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of MediaWhiz. The company paid nearly $100 million to its network of over 30,000 publishers in 2007. “Our publishers love their co-branded cards from Payoneer because they get paid faster, and the overseas publishers can keep more of their earnings. We love it because it lowers our processing costs, and keeps an important community of ours happy.”

Patrick Gavin, President of MediaWhiz Display added, “Payoneer integrated simply and easily into our existing payment infrastructure – and let us use payment as a marketing advantage, especially overseas.”

“We see tremendous growth opportunity for the use of reloadable Prepaid MasterCard cards as recurring mass payment vehicles through service providers like Payoneer,” said Alonzo Primus, President and Chief Operating Officer of First Bank of Delaware. “We are eager to help industry leaders such as MediaWhiz gain a competitive edge with innovative payment solutions.”

Yuval Tal, CEO of Payoneer added, “As the Internet makes a global player out of every web site, Payoneer can help online advertising leaders like MediaWhiz take exceptional care of their publishers, and their own bottom line.”

jueves, 21 de agosto de 2008

MediaWhiz Ranks No. 256 in Inc.5000's Fastest Growing Private Companies in America

MediaWhiz has been ranked #256 in the 2008 Inc. 5000 list of Fastest Growing Private Companies in America.  

Additional rankings:

Ranked No. 19 in the Top 100 Businesses in New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
Ranked No. 21 in the Top 100 Advertising & Marketing Companies

lunes, 21 de julio de 2008

MEDIAWHIZ ENHANCES LEADROI™ LEAD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM WITH JETDIAL®

The Integration of Leading Web-Based Dialing Technology Increases Sales Productivity

We are happy to announce that we have strengthened our Lead Management System, LeadROI™, by implementing JetDial®, a powerful web-based dialing technology that greatly enhances advertisers’ sales force efficiencies, lead throughput time, and conversion rates.

LeadROI’s JetDial is an innovative on-demand call center software that dramatically improves sales force efficiency. The technology automatically manages answering machines, busy signals, disconnected numbers, and fax lines to improve sales talk time by over 40%. For example, when an answering machine is detected, a personalized pre-recorded voicemail greeting is automatically delivered and the sales representative is promptly connected to the next available live party. Finally, JetDial is equipped with powerful monitoring capabilities that enable sales managers to track and analyze the performance of their sales team.

“The JetDial technology sets us apart from the other lead management systems, which offer very basic click-to-dial applications that don’t do much to improve sales force productivity when compared with our advanced preview dialer technology,” said Raj Parekh, General Manager of MediaWhiz’s LeadROI product. “LeadROI’s JetDial technology does everything from screening busy calls to leaving messages while simultaneously making the next call… enabling sales organizations to be significantly more efficient and profitable.”

Jeff Felman, JetDial’s Vice President of Sales, adds “JetDial’s integration with LeadROI is an important development in the lead management system space. LeadROI’s interactive reporting, automated lead distribution, workflow, campaign, and pipeline management capabilities coupled with JetDial’s powerful auto-dialer technology is a perfect marriage that has a huge upside for advertisers looking to improve the ROI of their lead generation campaigns.”

About LeadROI, Inc.

LeadROI was founded in 2004, and acquired by MediaWhiz in April of 2008. LeadROI offers lead buyers and sales organizations a web-based lead and customer relationship management solution. LeadROI provides a variety of point-of-sale tools, including credit reports, pricing and data transfer tools, and the JetDial auto-dialer technology. The proprietary software streamlines new customer acquisition, improves productivity, maximizes sales conversion, and provides critical insight into lead generation production metrics.

About JetDial

JetDial is a private call center technology company, whose founders have over 50 years combined experience in teleservices. JetDial’s expertise is in developing and executing cost-effective, scalable, and legally compliant customer contact solutions that help increase productivity and performance. JetDial is built on a carrier-grade, scalable platform packed with reliable features that assist customer service or sales teams in receiving or making calls. JetDial’s hosted call center technology allows users to analyze calls, track performance, and improve results in real-time.

MEDIAWHIZ ACQUIRES LEADROI LEAD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Deal Boosts MediaWhiz's Lead Management Technical Capabilities

We recently acquired LeadROI's Lead Management System, which enables advertisers to better manage, optimize, and monetize their lead generation campaigns.

"The LeadROI technology acquisition provides MediaWhiz with a powerful new platform that makes aggregating, distributing, and converting leads from multiple sources more efficient and profitable. This is a huge value add to our clients who are looking for ways to truly understand and improve their lead conversion processes going forward," said Ed Kats, Executive Vice President of MediaWhiz.

LeadROI provides unparalleled end-to-end visibility into the campaign process, from initial lead generation to sales conversion. The robust and scalable system has been used by dozens of direct marketers to streamline lead generation program management and boost company sales performance. Some of its most notable features include Interactive Dashboards / Reporting, Automated Lead Distribution, Workflow Management, Campaign Management, Pipeline Management, and an Integrated Auto Dialer.

"MediaWhiz is one of the most successful results-driven marketing companies online today, and we are excited to take our business to the next level," said Raj Parekh, Founder of LeadROI. "Our initial focus with LeadROI was the financial services vertical, but by joining MediaWhiz, our lead management system will realize its true potential - to drive better ROI for companies across additional verticals such as automotive and insurance."

With the LeadROI platform, MediaWhiz now has one of the most complete lead generation service offerings in the online advertising industry. "A robust lead management system is a great addition to our MediaWhiz Leads offering, which includes our Full Service Lead ProgramsT, Registration ServicesT, and our Premium Lead Marketplace, LeadVIPT. It sets us apart and ensures our existing client base, which received over 40 million leads in 2007, will see continuous improvement in the performance of their lead campaigns," concluded Ed Kats.

MEDIAWHIZ HIRES NEW CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

MediaWhiz to Take World-Class Online Advertising Platform to Next Level

We welcome our new Chief Information Officer, Sal Guido, to our senior management team.

As CIO, Guido will run the IT infrastructure of MediaWhiz. His role includes implementing strategies to evolve MediaWhiz platforms and infrastructure to align with the Company’s strategic growth plans. He is also responsible for overseeing application development across all MediaWhiz technology groups.

Guido’s technology career spans over twenty years. His most recent success was as Senior Vice President of Technology at Miva, an online media and advertising network company in North America and Europe. While at Miva, Guido helped the company architect a platform consolidation solution that dramatically improved efficiencies and scalability. Guido also worked with the board of directors, senior management, and the global business units to collaborate on Miva’s strategic requirements to develop business justifications and technology strategy to meet revenue and cost control goals.

Guido also served as the Director of Enterprise Computing at Tyco International where he managed an annual operating budget of $115 million, and built the business justification model that was presented to Tyco’s Board of Directors for the consolidation of 260 data centers into 8 regional data centers. Prior to that, Guido served as CTO at New Media Technology, and VP of Infrastructure at Viacom International.

“We’re very excited to welcome Sal to the MediaWhiz team,” said Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of MediaWhiz. “Sal’s previous senior technology management experience and proven track record will enable us to keep our online advertising technology solutions well ahead of the competition, which will be a huge benefit to our clients.”

Sal Guido adds, “MediaWhiz has grown rapidly into a leading full service online advertising company …one that I am thrilled to be involved with. I’m particularly excited to be a part of a company with such an innovative technology culture and a suite of products that I can help take to the next level to ensure the company remains a leader in the space.”

Fusion search: How you can find the right mix of data

Adam Riff, the Director of Search at MediaWhiz was published in DMNews on June 30, 2008. Read his article below.






With increasing costs and competition in search, marketers must continue to be creative to achieve a high return on advertising spend. One answer may be fusion search, which is a method of “fusing” data to execute multiple search techniques simultaneously. These methods include pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO) and, more recently, social media optimization (SMO) and video SEO.

PPC is at the top of the list for two basic reasons. First, there is no other method that can deliver more data in less time. Also, PPC data will allow you to identify the long-tail keywords that you will use in your fusion campaign (provided you did your keyword research). Fusion campaigns are based on those long-tail keywords that cost little and return a lot.

For example, let's say you're running an account for a travel client that sells trips to the Bahamas. You'll likely come up with several thousand key­words that include misspellings, buying phrases, long-tail and competitor domains. After iden­tifying these keywords, you can run a PPC campaign and begin accumulating your data.

Search marketers know that “Bahamas trip” will elicit high volume and a low conversion rate. It will also be expensive and highly competitive, which will result in a cost per action that your client may or may not be able to afford. Savvy search marketers will begin mining their PPC data for the thousands of long-tail terms they added, such as “Bahamas cruises” or “look­ing for the best price on a Bahamas cruise,” that have one to two conversions over a sufficient data period (let's say two weeks). You would then utilize these long-tail or “fusion” keywords to formulate a multifaceted search campaign across the other chan­nels at your disposal that include SEO, SMO and video SEO.

For SMO, you could create a lens on HubPages, a popular social media site, that centers around your keyword “looking for the best price on a Bahamas cruise” and will link to your client's site. With the right methodology, your client's site and the Hub­Pages lens will likely get ranked organically for “looking for the best price on a Bahamas cruise.”

For video SEO — assuming that the client has video content or you create it for them — you can tag that video with the same keyword used in the above example and use specific techniques to get your video ranked for that keyword.

You've now utilized your data to fuse the highest converting, lowest competition keywords into an extremely effective, multi-faceted strategy, which will achieve a higher return as well as build long-term organic reach.

Read the original article here


Learn more about MediaWhiz Search

MEDIAWHIZ ACQUIRES SCRIBEFIRE™ & LAUNCHES SCRIBEFIRE QUICKADS™

We are excited to announce that we recently acquired ScribeFire (scribefire.com), the Web’s #1 Firefox® blog-editing technology. In addition we released the beta version of ScribeFire QuickAds, online advertising’s first ‘point and click’ ad optimization technology.

ScribeFire enables users to easily drag and drop formatted text from the web into their blog(s), as well as post entries and take notes, directly through the Firefox browser. ScribeFire currently has over 150,000 active users, and is compatible with all major blog services (e.g. WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, Yahoo 360, etc.).

ScribeFire QuickAds’ ‘point and click’ ad optimization technology, the first to enable web publishers to serve fully optimized banner ads without the hassle of adding additional code, greatly facilitates online advertising integration on blogs. Web publishers can add IAB-standard in-page ad formats (e.g. Leaderboard: 728x90, Wide Skyscraper: 160x600, and Medium Rectangle: 300x250), and in-text advertisements to their blogs via an easy three-click process.

ScribeFire QuickAds’ ad optimization decision engine automatically selects the highest revenue producing banner to display on the user’s website. Ads are selected from the MediaWhiz ad inventory pool, which is fueled by MediaWhiz’s experienced sales team and relationships with over 100 ad networks. Web publishers can access comprehensive ad inventory performance and earnings data on the ScribeFire website.

“ScribeFire is a great addition to the MediaWhiz portfolio of products,” said Patrick Gavin, President of ScribeFire. “Our patent-pending ad optimization technology and relationships with over 100 top ad networks will enable bloggers to see the greatest possible value for their ad inventory. Our dedicated sales force exposes small web publishers to advertisers and ad
networks that they previously had little or no access to, and with no monthly minimums or up-front costs.”

“Direct advertisers and ad networks now have the opportunity to reach massive audiences visiting an increasingly influential medium, the blogosphere,” added Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of MediaWhiz. “ScribeFire QuickAds’ innovative technology has the added benefit of enabling advertisers to auto-optimize multiple ad units based on key performance metrics, thereby improving the overall performance of their campaign.”

miércoles, 9 de abril de 2008

MediaWhiz Acquires LeadROI Lead Management System

Deal Boosts MediaWhiz's Lead Management Technical Capabilities

NEW YORK, April 9, 2008 -- MediaWhiz today announced the acquisition of LeadROI's Lead Management System, which enables advertisers to better manage, optimize, and monetize their lead generation campaigns.

See: biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080409/nyw042.html?.v=101

lunes, 7 de abril de 2008

Jason Cohen on Affiliate Marketing (DMNews 4.7.08)

Jason Cohen
Founder and President, MediaWhiz

When online advertisers think about affiliate marketing, they frequent­ly think of the larger affiliate programs such as Linkshare or Commission Junc­tion. These programs typically act like application service providers (ASPs), where the advertiser interfaces with and motivates affiliates.

In recent years, a plethora of cost-per-action (CPA) affiliate networks have evolved. CPA networks place the burden of managing affiliates and driv­ing traffic squarely in the hands of dedi­cated affiliate managers. This approach enables advertisers to leverage the expertise, relationships, and resources of their CPA partner.

Since CPA networks are closed networks, advertisers do not directly communicate with their affiliates. If you select more than a single network part­ner, it is important to understand that affiliates — even underperforming ones — may appear more than once during a campaign without you knowing about it. This is due to the fact that affiliates frequently join multiple CPA networks at a time, each of which identifies that affiliate in a different manner. Selecting one partner will enable you to perma­nently remove affiliates driving lower quality customers or sales.

If you cannot decide between CPA networks you like, identify a key strength for each. Some programs have very strong distribution through e-mail, while other programs work very closely with search publishers. Test firms by giving each a piece of your affiliate program, so that one partner manages search, while the other manages e-mail, for example.

Remember to establish different price points for different forms of traffic, as all sales are not created equal. See which firm does a better job with reporting, optimization of underperforming affili­ates, and, most importantly, servicing you as a client. With all of this in mind, you will be well on your way to finding a quality long-term CPA network part­ner and embarking on some great affili­ate marketing.

See this artilce in DMNews: dmnews.com/Mix-it-up-with-affiliate-marketing/article/108633/

miércoles, 2 de abril de 2008

ShoppingAds News: eBay Transition Away from CJ

Many of you have already been made aware that eBay has begun migrating their affiliate program from Commission Junction to an in-house affiliate program, the eBay Partner Network. This is great news for all ShoppingAds users as their new solution is more flexible and efficient in helping us deliver more income for everyone! We will continue to run just as before, but please be aware that there may be a possible slight reporting delay as eBay finalizes this transition. Also, just a friendly reminder that effective February 2008, payouts will  take place on the 4th of every month and  include all the earnings from the entire previous month.

Thank you for your continued business and support!

lunes, 18 de febrero de 2008

ShoppingAds - Ebook released

Michael Brown has just released on ebook focusing on ShoppingAds and how to make more money with our program. I had a chance to review the ebook and he did a great job detailing our program and giving tips on optimization. The ebook can be purchased at EasyShoppingAdsProfits.com Thx for your work Michael!

domingo, 10 de febrero de 2008

Update: ShoppingAds - Temporary CPA outage: FIXED!

ShoppingAds Publishers displaying CPA ads will notice blank ads being shown. We are aware of the issue and are working it out as I type. Update coming soon when everything is back in order. Thanks for your patience!

Update: this has been fixed if you were seeing issues with the ads they should be working now or will be shortly, thx again!

martes, 8 de enero de 2008

AuctionAds moves to ShoppingAds!

We are excited to announce that we have merged our AuctionAds and ShoppingAds products into one product that will be located at ShoppingAds.com. ShoppingAds is a hybrid product that serves both CPA (cost per action) ads provided by eBay and CPC (cost per click) ads provided by our shopping comparison engine partners. For existing AuctionAds users the only change you will see is the "Ads By AuctionAds" displayed on your ads will change to "Ads By ShoppingAds". The other significant change is the ability for you to become a Premium Publisher.

By becoming a premium publisher you will have the opportunity to be paid on a CPC (cost per click) basis for all your US and Canadian traffic while you can monetize your international traffic on a CPA (cost per action) basis. Standard publisher's traffic will be monetized 100% on a CPA basis. Here is a graphic of how this works. Your account will be reviewed for Premium Status in the coming days and you will be notified if you qualify. By having one central system it will allow us to focus on building one great product. If you have ideas on how we can improve please let me know below and please subscribe to our blog for news on ShoppingAds and our other MediaWhiz publisher solutions to make your website more money!