IQ News: GetRelevant Promises

Low-Cost Customer Leads A promotions network that launches tomorrow hopes to revolutionize the way businesses get customers. GetRelevant, San Francisco, claims it will combine broad reach, predictable costs and measurable results to boost the effectiveness and slash the cost of customer acquisition efforts, which it says can account for as much as half of a company's marketing budget. "Typical online promotions work if you're happy with low returns," said Mitchel Harad, co-founder, chairman and CEO of the year-old company. "Our premise is, we can do better than that." GetRelevant targets consumers with free offers geared to their interests, on sites with related content. For instance, a visitor to a sports site might see an offer for a gift certificate to a ski shop or a free trial subscription to a bicycling magazine. When the visitor clicks on the offer, he or she goes to a GetRelevant page that has the same look and feel as the original site. After answering a few questions to register for the offer--which takes less than a minute, according to Harad--the visitor is returned to the original site, promoting stickiness. Advertisers get the individual's name and profile, along with aggregated demographic information. Users receive an e-mail confirming the offer and can opt out at that time if they wish. GetRelevant operates on a cost-per-lead basis, so clients pay for performance. Leads are prequalified and high quality, Harad claimed, since users have already expressed interest in a subject by visiting a related site. Costs range from 25 cents to $20 per lead, with a mean of $2. By contrast, Harad said, a company could spend as much as $100 to $300 to acquire one customer using costly promotions that generate little response, such as mailing disks or advertising on TV. Partner sites receive a 40 to 60 percent cut of ad revenue, Harad said. "We've built a network of about 20 leading sites, with combined monthly traffic of about 20 million users, including PrizeCentral.com, Mascot.com and freemerchant.com." He added that "a major portal" is about to sign. On the advertiser side, about 70 to 80 clients have signed on so far, including online and offline retailers and sites such as MyPoints.com, BridgePath.com and OfficeDomain. Some "prominent consumer goods companies" will be trying out the service next month, Harad said. "We've got a window of opportunity of about five months to establish critical mass before 'me-too' competitors latch on to our revenue-producing model," he added. Bravo! Marketing, a San Francisco-based integrated marketing communications firm, has been chosen as agency of record for GetRelevant. n

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IQ News: GetRelevant Promises

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