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.”
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: 728×90, Wide Skyscraper: 160×600, and Medium Rectangle: 300×250).
“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.
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 24×7 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.”
MediaWhiz has been ranked #256 in the 2008 Inc. 5000 list of Fastest Growing Private Companies in America. 
Additional rankings:
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.
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: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080409/nyw042.html?.v=101
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: http://www.dmnews.com/Mix-it-up-with-affiliate-marketing/article/108633/
