Virtual Currency Monetization Platform Maximizes Revenue and Optimizes Consumer Experience for Social Game & App Publishers

BURLINGAME, Calif. – April 19, 2010 – Super Rewards, an Adknowledge company and the leader in monetizing virtual currency for online social games, today announced the first platform to fully integrate advertising offers, banners, and direct payment methods into a single monetization solution for social game and application publishers. The improved platform delivers publishers higher earnings per user, improves the consumer experience, and helps publishers acquire new users through its cost-per-installation (CPI) marketplace. Social media advertisers also benefit by receiving more high-quality leads from the platform’s ability to deliver more relevant ads based on consumers’ behavior and interests.

Power of a Single Solution
While offer walls drive the majority of revenue for most social applications, over 75 percent of users do not visit offer walls and, therefore, are not efficiently monetized (source: Super Rewards internal research).  The integrated Super Rewards platform solves this problem by quickly analyzing targeting data to deliver the most effective, relevant blend of monetization solutions. For example, if a consumer consistently signs up for offers, publishers can quickly and easily choose to display fewer or no banners.  Conversely, if a consumer frequently clicks on banners, publishers can choose to show fewer or no offers. The net result for publishers is higher earnings per user and a better overall consumer experience.

This announcement extends our leadership as the most valuable one-stop shop for publishers and advertisers,” said Scott Lynn, chief executive officer of Adknowledge. “Now all social media publishers can work with a single solution for all their monetization needs – be they banners, offers, or direct payments. And all social media advertisers can use BidSystem to receive the highest quality leads on the market today.  As the largest ad network on Facebook, we deliver exceptional reach and relevancy for advertisers, and the best monetization solutions for publishers.”

By utilizing a single solution, app and game publishers can work with Super Rewards to run more complex monetization programs. For example, banners can be targeted to drive new users from the main application to an offer wall. Since most offer wall visitors return multiple times, this is a powerful way to secure a sustainable revenue stream.  In addition, publishers could decide not to show banners to novice users until they’re sufficiently engaged in the game. This provides an initial ad-free experience, but allows the possibility to monetize users for the long-term.

The Value of Banners
By integrating banners into an application using the Super Rewards platform, total earnings can rise 15 – 100 percent (or more) above an offer wall-only integration. Since performance varies based on the specific application dynamics, including the level of user engagement and placement of banners, Super Rewards account professionals provide publishers with strategic counsel to maximize earnings while improving user experience.  All of the pioneering controls that Super Rewards released to the publisher community continue to work with banners, including the industry’s first and most robust content filtering, whitelisting and blacklisting controls. In addition, publishers have a simple, single login to pull ad tags and manage reporting.

User Acquisition
Viral channels are a fantastic means to increase an application’s user base, but they are not always enough. The improved Super Rewards platform empowers publishers to participate in a CPI marketplace either by reinvesting a percentage of their earnings or adding additional funds. This eases the friction required to build a successful application and provides a virtuous cycle between user acquisition and monetization.

“I like the fact the Super Rewards platform has banners, offers, and direct payment monetization solutions integrated in a single place,” said Humberto Organdivez, CEO of Codebell. “This integration has increased our revenue and new users.”

The Super Rewards platform is part of Adknowledge BidSystem 3.0, the self-service auction marketplace that gives advertisers the power to bid for leads from social media (e.g., Facebook games and apps) on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis.  BidSystem also enables advertisers to bid for leads from additional traffic channels on a price-per-click (PPC) basis. With millions of consumers playing thousands of games on social networks like Facebook and MySpace each day, Super Rewards generates millions of high-quality leads for hundreds of different advertisers every month.

About Adknowledge
Adknowledge, the largest privately-owned ad network with revenue in excess of $250 million, utilizes powerful predictive technology to connect advertisers with consumers across multiple channels, including Social, Email, and Web Content. Adknowledge has grown to be the largest independent advertiser marketplace focused on high-quality alternatives to traditional search engine advertising.  In the past two years, the company has acquired Super Rewards, MIVA, Cubics, Lookery, Mediarun, and Adonomics. Headquartered in Kansas City, Adknowledge has domestic offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Florida, and international offices in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. For more information, visit www.adknowledge.com.

About Super Rewards
Super Rewards is a leading provider of monetization solutions for online games and social networks. The Super Rewards “offer wall” delivers highly targeted advertising offers to millions of global Web site and social network users. The platform seeks to maximize revenues for developers while allowing users to earn virtual currency in exchange for signing up for free products or trial offers. For more information, visit www.srpoints.com.

Ad-Supported Payment Gateway Empowers Online Merchants to Convert Free Trial Users into Licensed Users, Boosting Revenue in the Process

KANSAS CITY, MO – March 26, 2010 – Adknowledge, the largest private advertising network and the parent company of Super Rewards, today officially announced the release of its Ad-Sponsored Payment Gateway, Cambyo, a solution for full-spectrum monetization. Top-tier merchants launching Cambyo as an alternative payment option on their Web site will allow consumers to pay directly for goods and services by participating in sponsored advertising offers. Potential customers can earn a specific product or service for free by completing a highly-focused advertiser offer as an alternative to paying by credit card. This revolutionary model allows merchants to increase sales from consumers, while advertisers acquire new qualified leads via sponsored offers.

The release of the payment gateway strengthens Adknowledge’s position as a single marketplace for online advertisers. The company previously announced enhancements to BidSystem, the platform that provides thousands of advertisers with an easy-to-use interface and robust bidding, reporting, and conversion tracking features that efficiently manage their campaigns across the Adknowledge network. Now, with the payment gateway, merchants can sales by matching consumers with brands by trying their products or services.

“We are addressing a key core merchant objective: converting ‘free trial’ users into ‘buyers,’ and providing an engaging, compelling experience for consumers in the process,” said Jason Bailey, general manager of Adknowledge’s Virtual Currencies division. “The Cambyo gateway acts as a single point of entry for customers and a single point of sale for merchants, providing real-time reporting, conversion rates and sales numbers which can be checked to track success.”

Additional product features include:

• Global Advertising Inventory: The payment gateway commands the largest inventory of advertising offers in the industry.
• Highest Payouts: Through Adknowledge’s direct advertising sales team and BidSystem, Cambyo is able to secure the highest commissions for each advertising offer.
• Dynamic Offer Optimization: Uses demographic, behavioral and conversion rate information to dynamically serve the most profitable offers to consumers for the highest conversions.
• Advertising Offer Filtering and Management: Cambyo provides a comprehensive offer filtering system (including Offer Black and White Listing), allowing online merchants to control which offers are presented to their customers.

For more information, please visit http://cambyo.adknowledge.com

For coverage, please visit http://digital.venturebeat.com/2010/03/26/adknowledge-launches-cambyo-payment-gateway-to-monetize-free-goods/ and
http://www.virtualgoodsnews.com/2010/03/adknowledge-launches-cambryo-for-virtual-currency-monetization.html#more

About Adknowledge
Adknowledge is a performance-based advertising network that utilizes powerful predictive technology to connect advertisers with consumers across multiple channels, including Email, Social, and Web Content. Adknowledge has grown to be the largest independent advertiser marketplace focused on high-quality alternatives to traditional search engine advertising. In the past two years, the company has acquired Super Rewards, MIVA, Cubics, Lookery, Mediarun, and Adonomics. Headquartered in Kansas City, Adknowledge has domestic offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and Florida, and international offices in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. For more information, visit www.adknowledge.com.

Gold’s Gym, a fitness gym combining diverse amenities with personal training to deliver the ultimate fitness experience, successfully employed an acquisition campaign with Super Rewards to generate awareness and sign-ups for their 7-day free trial during the seasonal New Year’s Resolution surge.  The campaign targeted males and females 25 years and older, seeking to improve their health and wellness as they moved into the New Year.

In the past, Gold’s Gym has done a great job of reaching the obvious audience – the potential members who participate in charity runs, shop at sporting goods stores and eat at healthy restaurant chains.  The integration with Super Rewards allowed Gold’s Gym to reach an incremental audience: consumers who are actively playing social gaming.  The social media consumer base was attractive to Gold’s Gym because it allowed them reach outside their comfort zone and provided the opportunity to expand their awareness, exposing them to everyone from professionals to students to stay-at-home moms. Bottom line, these people were not being touched by Gold’s Gym’s traditional marketing efforts.

Gold’s Gym was interested in running a short acquisition campaign focused on the first half of January to take advantage of those consumers who had New Year’s Resolutions fresh in their mind and still had the energy to reach those goals.  Because they were going after an incremental audience who may not have been as focused on researching gym memberships, the timing of the campaign was crucial.

Upon clicking through the Gold’s Gym offer on the Super Rewards Offerwall, the consumer was taken to a signup page within the Gold’s Gym website.  The main focus of the page was a short form allowing the consumer to sign up for their free 7 day VIP gym membership. To qualify for the VIP pass, all that was required was the consumer’s name, email, zip code and phone number. Step two of the VIP membership was the selection of the local gym the consumer was interested in trying and finally the consumer reached the printable VIP membership coupon.  Along the way, options are presented to sign up for a free fitness assessment with a certified trainer as well as enrollment for an extended 30 day trial.

After the initial 2 week test, the results were so positive the client requested we keep it running as a month long acquisition campaign. In the 30 days Gold’s Gym ran on the Super Rewards platform, they received a total of 15.5 million value-added impressions, generating 11,200 sign ups for Gold’s Gym’s free trial offer.