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.