VerticalResponse Wins 2008 SmallBusinessComputing.com Excellence in Technology Award for Online Marketing

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- VerticalResponse, a leading provider of self-service email marketing and direct mail solutions for small businesses, today announces the win of the 2008 SmallBusinessComputing.com Excellence in Technology Awards in the Online Marketing category. SmallBusinessComputing.com is a leading online information resource designed to provide technology solutions for small businesses. Nominees were announced on SmallBusinessComputing.com in November 2007 and winners, determined by reader votes, were announced on January 22, 2008.
"At VerticalResponse, we strive to meet the marketing needs of our customers. We are particularly pleased that this award is voted on by the small businesses we developed our product for seven years ago, and continue to listen to as they help us develop new features and services," says Janine Popick, CEO of VerticalResponse. "This award demonstrates that VerticalResponse is more than email, but an effectual marketing solution for small business."
The online marketing category included pay-per-click campaigns, surveys, social commerce initiatives and email marketing. VerticalResponse, with its comprehensive product, services and educational resources, won their category by a landslide.
"This year, VerticalResponse takes home the gold. The majority of its customers are small e-tailers and they seem to be happy," according to SmallBusinessComputing.com. "VerticalResponse won by a large margin with more than 66 percent of the vote."
In the past year, VerticalResponse has integrated new features such as Google Analytics, and a powerful List Segmentation tool, all while maintaining the same affordable pay-as-you-go pricing model -- ideal for small business. Last year's winner, Google AdWords, placed second this year, with close to 30 percent of the vote.
About VerticalResponse
VerticalResponse, Inc. (http://www.verticalresponse.com/) is a leading provider of self-service email marketing and direct mail services empowering small businesses to create, manage and analyze their own direct marketing campaigns. VerticalResponse's flagship product, which allows customers to deliver sophisticated yet easily deployed email campaigns, is the most intuitive and affordable Web-based direct marketing solution available. VerticalResponse is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For additional information, please visit http://www.verticalresponse.com/.
About SmallBusinessComputing.com
SmallBusinessComputing.com (http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/) is a daily information resource designed specifically for Internet and IT professionals dedicated to providing technology solutions for small business owners. The site features a product testing and review section, a buyer's guide, business tools, daily news for e-marketers and Webmasters, and a free e-mail newsletter. SmallBusinessComputing.com can be found on internet.com's Small Business Channel.

Big Internet earnings week points up uncertainties

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Big Internet stocks have fallen 25 percent to 40 percent in the last quarter and haven't looked cheaper in years. But despite expected strong year-end results, many investors are likely to shy away in the short run.
Investors are set to focus on company outlooks and how a slowing U.S. economy will lead to advertising cutbacks and more hesitation among online shoppers over the course of 2008. Yahoo Inc posts results on Tuesday, followed by Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday and Google Inc a day later.
"At the moment, investors are paying an awful lot more attention to outlooks than they are to past performance," said Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst with broker Sanford C. Bernstein. "Any sign of lowering guidance is instantly seized upon."
Google faces uncertainty over how its online ad business performs in a tighter economy and questions over shifting its computer-based business on to mobile phones, if it wins rights to U.S. airwaves and becomes a wireless operator.
Because Google does not comment directly on its outlook, investors must read the body language of Chief Executive Eric Schmidt or decipher the meaning of any passing comment Google offers about key advertisers in financial services or autos.
The Internet market leader is expected by Wall Street to post fourth-quarter revenue growth of better than 50 percent amid ongoing market share gains in Google's search business. Analysts look for revenue at Yahoo to grow just 15 percent.
Highlighting the contrast with Google, Yahoo is set to announce job cuts alongside lower earnings this week. Sources familiar with the plan say fewer than 1,000 employees could lose jobs -- about half what was rumored on some blog sites.
Yahoo's fourth-quarter profit is seen down 31 percent to 11 cents per diluted share, while Google is slated to post a 40 percent rise, excluding stock options and one-time items.
"We think at the moment, the most negative scenario for Yahoo is fully priced in," Lindsay said. Yahoo shares, which closed 5.3 percent down on Monday at $20.78, are down nearly 40 percent from year-high levels in late October.
He said Yahoo is likely to lose highly profitable broadband partnerships with AT&T Inc and others in the next 18 months, while warning of further weakness in its corporate brand advertising business as the U.S. economy hits the skids.
Lindsay sees no short-term catalyst coming out of Yahoo's expected "mediocre" results; "What investors want to see is how they are going to improve their core advertising business."
On the back of strong toy sales, Amazon revenue is expected to rise 34 percent over a year ago to a record $5.36 billion. Net profit is expected to double to about 48 cents per share.
"Amazon and Yahoo are likely to hide behind deteriorating macroeconomic conditions," Global Crown Capital analyst Martin Pyykkonen said. "They can always raise their outlooks later in the year if things improve."
CHEAP? OR GETTING CHEAPER?
Marking a dramatic reversal, Google was trading near $750 12 weeks ago -- and was forecast to approach $900 in 2008 by bullish Wall Streeters -- and now trades just above $550.
Google is trading around 32 times the 2008 earnings estimate of Bernstein's Lindsay, compared with the pricey 55 times price-to-earnings valuation that he has on Amazon.
Pyykkonen said Amazon remains "priced to perfection" -- meaning the stock price assumes perfect execution. Amazon has a price-to-earnings multiple three times that of eBay's beaten-down valuation.
Despite a 25 percent decline in Google stock since early November, Wall Street is far from capitulating. Nineteen analysts still recommend investors buy Google stock, while only three rate the shares "hold" and no one advises selling.
Clayton Moran of Stanford Group is among the most bearish analysts on Google's stock. He takes aim at the notion that Google's pay-for-performance Web search advertisements somehow insulate the company from a weakening economy.
"A pullback in consumer spending could negatively affect Google's search volumes and click prices and therefore (its) advertising revenue," Moran argued in a research note to clients as he downgraded the stock to hold from buy last week.
Moran has the lowest price target of any analyst formally following the company, at $615.
To win the airwaves needed to launch a national wireless network, Google would likely pay upward of $10 billion just for radio licenses, along with $5 billion a year over the next five years to build out the network, Bernstein has calculated.
Unless it finds a deep-pocketed partner, Google would be committing itself to a business with far lower capital returns, Lindsay argues. Until recently, most analysts had bet Google would stay away from investing in wireless networks.
But strongly worded comments from CEO Schmidt about Google's focus at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Friday have many analysts believing Google may be serious about a U.S. wireless network.
"Google on a relative basis, is starting to look quite cheap," Lindsay said. "But investors are hanging back. They want to find out if Google intends to bid to win in the wireless auctions."

Google spars with European lawmakers over privacy

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google attacked European parliamentarians and privacy advocates on Monday for trying to have competition authorities consider the handling of personal information in its $3.1 billion takeover of rival DoubleClick.
The argument was the centerpiece of a European Parliament hearing to consider the burgeoning role of the Internet in impinging on the privacy of citizens.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) signed off last month on Google's $3.1 billion deal, which combines its dominance in pay-per-click Internet advertising with DoubleClick's market-leading position in display ads.

After listening to a visiting FTC commissioner, U.S. and European privacy advocates and European parliamentarians question the impact of the deal on European citizens' on-line privacy, Google's global privacy counsel shot back.
"People (are) trying to take a privacy case and shoehorn it into a competition law review ... I can understand that people continue to peddle this theory in Europe after having lost in the United States," Peter Fleischer said. His attack did little to calm the waters.
"The reason you want to have the data is because it gives you a competitive advantage. It is business. I don't think they can be completely disconnected. And we should discuss that side of things too," said Sophie in 't Veld, the Dutch parliamentarian who sought the hearing.
She called information a competitive factor and declared: "Having that much information is market power."
Federal Trade Commissioner Pamela Harbour said her four colleagues at the FTC had taken a traditional approach and excluded questions of privacy in their decision. She dissented.
"I believe a traditional approach does not capture the interests of all the parties. There is no proxy for the consumer whose privacy is at stake," she said.
The European Commission has said it will not take privacy into consideration. In the past six years, it has not turned down any all-U.S. deal approved by U.S. authorities.
Fleischer, asked about the deal rationale, said Google wanted to get into banner advertising. He said his firm did not build dossiers on individuals through searches, instead using the words of each search to decide what ads to display with it.
Contractual limits would prevent Google from using DoubleClick information from individuals, he said.
Stavros Lambrinidis of Greece, who chaired the meeting, asked whether Google turned information over to government authorities.
Fleisher said that if authorities go "through a valid legal process we will respond to it."

Ads for a gun course (plus free gun!) are turned down by Facebook as a violation of its guidelines.

With the shootings at Virginia Tech and so many high schools still echoing around the country, it’s perhaps not too surprising that the social networking site Facebook has turned down ads from the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute, which is owned by millionaire Dr. Ignatius Piazza.

Vnunet reports that the site refused to host pay-per-click ads from the Institute that offered a four-day course in handgun training, as well as a one-day concealed weapons permit. To top all that, they also offered the first 5,000 respondents a free handgun.

Facebook rejected the ad – perhaps somewhat contentiously - under Point 6 of its guidelines, which state:

"Provocative images will not be accepted. Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote adult content, including nudity, sexual terms and/or images of people in positions or activities that are excessively suggestive or sexual. Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote offensive, profane, vulgar, obscene, or inappropriate language. Ads may not contain, facilitate or promote defamatory, libellous, slanderous and/or unlawful content."

To be fair, the ads don’t seem to hit any of those criteria, and Piazza said,

"Facebook administrators must find the idea of Front Sight positively changing the image of gun ownership through training law-abiding citizens in the safe and responsible use of handguns to be offensive, profane, vulgar and obscene. It appears to me that Facebook is discriminating against gun owners and placing gun ownership in the same category as pornography."

But that is another debate altogether. Facebook has offered no comment on the decision.

A Step Towards Solving PPC Click Fraud Concerns Announcing: PPC Assurance from Enquisite Search Analytics

Enquisite Search Analytics adds a fully automated PPC refund submission process to its PPC Assurance product. Online ad networks such as Google and Yahoo! use automation to present companies advertising to users around the world. Auditing these massive networks has been almost impossible, until PPC Assurance was released. Now you can automatically file claims for mistakes and errors which cost you money.

Search Analytics market leader Enquisite has added an automated refund tab to its paid-search analysis software "PPC Assurance." This one-click PPC audit and refund claim filing system is unique in the paid search marketing and click fraud analysis marketplace, and helps cement the company's position of leadership in the field of search marketing analytics.
With the addition of the automated claim filing feature, the PPC Assurance product extends search marketers campaign management capabilities to audit and verify PPC campaigns, and becomes the only fully automated paid search auditing service on the market.
Search ad-networks are willing to admit that their systems can make mistakes and will grant advertisers refunds if their errors can be properly documented and detailed. Compiling such data using pre-existing analytics applications was virtually impossible. PPC Assurance collects the data needed by the search networks to verify complaints and delivers it to them at the click of a button.
"We're pleased to offer search marketers and advertisers the opportunity to monitor their campaigns properly, and get refunds for improper ad displays where warranted," says Enquisite CEO Richard Zwicky. "The value of knowing whether or not a PPC campaign is executing properly, and being able to report on it simply and easily is invaluable."
Zwicky continues, "Combining peace of mind with the ability for advertisers to go beyond passive reporting, and actively recoup money from improper ad displays is the next step in proper campaign management practices. Using Enquisite's PPC Assurance service can save larger advertisers tens of thousands of dollars each year simply on the basis of automating the verification and audit process. The additional value proposition of eliminating charges stemming from invalid click activity drives your campaign ROI up immeasurably."
Collecting and reporting PPC (pay-per-click) campaign errors in a format which is easy for anyone to understand, and yet still meets the requirements of the major search engines is part of what sets PPC Assurance apart. These campaign errors can occur for any number of reasons, some of which can slip past the ad-networks as they are difficult to detect. PPC Assurance employs a wide array of algorithmic and heuristic tests to gauge the validity of each click recorded against your account.
Keeping your PPC campaign in order can save your business a good deal of money, both in management costs, and in recovering misspent money.
Google, Yahoo, and other ad networks use automation to ensure your advertising displays to potential customers. Verifying that ads were displayed correctly however was a largely manual audit process. PPC Assurance uses sophisticated algorithms to verify in real-time the ad networks' systems, monitor PPC campaign activity that falls outside your paid search campaign parameters, and documents and presents irrefutable information on campaign violations to the ad networks to support customer's refund claim requests.
PPC Assurance employs a wide array of algorithmic and heuristic tests to gauge the validity of each click recorded against PPC accounts flagging indicators such as:- improper geo-targeting (customers in towns or countries which are not proper)- improper nation or metro region matching- specific improper patterns of click traffic- Improper ad displays- Displays of ads on improper networks / sites- "missing" clicks billed by the ad-network but not visiting your site - improper language settings of site visitor- And several other characteristics of invalid click activity ...
Keeping their PPC campaign in order can save business a good deal of money, both in management costs, and in recovering misspent ad-spend. See how PPC Assurance can detect, document and report invalid click activity and delete invalid click charges from PPC accounts.
The Refund Tab in PPC Assurance is the newest feature to be built into the Enquisite search analytics suite of reports.