Marchex relaunched yesterday its local advertising platform, and moves towards integration of local advertising services by forming a digital platform group.
The new, revamped plaform is called Marchex Connect 2.0 and integrates three products:
– online advertising;
– call-based advertising;
– business profile pages.
Marchex only serves US-based advertisers, and we know nothing if they plan on expanding anywhere else. The full press release of the platform launch can be read below.
SEATTLE, WA – July 30, 2008 – Marchex, Inc. (NASDAQ: MCHX, MCHXP) a local search and advertising company, today announced that it has launched Marchex Connect 2.0, its next-generation local advertising platform. Marchex Connect 2.0 integrates three important advertising products: online advertising, call-based advertising and Business Profile Pages, which are fully trackable branded Web pages that give advertisers an immediate local online presence.
Marchex Connect serves national advertisers who want to target locally and large businesses, such as Yellow Pages and media companies, who want to sell local advertising under their own brand to their customers. In addition, the company has formed the Marchex Digital Platform Group, uniting Marchex’s voice services, interactive marketing and platform development teams to better provide integrated local advertising products, services and analytics for its customers.
“We have invested heavily to build a performance-based, local-centric advertising platform for local resellers and advertisers that integrates online and call-based advertising products and services at scale, all supported by sophisticated reporting and analytics,” said John Keister, Marchex President and COO. “Our goal at Marchex is to accelerate the adoption of local online advertising and to deliver the highest volume of quality local leads to our advertisers at the most reasonable cost in the marketplace.”
Next-Generation Local Advertising Platform
Marchex Connect – which supports more than 65,000 local advertisers – offers a range of performance-based advertising products that can be used either as a fully-integrated product suite or on an individual basis, including:
* Business Profile Pages
Provides advertisers with an immediate branded local online presence that is fully optimized to drive click- and call-based local leads from both paid and organic search results. The optimized Web pages track and provide comprehensive reporting on all actions taken on the page, including: click-throughs, calls generated, emails sent, forms filled out, coupon, and map print outs, all of which provide the advertiser full data on their online marketing performance and return on investment (ROI).
* Integrated Online Performance-Based Lead Generation
Marchex Connect brings together its proven online lead generation and call-based advertising capabilities to deliver performance-based click and call lead packages that are tracked and reported. The lead packages can be on a guaranteed basis, which provides advertisers with a set number of leads, or on a budget basis, where Marchex manages the advertiser’s budget across multiple search engines and vertical and local Web sites.
* Comprehensive Call-Based Advertising Products and Services
Marchex Connect delivers comprehensive call-based advertising products and analytics, including call tracking for online and offline campaigns, pay-per-phone-call, form-to-phone, and reverse proxy, which enables all phone calls generated by an advertiser’s Web site to be tracked and reported.
* Diversified Advertising Distribution
Distribution is built according to the advertiser or partner needs and is available via all major search engines, leading local Web sites and premium vertical Web sites.
* Proof of ROI
Custom reporting and detailed analytics that prove performance and ROI for both the partner and the local advertiser.
By providing an immediate online presence integrated with call-based lead generation and numerous other trackable user actions, Marchex Connect addresses a number of the primary needs for local advertisers. It is estimated that only 1 million – out of an estimated 15 million – SMBs in the United States are currently advertising online¹ and of the 42% of SMBs that have Web sites, the majority are rudimentary at best.² In addition, according to The Kelsey Group®, 71% of SMBs would rather pay for phone calls to their business than solely clicks to their Web site.³
“The Internet is primarily a consumer research and marketing platform that drives offline transactions,” said Greg Sterling, principal, Sterling Market Intelligence. “However, tracking that offline sales impact has been very challenging. The range of tools that Marchex’s new platform provides will help make the relationship between online leads and offline sales much more transparent.”
Marchex Digital Platform Group
With today’s launch, Marchex subsidiaries VoiceStar and Traffic Leader have been unified under the Marchex Digital Platform Group to leverage the Marchex Connect platform and provide integrated, locally-focused advertising services including:
* Full Advertising Campaign Management – All campaigns are managed by a dedicated team of online marketing and call-based advertising experts.
* Strategic Consulting for Resellers – Leveraging Marchex’s unique intellectual property regarding pricing and product strategies to appropriately balance and expand the total offline and online spends of an advertiser, and to maximize ROI goals.
* Sales Channel Training – Custom in-field and Web-based training programs to equip Marchex partners’ local sales forces with the knowledge and sales materials they need to successfully migrate their local advertisers’ spend online.
For more information on Marchex Connect and the Marchex Digital Platform Group, visit www.marchex.com.
About Marchex, Inc.
Marchex (www.marchex.com) is a local search and advertising company. Marchex’s innovative advertising platform delivers search- and call-based marketing products and services for local and national advertisers. Marchex’s local search network, one of the largest online, helps consumers make better, more informed local decisions through its content-rich Web sites that reach tens of millions of unique visitors each month.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release regarding our strategy, future operations, future financial position, future revenues, acquisitions, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. We may not actually achieve the plans, intentions or expectations disclosed in our forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Actual results or events could differ materially from the plans, intentions and expectations disclosed in the forward-looking statements we make. There are a number of important factors that could cause Marchex’s actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements which are described in the “Risk Factors” section of our most recent periodic report and registration statement filed with the SEC. All of the information provided in this release is as of July 30, 2008 and Marchex undertakes no duty to update the information provided herein.
