Revenue.net Launches Performance-Based Search Network

Revenue.net launched a new performance-based search marketing network this week at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose.

The new network combines elements of the company’s existing search engine marketing practice with its AdManager performance-based ad network. Both networks offer cost-per-action (CPA) pricing, allowing advertisers to choose an online action that they want to use to define a conversion. This could be an online sales transaction, a download, or a click.

“We let advertisers decide what they’re interested in, so the pricing is more in line with advertisers’ needs,” Ryan Berryman, general manager of Revenue.net, told ClickZ News. “With pay-per-click pricing, advertisers must actively manage keywords to control their customer acquisition costs.”

Traffic will come from Revenue.net’s network of consumer-focused Web sites, which utilize its Information.com search engine. The company shows contextually targeted banner and other display ads on its sites, and keyword-targeted text ads alongside search results.

The company expects marketers in lead-generation activities in such verticals as credit cards, travel, finance, software and services, rather than most e-commerce companies, to see the most benefit, according to Ron Sheridan, director of sales and business development for Revenue.net.

Revenue.net is initially targeting current advertisers looking to expand the reach of their campaigns beyond Google and Yahoo, without adding additional management overhead. While many companies are looking to improve results by adding more advanced CPC-based keyword management, Sheridan said this only adds complexity.

“It’s the wrong direction for the industry to be moving in,” he said. “Instead of adding management overhead to improve performance of each campaign, networks should be filtering out low-quality traffic to improve the performance of the overall network.”