Jupitermedia Offers "Guarantee" To Tech Advertisers

Following a path tread by Forbes.com’s “Brand Increase Guarantee,” online tech publisher Jupitermedia is offering a guarantee of its own, but with more performance-oriented success metrics and a lower cost-of-entry.

ClickZ is a network within Jupitermedia’s JupiterWeb division.

The Jupitermedia program, called “guaranteed effective marketing solutions,” or GEMS, guarantees marketers they’ll achieve certain benchmarks, to be agreed upon beforehand, when they advertise on three of the company’s networks: DevX, EarthWeb and internet.com. Results can be measured by sales leads, click-throughs, downloads or pageviews. The JupiterWeb networks comprise 150 Web sites, with over 100 opt-in email newsletters. The company’s internal numbers report 20 million unique users per month.

“This is JupiterWeb’s answer to a whole bunch of dynamics that are going on in interactive marketing,” said Chris Elwell, vice president and general manager of Jupitermedia. “What we’re doing is shifting the paradigm. Responsibility for success goes to the publisher, JupiterWeb, rather than to the marketer.”

One dynamic Elwell referred to is paid search’s popularity, which at least in part has grown because of its pay-for-performance pricing model. With GEMS, Jupitermedia hopes to mimic that model by providing advertisers with a guaranteed return: sales leads, click-throughs, downloads or pageviews.

The company is also taking a page from portal players like Yahoo and MSN and their custom relationships. Jupitermedia will handle design and hosting of creative, drive traffic, and provide reporting and tracking.

The company has created six packages for advertisers. White paper download programs have JupiterWeb hosting vendor white papers and driving traffic to them. A vendor showcase is essentially a Web page with information, branding messaging and downloads or other calls-to-action. Solutions centers are large ad placements showcasing an advertiser’s content adjacent to editorial content. A custom vendor portal is a microsite with custom content and a custom newsletter, where advertisers can place white paper downloads and the like. The company will also create a new editorial site designed to attract an advertiser’s target audience, in a program called a site launch sponsorship. Webcasts featuring either an advertiser or JupiterResearch analysts are also available.

“Different programs appeal to different people,” said Elwell, adding some initiatives require a great deal of interaction between the advertiser and the publisher, while others are largely handled by JupiterWeb.

The GEMS program is similar to Forbes’ guarantee only in its promise of satisfaction. Forbes was selling a guaranteed lift in brand metrics, and required a minimum $100,000 spend. JupiterWeb’s minimum is $5,000.

The company thus far has run 45 custom programs for advertisers for clients including HP, Intel, IBM, Nokia, BMC Software, CA, Qualcomm and Sun.