Pulse 360 Launches CPA Display Ad Net

Envisioning a bright future beyond cost-per-click, contextual advertising shop Pulse 360 on Monday launched a "cost per acquisition" display ad network, Online Media Daily has learned. Supporting historical trends, the CPA market has seen a resurgence amid a weakened ad marketplace in which less inventory can be sold on a CPM basis.

Per the new network, ad targeting will be driven by the audience composition and context-based targeting approach used on Pulse 360's existing sponsored links network.

CPA advertisers will have several levels of control, such as targeting to content channels including news, sports and entertainment, day-parting and geo-targeting.

The primary account management responsibility, however, falls on Pulse 360 as CPA advertisers only pay for verified transactions, sales, and leads, according to Jaan Janes, CEO of Pulse 360.

"A lot of small and mid-tier ad networks are having success, but picking which ones is not easy," said Janes. "The optimization is on us."

The thinking behind Pulse's existing model is that performance-based text ads get better matching based on demographic or psychographic characteristics versus keywords, which in turn generates a higher CPM.

Added Jeff Kamikow, president of Pulse 360: "Marketers in today's economy are performance-sensitive, and as a result we are seeing more and more advertisers -- including big brands -- commit ad dollars to performance-based campaigns."

Pulse 360 is owned by Seevast Corp., a venture capital-backed holding corporation that also owns pay-per-click text ad specialist Kanoodle. The 50-person company is headquartered in New York City with an additional office in Buffalo.

Existing publisher clients include CBS TV stations, Gannett Digital, Comcast, World Now, the AP, Newsweek.com and MSNBC.

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