• by Steve Smith  @popeyesm, January 11, 2012

Direct-marketing and legendary sweepstakes promoter Publishers Clearing House is buying into mobile…literally. The company has acquired Portland-based Liquid Wireless, a mobile lead-generation platform that also offers media-buying capabilities and analytics. The mobile firm claims to track and optimize lead activity from acquisition through to conversion. Liquid Wireless places 1.4 billion ad impressions on mobile devices each month to reach 4 million users on 15 mobile Web sites, the company says.  Liquid was founded in 2008 by Jason Cianchette. The company also has a real-time bidding engine for mobile ads.

Publishers Clearing House operates a range of sites and apps that offer contests and sweepstakes to generate leads. PCH CEO Andy Goldberg says in a statement that the acquisition “is a terrific complement to the multi-platform model that PCH had already created and continues to successfully execute on daily, delivering quality customer acquisition services to over 1000 marketers.” Liquid Wireless will help power PCH’s lead-gen as it moves more aggressively into mobile, and PCH’s scale will enhance the reach Liquid Wireless can offer its client base.  

PCH Digital claims a database of 14 million customers, adding 3.5 million new registrants a year from online. Its Web sites include PCH.com, PCHGames.com and Candystand. Many of its games aimed at lead generation are available in the Apple iPhone App Store.