• by Amy Corr , Staff Writer @MediaPostOTL, May 24, 2002

Founded in 1998, Penn Media isn’t a rep firm or list broker; it publishes and aggregates email newsletters. Penn serves more than 62 million opt-in subscribers via 937 publications—85 of which are owned and operated by Penn itself and represent 10 million subscribers.

Readers sign up to receive specific content in 13 categories (including sports, technology, humor, entertainment, and family) and then double opt-in. After the initial opt-in, subscribers receive a confirmation email that they must also respond to in order to complete the process. This prevents someone who knows your email address from signing you up.

Penn Media monitors its network closely and drops publishers that fall below its standards, which include a maximum of three ads per newsletter (Penn Media also requires top placement for its own ads). Penn works with both text and HTML messages, but text remains the more popular form. Advertisers can choose from eight categories to advertise in, but Penn usually customizes a specific model for advertisers to reach a target audience. CPMs range from $10 to $13. To safeguard privacy, Penn doesn’t sell its email addresses or cookie subscribers. And Penn inserts the ads, so advertisers never see the email addresses.

Penn Media has many similarities to online ad networks, but according to Roy Weiss, EVP of marketing, it has important differences. The first, he says, is that Penn doesn’t “push a site’s inventory. Rather, it is free to use whatever publications fit the client’s need.” Another difference is that Penn does not have an exclusive on selling space for clients; its sales efforts are in addition to those of the publishers.

Penn serves some 2 billion monthly impressions in its emails, and possess the capability to track open rates and click-through rates (though clients often track their own progress). Among Penn’s major clients are Microsoft, Kraft, and AT&T. Penn considers as its competitors online publishers such as AOL Time Warner and Yahoo rather than the online ad networks. Penn also conducts surveys (without incentives), receiving as many as 100,000 responses.

Although 2001 was a rough economic year for many, Penn Media reported a profit, and Weiss says the future promises continued growth. “For Penn the future is about direct-to-consumer efforts, self-reported data. Organizations want efficient ways to communicate directly with their customers. We think the next three years are very bright.”