Paying consumers to look at ads clicks for online marketing firm

A young entrepreneur brings in millions and describes fun as a "core value'’ at Mendota Heights-based CotterWeb Enterprises.

Daren Cotter gives new meaning to the concept of "precocious."

I mean, he was in second grade, for crying out loud, when he launched his entrepreneurial career by buying candy, and later a variety of fad items, in bulk at Sam’s Club and reselling them to classmates on the school bus and playground.

Cotter moved up a step in high school, where he fell in love with computers, taught himself to program and grossed about $10,000 selling educational games, metric converters and password protectors online.

But he hit his stride the summer after his freshman year at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

That’s when he started CotterWeb Enterprises, an online marketing company that pays consumers to respond to advertising offered by the clients he recruits.

By the time he graduated with a degree in computer science in 2004, he was grossing a tidy $2 million working out of his apartment near the campus. And three years later, the Mendota Heights-based company ended 2007 with an even tidier, positively shipshape $12.4 million in revenue.

Here’s the part that’s enough to give a green-eyed geezer a serious case of dyspepsia: Cotter, the company’s CEO and top technological wizard, just turned 27. (Sigh!)

All of which is not to say the kid has his head buried in his business plan.

"Fun is a core value here," Cotter said, which explains why a sizable chunk of the company’s new 10,000-square-foot headquarters is devoted to a game room furnished with ping-pong and foosball tables, a Nintendo Wii gaming console and a three-hole putting green.

"But we still get a lot of work done," said Cotter, a native of Princeton, Minn.

Obviously: The company was operating from Cotter’s home with just four part-time employees until mid-2006 and grew out of its first, 4,000-square-foot office in just 18 months. It ended 2007 with 23 employees, hoisted that total to 30 before the end of March and expects to have 40 in place by the end of the year.

CotterWeb offers two pricing models to the 100 advertisers it has recruited so far. One is a pay-per-action approach whereby the company and its consumer members are paid when a purchase is made, a survey completed or a game played.

This approach carries the highest price tag because it’s CotterWeb that is absorbing the risk that a member actually will act on an advertiser’s promotion. Under this model, consumers typically are paid $1 to $15 for responding to a survey or engaging a service and up to $35 or $40 for a fairly expensive product.

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Small Business Marketing Unleashed: Online Marketing

It’s possible to spend thousands of dollars - or read tens of thousands of words - and still get nowhere in the world of online marketing.  A session titled "A Common Sense Approach to Online Marketing" tried to highlight the essentials, however, since the path to success can be relatively simple.

(Coverage of the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference continues at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

Matt McGee, the SEO manager of Marchex, started things off by discussing an SEO success pyramid.  At a very basic level, he pointed out that commitment, planning, and patience are necessary.  "You have to have enthusiasm," McGee noted.  "You have to stay on top of the game."

Keyword research, a concentration on design and usability, and a use of tools and analytics come next.  In regards to analytics, McGee said, "It is how you determine your success or failure."

And in order to guide things towards that first outcome, seek out customers on local and social sites.  Manage your reputation all the while.  "[The] pyramid boils down to the human element," McGee observed.  "Small businesses depend on word-of-mouth."

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Zango Surpasses Five Million Unique Casual Gamers Milestone

SAN FRANCISCO - Zango (www.zango.com) today announced that for the first time more than five million unique casual gamers visited Zango.com making it the ninth most trafficked online gaming property in the U.S., according to Nielsen Online’s latest reported month (February 2008).

Zango offers hundreds of casual games at Zango.com, in a number of categories, including puzzles, Sudoku, arcade and brain teasers. All games at Zango.com are free in exchange for viewing targeted advertisements.

"We have assembled a tremendous collection of free, online casual games at Zango.com where millions of people come to play," said Neal Freeland, vice president of online marketing, Zango. "Online games are a tremendous opportunity for digital marketers. Our unique ad delivery solutions target offers from advertisers to casual gamers when they are most likely to be shopping for products or services, and not during game play itself. This creates a far more effective marketing platform for advertisers and makes Zango.com a much more enjoyable site for game players."

Zango announced its unique visitor milestone at this week’s ad:tech show in San Francisco, where the company is exhibiting at the digital marketing event. Attendees are invited to stop and visit Zango at Exhibit Hall Room A2 to learn more about marketing or business development opportunities. On the Web, visit http://adservices.zango.com/ for additional information.

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I have been in internet marketing for over ten years and have seen marketing techniques come and go. Some are still around and some are new and innovative. Below you will find what I believe to be the best and most effective online marketing techniques.

Article Marketing

Article marketing was and is one of the most powerful online marketing methods available. Not only does it do wonders for you and your business, it is free as well!

Article marketing consists of writing helpful, informative, easy to understand articles that actually help your readers, not try to sell them something. Then you submit them to article banks, directories and ezine publishers. When your article runs in a popular ezine, it can do great things for your business. Writing articles is not as hard as you might think so give it a try. You will be delightfully surprised at how much it can affect your business.

Remember:

Don’t worry about fancy words. People are looking for help, not big words.

Advertise in your resource box, not your article.

Provide real, helpful info and resources, hot hype!

Write from the heart! Let your personality shine through in your articles.

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The net is the new workplace where every tool you need to do your job can be downloaded in a matter of seconds. Is this the beginning or the end of business software? Before embarking on a recent business trip overseas, I reasoned that the best way to field test a new ultra-slim laptop I was reviewing was to drag the thing with me.

I packed my bag, checked my passport for the thousandth time and printed off the airline ticket at the office. But my delight at this inspired epiphany shifted to rage when I switched the machine on to find it had no word processing software. I was in a bind, I needed some way to write reports and had no time to be running around looking for software. As I struggled to suppress a howl of anguish, a colleague chirped, “Why don’t you download Open Office?”.

Anything sounded better than nothing. I found a wireless connection, did a web search for Open Office and within five minutes I had downloaded a word processing tool as perfect as anything I usually used. Problem solved.

A few weeks later, a colleague had to make a presentation in the boardroom. She nonchalantly strolled into the meeting, tapped quickly at the keyboard and had an entire presentation up on the screen using Google Docs. No messing with laptops, no apologising because the projector didn’t work with her machine. Just straight to it.

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For the past five years, SOAPnet.com has been the Disney-ABC Television Group’s hub for all-things soap opera. It has hosted clips of shows like "All My Children," featured behind-the-scenes news, and even sold souvenirs.

But starting Wednesday, it is an "ad network" as well. The Walt Disney Co. unit plans to announce that it has struck agreements with 45 smaller, separate Web sites that allow it to distribute content on them and, more importantly, sell advertising on their behalf. By doing so, it joins roughly 300 other companies that also call themselves ad networks.

The business of brokering ads across clusters of Web sites has become one of the most popular — and overcrowded — niches on the Web. The result is a glut of networks competing with each other, confusing media buyers and guaranteeing that some sort of shakeout is inevitable.

For some, starting an ad network is about survival: SOAPnet.com’s traffic was light and diminishing, so in order to sell ads it needed to be able to offer access to other sites as well. Others are hoping to capitalize on the rise in online ad spending, either to capture an expected explosion in display advertising, or follow the lucky footsteps of previous ad networks that have been snapped up at high prices by large companies.

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