ValueClick 1998 to 2008

                ValueClick is important Internet advertising agency. They have been very successful over the last 10 years by becoming one of the largest marketing and advertising sellers for many companies and corporations. Much of the activities that ValueClick promotes are geared to Internet promotions and new and interesting concepts. ValueClick’s web page states that,  “Today, ValueClick Media is one of the largest and most comprehensive online advertising networks, reaching over two-thirds of the U.S. Internet audience across more than 13,500 quality sites whose web-based and registration path inventory is represented on both an exclusive and non-exclusive basis.”

ValueClick (http://www.valueclick.com/) was established in 1998. Much of its focus was geared towards Internet advertising and the idea of “Cost per click.” This concept (http://www.small-business-software.net/ppc-definitions.htm) basically focuses on how advertising costs would be charged based on how many times a user clicked on the website or location of the Internet promotion. ValueClick began to grow very quickly and any businesses began to see that the Internet was an untapped resource that could be vital to sales and promotions of many products.

As ValueClick grew it began to develop many new promotional concepts. The banner promotion, which was new at the time, was used by ValueClick and was a very successful way for companies to promote their products. The banner ad (http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/banner_ad) was located at the top of an Internet page. These ads were very visible and were interchangeable. ValueClick states that, “One of the most important parts of a strong online advertising campaign is the ability to make informed decisions quickly. ValueClick Media offers advanced reporting functions that deliver the performance information you need, when you need it.” With this philosophy ValueClick prospered and by 2000, ValueClick was generating almost 40 million ads per day. This put ValueClick at the forefront of Internet advertising and would lead the company to expand its outlets to places all over the world. The image located to the right shows a banner ad on an Internet website. The banner ad is the long ad at the top of the page that is promoting “Money in 24 Hours” this is a functional application of a banner ad on a website. These types of ads would lead ValueClick to begin developing other concepts of advertising that would help to keep their business ideas fresh in the marketplace. The ValueClick history was outlined greatly in an article located at http://www.work-at-home-net-guides.com/articles/the-history-of-valueclick.html  

While their banner ads were successful ValueClick continued to grow. In 2001, ValueClick partnered with EyeWonder and began offering a new medium for Internet advertising. They stated that, “From our first day in 1998 we have been committed to ensuring that our customers are the number one priority. Today, our performance and commitment are stronger than ever. We have become one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive online marketing companies and remain dedicated to solving our customers' most challenging needs.” With this commitment they focused on a new medium video, which was a new and untapped resource on the Internet.

As video was being developed it still hadn’t become a mainstream way of doing Internet advertising. Later on in the future this would become a hot way of targeting customers with video pop ups and introductions before the main information that the Internet patron was searching for. This partnership with EyeWonder (http://www.eyewonder.com/) gave ValueClick the resources necessary to expand its coverage over the Internet and provide video ads that became very popular. ValueClick Media offers advanced reporting functions that deliver the performance information you need, when you need it. The use of Video gave ValueClick another useful resource in promotion and sales.

                As the company passed ’02 and ’03 it continued to grow by buying out smaller companies and merging with others. Some of those buyouts and partnerships were with BeFree and MediaPlex. These two mergers helped ValueClick to develop new marketing tools through e-mail and other resources that had yet to be used. This also helped to make ValueClick one of the largest affiliated marketing resources in the world. As they continued to grow, ValueClick started to move their operations to many parts of the world. New outlets were opened in Europe and North America so that ValueClick could get the most out of their operations.

                ValueClick’s stock (http://moneycentral.msn.com/detail/stock_quote?Symbol=VCLK) was also rising. As the business grew its market share continued to grow. Youssef H. Squali, an Internet analyst says, “We like the space they are in. They are one of the leading providers of affiliate marketing, a business that's growing fairly rapidly," Squali said. "The drawback is that they are a portfolio company, running different assets under the same umbrella. It doesn't provide a lot of visibility. It's a matter of brand recognition, transparency and visibility, with a lot of the investors." ValueClick was generating so much sales that return on its investments was very high. The picture to the right shows the value of ValueClick’s stock over the ’06 ’07 year. After falling in the summer ValueClick’s stock rose again and began to show an increase in profits over their final quarter. This helped ValueClick in its dominance over the Internet advertising market. One new development that helped in their resurgence over the years was their addition of PriceRunner (http://www.pricerunner.com/), which was established in European countries as a shopping and sales network. This brought a great amount of money and interest to the ValueClick Corporation. 

ValueClick continues to grow greatly and has provided a necessary resource to businesses that are looking to promote their goods. With the help of ValueClick other corporations have gained tremendously and will continue to do so in the future. ValueClick is an Industry leader and has provided customers the resources and technology that they need in a growing market. Publishers Spot said it best in a review of ValueClick that, “ValueClick is outstanding due to its extensive control panel and the variety of options it offers publishers in terms of ad types. It gives its publishers a lot of control over the content they display, and its size ensures an abundance of advertisers to fill publishers’ ad spaces, even after they weed out the lowest paying advertisements. ValueClick Media is a strong competitor in the field of advertising networks

Works Cited

10x Marketing. (2005). History of Internet Advertising. Retrieved January 4, 2008, from
http://www.10xmarketing.com/Learning-Center/Advertising/History-of-Internet-Advertising.html

DoubleClick Performics. (n.d.). Research Reports. Retrieved January 4, 2008, from

                www.doubleclick.com/insight/research/index.aspx

EC2 @ USC. (1997 – 2001). Digital Commerce Center – Internet Advertising History. Retrieved

                January 4, 2008, from www.ec2.edu/dccenter/archives/ia/history.html

PriceRunner (2008) Reports. Retrieved January 6, 2008, from http://www.pricerunner.com/

Publishers Spot (2008) Reviews. Retrieved January 5, 2008 from http://www.publisherspot.com/reviews/valueclick-media

Salleras, Sky. (2004). M/Cyclopedia: Online Advertising – History. Retrieved January 4, 2008

                from http://wiki.media-culture.org.au/index.php/Online_Advertising_-_History

ValueClick (2008) History and Reports. Retrieved January 5, 2008, from           http://www.valueclick.com/)

ValueClick Media (2008) Reports. Retrieved January 5, 2008, from http://www.valueclickmedia.com/Publishers.shtml

Yahoo Finance (2008) Stock Quotes. Retrieved January 6, 2008 from http://www.publisherspot.com/reviews/valueclick-media

Zeff, R. L. & Aronson, B .(1999). Advertising on the Internet, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons. IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report (1999), Internet Advertising Bureau. Hyland, T. (2000) Why Internet Advertising?. Retrieved January 4, 2008 from http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Fall2000/Shim/main.htm