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Innovation

The performance-based party

Written by Vince Thompson, Contributing Editor

Mike Sprouse is the Chief Marketing Officer for Epic Advertising, an online marketing firm that provides measurable advertising for brands big and small. Prior to Epic, Mike lead sales and marketing at Playboy. Now he is tasked with building the industry of online performance-based marketing and building new relationships with other marketers.

What does Epic do?

We help advertisers market more effectively online. They only pay when they get results that we deliver for them.

Why type of client’s do you work with?

Companies big and small that understand what they are willing to pay to acquire a sale from a customer or pay for a customer to take a specific action like buy something or subscribe to a service. Among our clients are companies like Match.com and Netflix as well as some big traditional brands and small online marketers.

How has your business changed in the last six months?

We’ve had a bunch of new clients call us and our outbound sales efforts have been more effective. As more scrutiny has been put on ad budgets our client marketers are looking for more efficiency and accountability. We’re also seeing more of the traditional Direct Response Television and direct mailers expanding their efforts online.

What percentage of online advertising is performance based?

Right now about 56% of the money invested online is for campaigns tied to performance based metrics (people taking action) and 37% of the money invested is for campaigns where client is looking to create awareness or deeper value around their brand, or “CPM” campaigns. The balance is a blend of both. Performance is playing the biggest role it has in 6 years. Last year it was neck and neck between performance and CPM but performance is clearly leading now.

What’s a smart business move you’ve made lately?

Funny thing…we wanted to throw a big party in August at the Playboy Mansion celebrating our great clients and our mutual successes.  In a hot economy companies do these things all the time…however…in this economy one has to take a pause. So we decided to use the party as a way to celebrate but also as a way to build our client relationships and to use it as a revenue-driver.  Just as everything around here is performance based we decided to make the party something we’d all have to earn. So…we told our clients that they could earn invites by investing more with us or in the case of new clients making their first sizable investments. It’s been a lot of fun and frankly…its worked better than I could have imagined. We’re looking forward to a great party in August.

What do you expect your biggest challenge to be in the year ahead?

Teaching our prospective advertisers about our medium and how to leverage online marketing properly. Marketers need our help and we are looking forward to teaching them about online performance based marketing.

What’s your tip for staying Smart?

Pay attention, listen to people, always be energized, and treat others right.

Want to learn more about Epic Advertising and performance-based advertising? Maybe even invest your way into an amazing party? Click here.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com

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