Adknowledge, which runs a huge private advertising network, is announcing today a new way for online merchants to make money. Its new Cambyo offering is an ad-sponsored payment gateway that lets consumers pay for goods and services by participating in sponsored ad offers.
Cambyo gives consumers the choice of paying in standard currency (with a credit card, mobile payments etc.) or participating in sponsored offers. They can get a product or service for free by completing a highly-focused ad offer, such as filling out a research survey or signing up for a movie subscription service.
Special offers are currently popular with free-to-play social games on Facebook, where players use the offers as an alternative to real money when they pay for virtual goods such as fuel for a tractor in FarmVille. But with Cambyo, Kansas City, Mo.-based Adknowledge is attempting to broaden that practice beyond the gaming community.
Just as in the online games, real-world online merchants can increase sales from existing customers by giving them an alternate way to pay. Advertisers get access to good sales leads via the special offers. And shoppers earn a free product or service by participating in an offer. This payment gateway will become part of Adknowledge’s market for online advertisers. Through its ad network, Adknowledge already has thousands of advertisers such as CNN, Virgin and Dell; those advertisers create ads that are placed into web sites run by Adknowledge’s participating publishers.
The whole idea is to convert users of free trials into buyers, said Jason Bailey, general manager of Adknowledge’s Virtual Currencies division. Right now, the Cambyo gateway has a big inventory of offers from 50,000 advertisers who are part of the ad network. The company tries to match the right offers to the best target consumers.
Adknowledge has 220 employees and raised $48 million from Technology Crossover Ventures in 2006. The company was started by Scott Lynn in 2004.
Companies: Adknowledge
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