The Danish city of Odense, on a waterlogged island about 80 miles west of Copenhagen, is not exactly a global media capital. Yet in a villa in a quiet residential neighborhood, a new breed of internet-based marketer is challenging the traditional advertising business model.
Come&Stay, with sales last year of $30m and a market cap of $78 m on NYSE Euronext, does so-called permission-based e-mail advertising for blue-chip customers, including BMW, Ikea, GE Capital, and Apple.
In effect, it's the opposite of a spammer, since it sends pitches only to people who have actively indicated a willingness to receive advertising. The company boasts a list of some 270 million such e-mail recipients, as well as a database of demographic information about them.
For advertisers Come&Stay offers a cheap and low-risk way to reach a target group. Clients pay only for responses, which can be defined in different ways--anything from a simple click to more concrete actions such as signing up for a test drive, completing a loan application, or making an actual purchase. "We can track everything," says Chief Executive Officer Torben F. Rasmussen.
Source: CIO Today, http://www.cio-today.com