Press Releases

LinkShare Lead Advantage Goes Live with New Customers

New York -- November 5, 2007 -- LinkShare, a leading pay-per-action marketing network, announced the debut of LinkShare Lead Advantage and several of the service's first customers, including Credit Solutions of America (www.creditsolutions.com) and Global Travel International (www.globaltravel.com).

LinkShare Lead Advantage is a new service offering that delivers high-quality targeted leads and new customers to advertisers through LinkShare's global lead generation network.

"This new service enables our customers to develop, implement and manage their lead generation campaigns with a focus on driving results, while managing the risks and complexities across multiple online marketing channels," said Steve Denton, LinkShare's President. "Lead generation is one of the fastest growing segments of online marketing, but advertisers are discovering quality matters as much as volume."

"LinkShare designed Lead Advantage to target, track and optimize leads in a way that delivers those that are most likely to convert for our customers, in whatever vertical they work in," said Kelli Beougher, Vice President, LinkShare Lead Advantage.

LinkShare expanded its lead generation platform by leveraging TrafficStrategies.com, a leading online lead generation firm LinkShare acquired in June 2007. Through the capabilities that TrafficStrategies.com provides, advertisers can use LinkShare to develop and host custom landing pages and lead forms and perform real time lead verification, allowing the advertiser to focus on converting new leads to customers.

Credit Solutions of America
"LinkShare provides Credit Solutions of America with easy to use tools for reaching and verifying potential customers and giving us access to a publisher network that is second to none," said Heath Tudor, Marketing Director of Credit Solutions America.

Global Travel International
"With LinkShare Lead Advantage, Globaltravel.com can attract and acquire new customers, while closely tracking the return on our valuable marketing dollars," said Randy Warren, CEO of Global Travel International.

Although LinkShare Lead Advantage taps into the publishers in LinkShare's affiliate marketing network, the added benefit for advertisers is a solution specifically designed for lead generation and new customer acquisition.

• LinkShare Lead Advantage uses a CPA (cost-per-action) model so the advertiser's financial risk is greatly reduced.
• LinkShare Lead Advantage provides advertisers with flexibility by helping drive traffic through a variety of online channels including email, search, media buys, and pay-per-call.
• The Lead Advantage team completely manages all aspects of the customer's campaign, optimizing all aspects of a multi-channel strategy, maintaining publisher relationship terms, and designing and hosting landing pages.

LinkShare Lead Advantage is available immediately to advertisers. Click here to learn more.

About LinkShare Corporation
LinkShare Corporation provides ecommerce businesses with a vast, high quality pay-per-action marketing network, along with expert consultative services and patented technology. LinkShare's cost-efficient pay per action (PPA) affiliate, search and lead generation campaigns acquire new customers, increase revenue and drive results. LinkShare clients are Fortune 500 and prominent companies doing business online, including J.C. Penney, 1-800-Flowers.com, American Express and Avon Products. LinkShare was founded in 1996 and is headquartered in New York City, with offices in San Francisco, Chicago, London and Tokyo.

About Rakuten
LinkShare is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc. Headquartered in Tokyo, Rakuten is one of the world's largest and most comprehensive Internet service companies, providing leading services in e-commerce, portal & media, travel, financial services, and professional sports. Rakuten focuses on new business development and increasing its scope in order to improve and diversify service offerings. Rakuten is a publicly traded company in Japan (JASDAQ: 4755).