Home Cool Company Awards 2011 Meet LeadBolt, Anthill 2011 Cool Company Award Finalist

Meet LeadBolt, Anthill 2011 Cool Company Award Finalist [Online Business Category]

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What are the Anthill Cool Company Awards?

The Cool Company Awards were launched in 2006 as a way for Anthill to acknowledge and celebrate Australian organisations that are doing things differently to bring about positive change. Cool Companies stay one step ahead of the rest. They breed leaders who are rule-makers and rule-breakers. They are trend-setters in attitude and action. Quite simply, they are … cool! More.

LeadBolt

Company: LeadBolt
Website: leadbolt.com
State: NSW
Category: Online Business

In less than two years, LeadBolt has become a world leader in website monetisation services via a method called content unlocking. In essence, site users encounter a screen that makes an enticing offer; the user must engage and react to the offer in order to continue seeing the site content.

LeadBolt set itself apart from its international competitors by being the first to offer a content-unlocking network for mobile devices. The network is good for apps on both the iOS and Android platforms.

In mobile apps, advertisements enpowered by LeadBolt drop in between game levels or when a user exits the app. The user is enticed with an offer or reward, and must respond with a “sure!” or “no, thanks” before moving on. The approach is much the same with websites; the user encounters an “engagement layer” that sports some flavor of enticement.

Those who say such tricks are bothersome and taint the user experience must all think mobile apps and well-designed websites grow on trees. The fact is that the percentage of return on static-display advertising has fallen steadily over the last few years. Publishers are looking for better revenue streams.

LeadBolt says ads powered by its network are generating click-through rates more than 60 times above industry benchmarks and that, on mobile, its engagement layers are pushing publishers’ earnings 100 times higher than industry benchmarks.

The company, founded in mid-2010 by president and CEO Dale Carr and headquartered in Sydney, deployed its export arms early, moving into the U.S. and Asia in July 2010, Latin America in September 2010 and Europe and the UK in January. Today, LeadBolt serves hundreds of millions of ad in nearly 200 countries. Advertisers include Burger King, Pepsi, Walmart, Coca-Cola and Groupon.

Like many aggressive new companies with a strong technological bent, LeadBolt “protects” its intellectual property by constantly rolling out new products and refining older ones. “While we strongly protect our IP assets by traditional means, our most effective protection is our innovative culture,” the LeadBolt team says.

Yes, but do they know how to have fun? Apparently so. LeadBolt strives to maintain that “startup” vibe in the office. A “breakout room” has cappuccino machines, a pool table, air hockey, foosball, couches and video games. When the company hits a milestone, it holds an office championship on one of the games.

Meanwhile, LeadBolt will continue to push the envelope, especially in the mobile world.

“Mobile devices are becoming the most relevant form of entertainment,” the LeadBolt team says. “Consumers are spending more time engaged on their phone than any other activity. Combine this with the ability to profile users, track location and report on real-time advertising statistics – this will make the phone the most important and as-yet-untapped advertising opportunity in history.

“We believe traditional ad formats and the industry is struggling. This year is the moment of opportunity for new ad formats and we want to be the leader.”

LeadBolt Apps

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