Startups Target Shoppers with Bolder Online Traffic Generators

With a roiling stock market and warnings of an impending double-dip recession, you’d think some would do what they did back in 2008 — or even last year: hunker down and see what shakes out.

Not so here in Silicon Valley, where the sun seems to be shining for more than a few start up firms. These aren’t “me-too” companies — those seeking to replicate the Facebook and Groupon formulas. These are bona fide innovators who are finding new ways to get your attention and your dollars.

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Online retail and incentive-based advertising also allows key information and comparisons to be made by the consumer that might not be made in a bricks-and-mortar situation.

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What’s the biggest trend? Online advertising and marketing is making bold inroads into a terrain that has had its share of turmoil. But dollar for dollar, internet advertising sites and applications (and I include social networking sites dedicated to pushing retail sales) are still an open opportunity for business.

At top, Alex Rampell launched TrialPay in 2006. Fashiolista is one of many social shopping sites that launched in 2011 that capitalizes on “social retail.”

The internet offers an insulated bubble where purchase decisions are made in a different way than in a real-world environment. Online retail and incentive-based advertising also allows key information and comparisons to be made by the consumer that might not be made in a bricks-and-mortar situation. Add to that social media testimonials and uploads and you have a potentially rich opportunity to rally a consumer to push that purchase button.

TrialPay (www.trialpay.com) is an online advertising start-up based in Mountain View, California is just one which has found new ways of making transactional advertising a means of building a customer base, drive traffic to specific sites, and then build incentives to add on purchases through post-transaction marketing.

Loffles (www.loffles.com) is another start-up created by two Brown University grads that makes a game out of watching online advertisements. The more you watch, the greater opportunity you have to win prizes, from a electronics to apparel, and even discounts on “experiences” like a 7-day resort pass or a free meal at a restaurant.

Are we heading into another internet boom such as we saw in the mid-1990’s? A look at the numbers certainly makes it seem like that.

According to the New York Times, “twenty-two tech companies went public in the second quarter alone worth $5.5billion,” the highest dollar amount since 2000. Almost 1,000 raised $7.5billion from venture capital in the second quarter, that’s up 19-percent from the first quarter and just over sixty-percent from the same period in 2009.

What’s that mean in terms of consumer sentiment — will people still spend even if they’re watching their pocketbooks? I believe they will.

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