The Pontiflex Blog

Meet the Publisher: Doug Colbeck, Hillclimb Media

June 16, 2008 at 10:25 am Arun Krishnan 2 comments

The first in a series of “Meet the Expert” pieces that describe how industry thought leaders are leveraging CPL online lead generation advertising to maximize online advertising revenue.

Hillclimb Media is the name behind some of the most recognizable brands on the Internet such as Trails.com and Golflink.com. They take pride in being able to take readers down the path less traveled. Doug Colbeck, General Manager, Hillclimb Media talks about how Hillclimb took the path less traveled by offering advertisers CPL advertising opportunities. This allowed their advertisers to generate greater returns on their marketing, and helped Hillclimb drive online revenue.

Can you tell us a little about Hillclimb Media?

Hillclimb Media runs some of the most premier content sites on the Internet such as Trails.com, AllGetaways.com, and GolfLink. We leverage our leading sites in the travel, sports, and the outdoor industry categories to drive online advertising and subscription revenue.

Have you noticed any changes in what advertisers are looking for in recent times?

Yes. In today’s economic times, advertisers want greater ROI from their online advertising campaigns. Many of them don’t want to pay for impressions. They want to pay for actual leads. I read in a trade publication recently that online lead generation is the fastest growing segment in online advertising. This increased demand for Cost-per-lead campaigns is not surprising to say the least, and explains why we implemented co-registration advertising on our web site.

Was it easy to implement co-registration campaigns?

No. When we went down this route in the beginning, we found that we had to implement each and every campaign from scratch. It used to take a very long time; sometimes as much as two days. Our technical resources were being devoted to setting up campaigns instead of producing billable work. It wasn’t an ideal scenario, to say the least. Then we found Pontiflex.

How did Pontiflex help Hillclimb?

Pontiflex’s PixelPost technology was a great time and money saver. PixelPost a simple piece of Javascript that we had to drop on our website. It took less than fifteen minutes to implement and eliminated the need to implement every campaign from scratch.

So you outsourced all of your lead generation advertising to Pontiflex?

No. We want to have control over our advertising. Because PixelPost is open, we can use it to run and manage all of our campaigns – including non-Pontiflex campaigns.

How do you manage multiple advertiser campaigns?

Pontiflex’s management console enabled us to automate our data collection, delivery, and tracking processes. We can now easily share reporting access with advertisers and automatically deliver the lead generation data in the formats they want.

How did Pontiflex’s GENList, the industry’s first open and transparent directory, help Hillclimb?

Getting listed on the Pontiflex GENList directory has given us exposure to the hundreds of advertisers who use the GENList to set up lead generation campaigns. We get IOs from interested advertisers without having to reach out to them.

How has your experience been with CPL advertising since signing up for Pontiflex?

We are delighted with how easily CPL advertising has enabled us to maximize our online advertising revenue. We have transitioned all of our campaigns to Pontiflex.

Entry filed under: Best Practices, Lead Generation, Meet the Publisher. Tags: .