Mercent Announces Performance Marketing Services for Shopping Feed Optimization

SEATTLE, WA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- May 8, 2007 -- Mercent, a provider of online marketing technology and services for retail merchants, today announced the launch of Mercent Performance, a personalized, full-service account management program for retail performance marketing across online shopping channels. Online retailers including Levenger, VWR International, and Limoges Jewelry have adopted Mercent Performance to maximize online revenues, profit margins, and return on advertising spend through comparison shopping engines (CSEs), shopping portals, online marketplaces, and affiliate programs.

"The Mercent Performance team increased return on advertising spend (ROAS) at Limoges by 26% during the first quarter of 2007," said Ann Schneider, VP of Internet and Advertising at Limoges Jewelry. "During that 90-day window, our Mercent Performance account manager increased online conversion by 18% and average order size by 17%. We're very pleased with the results delivered by the Mercent Performance program."

A growing number of the world's leading online retailers already utilize Mercent's pay-for-performance, on-demand software service, Mercent Retail, to automate and optimize their data feed marketing efforts. With the launch of Mercent Performance, online merchants now have a full-service, outsourced solution for shopping feed optimization capitalizing on the same industry-leading technology.

"Mercent Performance has significantly increased the impact of online shopping portals and comparison shopping engines for Levenger," said Lynnette Montgomery, VP of E-Commerce at Levenger. "Mercent's pay-for-performance online marketing technology and experience have delivered greater ad spend efficiency and eliminated management overhead in Levenger's shopping feed programs."

Under the Mercent Performance program, dedicated account managers act on behalf of retailers to:

--  Maximize advertising budget to retail key performance indicators,
    including those KPIs based on revenues, profits, and inventory velocity
--  Test, optimize and maintain unique product assortments for each online
    shopping channel
--  Research competitors, tracking competitive position and merchandising
    offers
--  Comparison search engine optimize (CSEO) data feed content for
    shopping search relevance
--  Optimize product attributes using Mercent TrueAttribute™ technology
--  Edit and publish merchandising offers uniquely for each shopping
    channel
--  Test and optimize CPC bids for every product listing on CPC-based
    shopping portals
--  Precisely map product listings to the right shopping channel browse
    categories
--  Synchronize data feed marketing campaigns with the cross-channel
    retail merchandising and promotional calendar
    

With Mercent Performance, merchants realize lower management overhead and reduced ongoing reliance on IT resources to implement dynamic online promotional campaigns through shopping portals. Mercent delivers optimized product attributes and merchandising offers to consumers through online retail channels. Shopping feed data is more consistent with the merchant's e-commerce storefront, more accurate and timely due to automation, and more effective at converting online visitors into shoppers. Mercent is a proactive channel advisor to brand-conscious retail merchants, delivering differentiated shopping channel intelligence that increases online retail performance. To align its interests with customer success, Mercent offers Mercent Performance account management services through a pay-for-performance pricing model.

"We're excited to extend the value of our proven retail marketing technology with this high-touch managed services offering," said Eric Best, CEO of Mercent. "Mercent Performance is a perfect solution for merchants seeking cost-effective, high-impact and high-touch support of their shopping feed campaigns."

Information regarding Mercent Performance is available at www.mercent.com/performance

The complete list of online marketing channels supported by Mercent Performance is available at www.mercent.com/channels

About Mercent

Founded by veterans of Amazon.com, Mercent provides online marketing technology and services to help retail merchants optimize performance across online channels. Mercent's on-demand platform, Mercent Retail, increases revenue and gross margins by promoting the right products with the right merchandising offers and placement. Mercent Retail provides a single point of integration between existing retail management systems and more than 35 leading online marketing channels including transactional marketplaces such as Amazon.com and SHOP.COM, shopping portals such as Shopping.com and Shopzilla, and affiliate marketing programs such as LinkShare and Performics -- making it easy for merchants to automate, measure, and optimize online product merchandising campaigns through these channels. Mercent customers include REI, GUESS?, Lucky Brand Jeans, SmartBargains, Wet Seal, Proflowers, Celebrate Express, Crabtree & Evelyn, Levenger, and other leading retailers. Mercent is an Amazon.com Certified System Integrator and SHOP.COM Certified Data Feed Provider. Mercent is a venture-funded company based in Seattle, WA. For more information, visit www.mercent.com.

For the latest Mercent news, visit www.mercent.com/news