Be Free adds search marketing services to affiliate marketing offering

ValueClick Inc.`s Be Free subsidiary is adding pay-for-performance search engine marketing services to its existing affiliate marketing services, an offering the company says will allow marketers to track beyond click-through to conversion to determine a marketing program’s true ROI.

“Affiliate marketing and search marketing often prove to be the most cost effective way to acquire customers,” says Blair Heavey, Be Free’s executive vice president and general manager. “Given the similar benefits they offer to advertisers and how complementary they are to each other, it made a lot of sense for Be Free to add search marketing to our set of solutions.”

The tracking capability can be fully integrated with a marketer`s affiliate program, according to Be Free, and the service complements natural search engine marketing efforts as well as paid inclusion programs.

“We experienced rapid inclusion into major search engines and directories and now we have the advantages of highly-qualified search engine traffic with integrated reporting that focuses on sales and profitability,” says Be Free client Rachel Pendon, Internet marketing manager at One Step Ahead, a catalog and Internet site for children’s items.