Adapt Technologies, Inc. Announces Corporate Strategy and Mission

September 27, 2006; 01:51 AM

Adapt Technologies, a startup company with offices in Old Pasadena, has completed its initial business development, strategic planning, financing and staffing, and is now launching the company and its new Search Engine Marketing (SEM) products for the online advertising market.

Adapt has quietly staffed a team of internet and ecommerce executives, technologists, and marketers to build a company focused on the red-hot online advertising and paid search space. According to JupiterResearch, the search marketing segment of the online advertising market will reach $6.5 billion in 2006 and is expected to grow 17% next year.

Adapt is developing core search marketing optimization technology related to data analysis, recommendations, semantic matching, and ranking. The company is applying these search marketing tools to help online marketers compete more effectively and manage the complexity of their own paid search advertising campaigns on Google and Yahoo!. Earlier this year, Adapt released an experimental SEM tool, called "Keyword Finder," to prove its technology platform with real-world customers. Keyword Finder is currently available for free at http://keywordfinder.adapt.com.

The Adapt management team has deep roots in the search marketing and ecommerce industries.

• Michael Harris, President & CEO, was previously a senior vice president with Yahoo Search Marketing and Overture Services (formerly Goto.com, the inventor of pay-per-click advertising)
• Erick Herring, VP Engineering and Operations, came to Adapt from Toyota and Full Moon Interactive (a pioneer in interactive agency solutions)
• John Schenk, VP Finance & Controller, was previously vice president of finance at Dreamworks SKG and an executive with Tickets.com (the leading online ticketing agency for Major League Baseball)
• Erica Forrette, Director Marketing, performed paid search consulting for PacSun.com and worked at search agency SiteLab International (one of the oldest and most respected SEM/SEO agencies, since 1997)

Adapt will initially focus its product offering on a segment of the paid search marketing industry which the company believes is ignored by leading online advertising companies: Internet Marketers who manage their paid search campaigns in-house rather than through a traditional agency.

"Too many Marketers are disadvantaged by the complexity and exclusivity of the paid search industry," stated Michael Harris, president & CEO of Adapt. "Marketers pay too much for meaningless clicks. They spend too much time analyzing data and changing keyword bids without realizing any economic benefit. They just can’t compete effectively in the Google and Yahoo! marketplace."

If a Marketer has a large enough search advertising budget (typically, over $25,000 per month), they might hire a full-service SEM agency to help them, and pay fees of 15% or more of their click spending. Adapt believes that many marketers cannot or will not allocate such a large portion of their budgets to a consultant or agency. "Our mission is to provide tools for do-it-yourself marketers, by offering complete, self-service search engine campaign management software as an online service for a low, flat monthly fee," said Harris.

Adapt plans to announce their new self-service SEM management product in October. The company is completing a private beta test now, and will accept requests to participate in their upcoming public beta by registration at the Adapt web site.

Adapt Technologies, Inc. (www.adapt.com) is a technology company that creates practical, self-service campaign management solutions for marketers to more effectively manage their online marketing campaigns and improve results. The company was founded in December 2004 and is venture-funded by Mohr, Davidow Ventures and Emergence Capital Partners. Our management team, engineers and search engine marketing specialists are highly experienced in developing marketer-focused solutions to internet marketing challenges, and come from leading universities and Internet companies including Caltech, Google, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Amazon.com.