SEL: Exclusive: Using A9 Brings Discounts at Amazon.com

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Search marketing in the new media era.

September 17, 2004

Exclusive: Using A9 Brings Discounts at Amazon.com

We've not seen this reported anywhere else, so we think we have the scoop on this. It appears that A9 may have a secret weapon in its efforts to persuade search engine users to switch to its new offering; a discount at Amazon.com. That's right, A9 is offering select users am automatic 1.5% discount on any purchase they make at Amazon. Here's the details, as shown on the A9 site (but only to a select number of users):

(User Name) since you've been using A9.com recently, virtually everything at Amazon.com is automatically an additional [1.5%] off for you. Collecting this discount is zero effort on your part. It will be applied automatically at checkout (it will happen whether you use the shopping cart or our 1-Click Shopping®). You don't need to do anything to get this discount except keep using A9.com as your regular search engine.

We don't advertise this additional discount that we give in exchange for using A9.com, so if you want your friends to know about it, please tell them. It is probably the only way they'll find out. All they have to do is use A9.com as their regular search engine. They should make sure they are signed in to A9.com (it should be recognizing them by name) so that we can be certain they get credit for their visit.

While the [1.5%] discount is a good additional reason to use A9.com it isn't the best reason. A9.com licenses its web search results from the industry leader Google, and then supplements those results with Amazon's Search Inside the Book™ results. The coolest feature is that A9.com keeps track of your search history for you on the server side. To see how this works, do some A9 searches from your computer at work and then sign in to A9.com from your computer at home.

How can we afford this additional [1.5%] discount?

Sponsored links revenue -from the small text-based ads on A9.com and Amazon.com search results pages -will help offset costs we incur through the Rewards promotion. With our automatic 1.5% discount, we are effectively sharing with you some of the money we collect from sponsored links, i.e. sharing the pi.

Please use A9.com and tell your friends.

Thank you

Thanks Scot!

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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