SAN FRANCISCO, May 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --
Dear Shareholders:
The year 2013 was a busy year for LookSmart, Ltd.
Throughout the year, we focused on three priorities: instituting
ownership thinking, rationalizing the cost structure of the
business, and creating new business opportunities. At
the same time, we lowered our losses, from $8.0 million to $5.0 million. This process
continues in 2014 and we hope to make even more progress this
year.
Our Company's policy is to never give quarterly or annual
guidance because we believe it is a disservice to long-term
shareholders. While we do not give guidance, our goal is to
be a profitable and sustainable business as soon as possible.
In 2013, we acquired two assets at opportunistic
prices. These assets significantly expand LookSmart's
products and services.
- Data Center: We bought a data center that we now own and
operate. We purchased the data center because:
- It promised to save the Company almost $600 thousand in annual hosting expenses.
- It has given us extra capacity to pursue new businesses in
hosting and cloud computing.
- Social Media: We acquired the assets of Syncapse, that included
the assets of the former Clickable.com, in September 2013.
After spending time and money developing the products latent in
these assets, we are rebranding all of the products as
Clickable. We bought the assets because:
- They allowed us to quickly create a customized marketing ROI
attribution dashboard platform for CMOs and marketers.
- They allowed us to quickly create an enterprise social media
marketing and search marketing platform that solves the challenges
of big brand marketers.
- We acquired a strong team that can optimize marketers'
return-on-ad spend on Google, Bing and Facebook ads.
Our
Clickable Marketing ROI dashboards combine social and search data
with proprietary analytics for networks such as:
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Vine, Youtube, Tumblr, Google
Adwords, Google Analytics, Google DFP, Bing Adcenter, Sina Weibo,
RenRen, vKontakte, Vimeo, Mixi, Mxit, Naver, YouKu, FourSquare,
LinkedIn, Tumblr, as well as your CRM, email, and marketing funnel
tools.
At Clickable, we have products that solve the search engine
marketing and social media needs of organizations of any size, from
small and medium-sized businesses to large Fortune 100
companies. We have recently signed up a few global Fortune
100 brands as customers. We invite you to contact our
solutions team to try out the products and services for your own
company or brand.
LookSmart enters 2014 with products and services in the major
channels such as Google, Facebook, Bing. We have also
expanded our ad network's capabilities. In addition to
search-intent traffic, we can now deliver traffic from display,
video, mobile, remarketing and email channels.
As major long-term shareholders, LookSmart management has its
incentives aligned with all shareholders. Management believes
in its obligation to operate with the capital allocation discipline
of an Intelligent Investor and the management discipline of using
lean startup and "growth hacking" methods in running its
business.
Lastly, I would like to thank all our shareholders, customers
and our associates (employees) who have helped make 2013 a year of
change and opportunity for LookSmart and look forward to a
challenging and successful 2014.
If you would like to see how our marketing ROI dashboards can
help your business or how our managed ad services can improve your
return on ad spend on Google, Bing, Facebook and other social
networks, please fill out the form at Clickable.com and see your
social media assets come alive with our marketing ROI
dashboard.
If you are an agency or marketer looking to buy traffic from
display, video, email, and search intent channels, please contact
us to improve your search marketing ROI.
For your next conference, our visual command center can increase
social conversations around your hash tags. Contact us to get
your live visual command center.
About LookSmart, Ltd.
LookSmart is a
pioneer in online advertising. Founded in 1997, LookSmart has been
connecting advertisers and agencies to high quality sources of
inventory for performance marketing, and helps online publishers
monetize their inventory through our award winning Ad Center
platform. LookSmart's highly scalable technology processes billions
of search queries on a daily basis, enabling marketers to bid in
real-time across search and display inventory, and leverage intent
data to get performance that meets aggressive campaign goals.
LookSmart also operates Clickable.com, a
technology-enabled solutions company that uses social media data to
help some of the world's most valuable brands understand their
customer needs and improve performance,as well as providing a
technology-enabled services company that helps companies and
agencies manage their online marketing for themselves and their
clients. LookSmart is based in San
Francisco, California. For more information, visit
www.looksmart.net,
www.clickable.com, or call (415)
348-7000.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that
are subject to factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from the results contemplated by the forward-looking
statements, including assumptions that may or may not be correct or
accurate due to the inherent uncertainty of future events, the
actions of third parties we cannot control or predict with
certainty, and other factors that may cause us to change our
plans.
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140519/89007
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140519/89005
SOURCE LookSmart, Ltd.