New MyPoints Website Coming Soon

I enjoy reading the transcripts of the quarterly conference call between MyPoints’ current owner, United Online, and their stock analysts. There are always some interesting tidbits to be found.
This quarter’s transcript, released late yesterday, is no exception.
In it, Mark Goldston, United Online’s Chairman and CEO, described MyPoints’ performance as “impressive,” saying it “perform[s] at a very high level for its advertising clients,” and as a result, the advertisers return.
However, another comment that I think was significant and may foreshadow changes at MyPoints was from Charles Hilliard, United’s President and CEO. “I also want to point out that MyPoints, which we didn’t know in the year-ago period, does carry relatively lower margins…” That, my dear friends, is talking about profitability. In response to an analyst’s question, Hilliard replied that United plans to “modestly expand the margin this year.”
How does a company like MyPoints improve its profit margin? Couple of ways: reduce overhead (for instance, the new building MyPoints just leased probably has lower rent), or drop the rebate percentages it pays members, keeping the difference (in other words, increasing the points cost of their redemptions).
In perhaps a related note, there was big news about a new MyPoints website coming soon. CEO Goldston: “…We made a commitment when we purchased MyPoints that we would dramatically improve the look and feel of the website. The website redesign has been in process for several months at MyPoints, and the new design is exciting and it has performed very well in user testing…Our goal is to have the new MyPoints website launched in the second half of 2007 with the objective of making MyPoints a more appealing shopping destination for the now more than 5 million members and the new potential members, who land on the MyPoints.com web home page.”
Now, folks, put two and two together and whaddya get? They need to increase profit margins, and they’re releasing a new website. Hello?
United also discussed the possibility of an IPO for its Content & Media subsidiary (which includes MyPoints and Classmates.com). They’re still “exploring” and “contemplating” it, so it wouldn’t be any time soon.
Thanks to SeekingAlpha.com for the transcript.

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