On Monday, SeekingAlpha.com posted its transcript of United Online’s quarterly conference call with stock analysts, held on May 6th. As you know, UNTD owns MyPoints (along with Classmates.com, NetZero, and its most recent acquisition, FTD).
Classmates Media, the segment of the company that includes Classmates and MyPoints, had a “blockbuster [first] quarter,” said UNTD CEO Mark Goldston. It sounds like the majority of this was due to Classmates increasing its paid memberships by around 215,000 people. When it was time to talk about MyPoints, Goldston described its first quarter performance as “solid,” but showing a loss compared to the same quarter last year. He said part of it was that MyPoints had an especially strong first quarter last year due to a big ad campaign on MyPoints for MyCokeRewards, and part was due to “pockets of weakness in the ad market that affected many companies.”
Goldston was happy with the growth of emailable members at MyPoints, which he called “the lifeblood of the MyPoints program.” Most of MyPoints’ ad campaigns charge the advertiser based on the performance of the ad, versus just the number of clicks, “so if you’re a client of MyPoints, you can take comfort in the fact that you paid for measurable metrics that demonstrate a much clearer return on investment…”
He said that UNTD does still plan to spin off Classmates and MyPoints into its own IPO possibly in the fall if market conditions are good.
Well, it’s no big surprise that MyPoints didn’t blow everybody away with outstanding profitability in the first quarter of 2008. Rewards programs are cyclical, and people just don’t spend a lot of money right after the holidays. Hopefully things will improve, and as long as MyPoints’ success is tied to Classmates.com’s, and Classmates is doing well, MyPoints has room to slip from time to time.
Don’t slip too far, though, MyPoints. Rumor has it that you’ve run an ad campaign for NetWinner. Your marketing department may want to do a little research on that company before aligning yourself with them.
If you’re not a MyPoints member and would like to join, please click here (aff) — thanks!
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PLEASE can anyone help me with my problem its been 3 months going on 4 if you pull up my account youll see im having problems and no one will help me that works there I even went as far as calling DISH cable and they stand behind me on points they even signed a paper when i bought the service showing how much points i was to recevice still getting the run around could someone help me here i have sent paper work 5 times alone with my phone number thank-you yvonne underhill Teacher # 250-3312