After more than two years in development, Mercent today released a new search engine marketing platform designed to help retailers boost online revenues by promoting individual products on Google and Bing. Profitable and growing, the 9-year-old company also just inked a lease for 25,000 square feet of office space at 1633 Westlake Avenue North, just around the corner from Amazon.com’s new headquarters.
Mercent currently has 90 employees, and the new space will have enough room to accommodate Mercent’s future growth. It plans to move into the space in August.
“The new space provides room to grow, should attract the engineering talent we’re looking for, and keeps us close to the action at Amazon,” said Mercent CEO Eric Best.
Best tells GeekWire that he expects the company — backed by Madrona Venture Group, The Hillman Company and TVC Capital — to grow revenues by more than 70 percent this year.
Mercent’s new paid search platform has already been rolled out to customers such as Altrec, FootSmart and others. In those early tests, the company said that the platform generated an average of 54 percent revenue growth and 21 percent improvement in return-on-ad-spend.
“Paid search is a big new market for Mercent – it’s crowded but rapidly changing,” said Best, adding that they are funding the push through its own cash flow. “We think we can win with a razor focus on the retailer’s needs and market space.”
With the new platform in place, Best said that retailers can make marketing decisions such as deciding to put North Face items on sale for the week on Bing.
Altrec.com Internet Advertising Analyst Justin Johnson said that the outdoor retailer has improved its paid search campaigns through Mercent. “We have significantly reduced manual work allocated to our paid search efforts, which in turn has enabled us to reinvest that time into Altrec’s broader merchandising and advertising strategies,” said Johnson.
