All-inclusive approach

Booyah expands beyond search programs

By Matt Branaugh, Camera Business Writer
May 21, 2006

Michael Shehan and Steve Swoboda wanted to create a Boulder-based firm that linked paying business partners to online searches made by Web surfers.

But there were a few problems.

It was 2001. A tech bust was unfolding.

And there were a number of others trying to do the same thing, including an outfit called Google Inc.

"Admittedly, we stumbled out of the gates," Shehan recalls.

The company, first dubbed Image:Include and later named Booyah Networks, struggled to establish itself but held on until an opportunity emerged in 2002: A chance to participate in Web search provider Inktomi Corp.'s paid-inclusion program.

Web sites hoping for greater visibility on searches would hire Booyah Networks. In turn, Booyah Networks would pay Inktomi to get those clients included on searches, without having to tweak text or coding on the Web sites — and without needing the search engine's crawlers, the technological tools used to hunt down sites matching keywords entered by users, to find them.

"I think it was one of those 'Let's throw it up there and see what sticks moments,'" says Shehan, Booyah Network's chief executive officer. "That tends to be the motto around here."

It stuck. Especially after Yahoo Inc. agreed to buy Inktomi in 2003.

Today, Booyah Networks is one of a handful of companies involved with Yahoo's paid-inclusion program. Booyah Networks has nearly 200 clients using it for this service, ranging from toymaker Little Tykes to Boulder-based Silicon Mountain Memory.

Paid inclusion not only gives clients a chance for exposure, but it also reveals data that shows how well clients are performing on searches under various keywords, and whether what they're spending is translating into sales.

Such data points prompted Booyah Networks to add a new component to its business a year ago. The company lured away Troy Lerner from Avenue A, a high-profile Web design firm, to build a more traditional search-engine marketing agency dubbed The Booyah Agency.

Trends that turn up in paid-inclusion campaigns run by Booyah Networks could be used by The Booyah Agency to revamp a client's Web site and develop online banner ad campaigns, among other things.

The agency is based on the idea that search-engine marketing is "not just search, but using data from search to make smarter business decisions," Lerner says.

For instance, Booyah Networks initially worked with Quintess, a Boulder-based luxury residence club, on a paid-inclusion campaign.

The agency, looking at compiled data, realized keyword searches brought traffic to the site, but often missed out on delivering information needed for qualified leads.

After suggesting Quintess rename a button on its Web site and rewrite the landing page users first view after clicking on a link from a search page, the agency says the number of leads more than doubled and the cost to Quintess for obtaining those leads fell 80 percent.

In all, everything looks up for Booyah Networks, a sizable contrast from five years ago. The company, which employed less than 30 people earlier this year, now has 35 workers and expects to hire up to 15 more by year's end, Shehan says.

Sales last year reached $13.1 million, a 62 percent increase from 2004. With a new online broadcasting division also rolled out, Shehan says sales should kick into a higher gear.

"We hope to blow those figures out of the water," he says.

Contact Camera Business Writer Matt Branaugh at (303) 473-1363 or branaughm@dailycamera.com.

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