Lyris, Inc. Launches BidHero Campaign Management Solution

- BidHero and Lyris' ClickTracks Web Analytics Combine to Optimize PPC

EMERYVILLE, Calif.—Lyris, Inc., (OTCBB:LYRI.OB), formerly J.L. Halsey Corporation, today announced the launch of BidHero, the new pay-per-click (PPC) campaign management solution, that is part of the company’s newly released Lyris HQ integrated marketing platform. Combined with Lyris’ ClickTracks Web analytics solution, BidHero provides search marketers with an efficient, integrated approach to optimizing PPC campaigns and ROI. A hosted software application, BidHero is Lyris’ answer to the increasingly complex search engine space in which marketers must oversee multiple campaigns, yet control expenditures as advertising prices hike upward. For more information on BidHero, visit http://www.clicktracks.com/products/bidhero/.
 
“Lyris’ mission is to provide mid-sized businesses with a complete suite of tools they need to efficiently manage and optimize all of their online marketing efforts,” said Luis Rivera, CEO of Lyris, Inc. “BidHero adds another dimension to our marketing platform by helping our customers to make the right keyword decisions at the front end of their search campaigns and in-course corrections to ensure better click-through rates (CTR) and ROI.”

“Whether a search engine marketer is managing 10 or 10,000 PPC campaigns, BidHero automatically imports all campaigns, providing the customer with a single interface so they can oversee campaigns across multiple search engines,” said Dan Robbins, Lyris director of marketing for the ClickTracks and BidHero solutions. “BidHero also includes analytics for program optimization and contextual best practices that provide tips that help marketers improve their campaign results.”

BidHero color codes data so the user can easily see which campaigns are delivering the highest click-through rates and which campaigns need tuning up in terms of keywords and phrases. High click-through rates typically give the manager a lower cost-per-click, a big advantage at a time when PPC costs are rising.

“Customers, through BidHero’s Problem Campaign report, can easily discover where a low CTR or low keyword Quality Score may be having an impact on their cost-per-click for a keyword or creative,” Robbins said, “and in some cases, leaving them vulnerable to being outbid by competitors. With BidHero you'll be able to take immediate action, either by editing the creative, modifying the cost-per-click or position, or disabling the campaign or keyword.”

Now that Google and Yahoo! have imposed higher costs for keywords with low relevance, keyword research is even more critically important, Robbins notes. To further enhance keyword effectiveness, Lyris, Inc. will incorporate Trellian’s popular KeywordDiscovery tool into BidHero. The Trellian feature will enable customers to research new keywords and find the long tail of those keywords appropriate for a particular campaign. BidHero will return the Trellian results with an option to buy, and with just one click, the campaign manager can buy that keyword on the spot.

Additional BidHero Features

Competitive Intelligence: BidHero will also integrate Trellian’s competitive intelligence tool to enable PPC campaign managers to discover what keywords their competitors are using, and to see the campaign timeframe and rankings of those keywords. They can identify their competitors’ major site sources and request competitive intelligence on a domain basis, via Trellian’s database.

PPC Expenditure Control: BidHero enables managers to prevent runaway bids by setting realistic daily caps and rate limits. They can also further control budgets by scheduling campaigns to run on certain days and certain times of the day.

Best Practices Advice: BidHero provides in-context tips and best practices advice while you are designing your campaign to help make campaigns more effective.
Automatic Parameter Generation: BidHero automatically generates and manages tracking parameters, ensuring you get the data you need for meaningful analysis. BidHero will also append all destination URLs with tracking parameters to ensure that each campaign, regardless of the way that it was configured, is trackable.

ClickTracks Integration: BidHero integrates with Lyris’ ClickTracks Web analytics tools to further enable managers to gauge the effectiveness of PPC campaigns. Marketers can measure average time on site, average revenue per visitor, page views by visitor and collect other metric data points to offer more insights into whether a campaign is running at peak performance or whether it needs a keyword and spending tuneup.

“Lyris provides our customers with a 360 degree approach to campaign management and optimization,” Robbins said. “Customers can make the right keyword and cost choices at the front end of a campaign, make corrections as needed based on insights from data collected and determine what approach resonates with their target audience, by using Web analytics.”

BidHero is sold on a monthly per seat license basis through the Lyris HQ marketing platform. Pricing starts at $199 per month for one seat and management of up to 1000 keywords for free. Additional keywords above 1000 are charged on a tiered basis. As a Lyris HQ client, BidHero users will also have access to other Lyris solutions including the EmailLabs email marketing tool, ClickTracks Web analytics, Hot Banana Web content management and EmailAdvisor, an email deliverability monitoring tool. For more information, visit http://www.clicktracks.com/products/bidhero.

About Lyris, Inc.

Lyris, Inc., (OTCBB:LYRI.OB), formerly J.L. Halsey, is a leading marketing technology company that provides hosted and installed software solutions for marketers at mid-size businesses. The company offers marketers an integrated technology platform through its Lyris HQ product and point solutions including ListManager, EmailLabs, ClickTracks, BidHero, Sparklist, Hot Banana and EmailAdvisor. These sophisticated, yet easy-to-use tools provide marketers a suite of best-of-breed applications for managing email marketing campaigns, publishing and managing Web site content, creating landing pages, optimizing Web sites and managing pay-per-click campaigns. Clients include Nokia, Adobe, PalmSource, Johns Hopkins University and Jupitermedia. For more information, please visit www.lyrisinc.com,www.lyris.com, www.emaillabs.com, www.clicktracks.com, www.hotbanana.com and www.sparklist.com. The company is based in Emeryville, Calif.