Sales are growing and so is our team. deal united is proud to welcome Markus Wiedemann as Head of Sales.

Coming to us with 13+ years of experience in the gaming and software industries, Markus will be in charge of our sales team as they work closely with clients in games, software and online services. He’s just in time to take the wheel as deal united continues expanding our sales and distribution in Europe.

“We’re excited to welcome Markus aboard,” said Dr. Jarg Temme, co-founder and CEO. “We’ve had a great start on what promises to be a year of growth and expansion, and with Markus on the team, we’re poised to take off.”

Markus spent the last five and a half years as Managing Director for central Europe at SEGA Germany, responsible for sales and marketing in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Prior to that, he was in charge of game developer Codemasters’ German branch for over seven years.

Markus cites confidence in both the deal united concept as well as the online payment industry as reasons for his switch. “This is a fast-growing market,” he said. “There’s lots of potential for the future, and I believe deal united’s innovative business model will be successful.”

The 2011 CeBIT trade show is already in full swing in Hannover, Germany. Taking place from March 1 – 5, CeBIT is the largest, most international gathering in the digital industry, combining exhibitions, conferences and keynotes into one can’t-miss event. This year’s keynote theme, “Work and Life with the Cloud,” shines a spotlight on Cloud computing, which experts have pinpointed as the fastest growing sector in the IT market. Visitors will also see exhibitions of over 4,200 companies from 70 countries and hear more than 30 international speakers discuss topics ranging from science to politics and business.

Matthias Niedermeier and Christine Bialowons will be representing deal united at CeBIT from March 3- 4. If you would like to meet them please contact merchant@dealunited.com or call Christine at 0171-216-1770.

Speak to global users in their monetary language

from deal united by Jürgen Weichert

Digital and virtual goods have several huge benefits from a business perspective.

A) They can be replicated with almost no variable cost.
B) They can be distributed all across the globe via the internet.

These points are great because they provide us with a powerful lever for scale. The idea of placing your product in front of a global audience and being able to deliver this product digitally is extremely compelling. I know I’m stating the obvious — this is why we are all in this business.

But (why does there always have to be a “but”?) it also confronts us with new challenges. The challenge is LOCALIZATION. Zynga, the social gaming giant from San Francisco, has launched their new game “CityVille.” It’s the first game that Zynga localized into several languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish. But the localization goes further than just translation — CityVille’s French version allows the user to build an Eiffel Tower in his city. Even objects and surroundings are customized to the local user.

The same has been done by software publishers for many years.

But here’s the catch: so far, many big players in the gaming, software and digital media space put a lot of effort into translating their products. They even go the extra mile and add local relevant content. But too many stop at the point where a corporation should be paying close attention: monetization.

Payment preferences across the globe

You can’t assume that credit cards will do the trick across the globe, as many countries don’t have a relevant credit card distribution. Germany, for example, has a credit card distribution of about 20 million cards but a population of 83 million — most with plenty of buying power.

With this in mind, there are two options:

1) Wait until global credit card distribution increases
2) Offer local payment options

We recommend the latter. Why? Payment markets change slowly, and it is not wise to leave money on the table.

But how do I prioritize the integration of local payment options? Every country with a major online market has one, two or even three dominant methods of payment besides credit cards. Germany has bank transfers, the Netherlands use IDEAL, France uses Carte Bleue, Danish users like to pay with DanKard, Japan offers a range of convenience store payments and so on.

Of course, nobody can integrate everything at once. So the first thing to do is analyze data and prioritize according to three main criteria:

1) How many users do I have, and what countries are they from?
2) Are these countries tier 1 (U.S., UK, Germany, France, Japan…), tier 2 (Italy, Spain…) or tier 3 countries?
3) How time consuming would it be to conduct business after sorting my data according to the first two criteria?

How can I stay fast and efficient?

Well, of course it makes sense to use payment service providers (PSPs) and eCommerce Service Providers (ESPs). They’ve already done the work and integrated all these payment options. We can only recommend taking a look at the PSPs/ESPs on the market and analyzing whether they cover the regional payment options relevant to your user base. Also take a look at your future plans. There may be regions with expansion potential. The PSP should have links to these regions and be able to offer payment options in these areas. Because no matter what the sales guy says, integration with a PSP is a one-time effort — you shouldn’t have to repeat this often.

Expect neutrality from your PSP

A good PSP/ESP is a consultant for payment strategy. Hence, they must be neutral. Make sure that your PSP/ESP does not run payment as a side business.

In the meantime, it makes sense to complement your payment mix with PAY.BY.SHOPPING. Our payment service is completely localized, carrying relevant local advertisers on a global scale. What’s more, our local advertisers in each country offer your users the relevant payment options for their market.

(I hope you can excuse the shameless plug.)

Questions? Drop us an email at merchant@dealunited.com

Cheers,

Juergen

The European Software Conference, organized by the ESWC e.V., will take place on November 6-7, 2010 in Austria, Vienna. The conference aims to facilitate communication between software developers and the companies and organizations that provide them products and services.

Jürgen Weichert (Chief Sales Officer, Co-Founder) and Matthias Niedermeier (Sales Manager) will attend the conference. On Saturday, November 6 at 11:45 am, Weichert will present deal united’s alternative payment method PAY.BY.SHOPPING and share his thoughts on how the software industry can learn from classic eCommerce.

To meet them or make an appointment beforehand, please contact merchant@dealunited.com

Halloween is just around the corner!

The gleeful sounds of “trick or treat!” will ring from neighborhoods everywhere once again on October 31^st. But it won’t just be constumed kids cleaning up this year — Halloween guarantees high turnover for offline retail. People spend a lot of money on costumes, Halloween make-up, movies and decorations every year.

With deal united’s alternative payment method PAY.BY.SHOPPING, game publishers, software vendors and online services can also benefit from the seasonal event. How? By activating players’ willingness to pay for Halloween-related products.

Most game publishers, software vendors and online services face the same problem: players and users are not willing to spend money on premium-version software, virtual currency or additional features. They do, however, enjoy online shopping and Halloween.

So why not make this user readiness work to your favor, while at the same time giving them a worthwhile deal? With PAY.BY.SHOPPING, you can offer them a bonus like software, virtual currency or a premium account free of charge if they shop at one of deal united’s partners. The bonus you give a way for free will be refinanced by our partner shops.

deal united only works with high-quality advertising partners like myToys and OTTO in Germany, Toys”R”Us and Spartoo in the UK and Priceminister and plusdemags in France, which enables you to present your users with attractive offers for Halloween while boosting your revenue.

 

The advantages of PAY.BY.SHOPPING for Halloween:

Monetization:
Activate your users’ desire to buy Halloween-related products like costumes and decoration articles.

Increased Revenue
With a Halloween campaign, you will generate incremental revenue by addressing your users with attractive offers.

Seasonal Event:
Benefit from Halloween even if your business is unrelated to the holiday.

Global Orientation:
PAY.BY.SHOPPING from deal united is available around the globe, currently focusing on the USA and Europe.

 

Vacation season holds the same value for eCommerce as for offline retail nowadays: it’s a lucrative opportunity for both to generate more sales. But what about software vendors, game publishers and online services? How can they benefit from the summer cash flow? With deal united’s PAY.BY.SHOPPING, they can offer software or virtual currency free of  charge for users who shop at deal united advertising partners’ online stores. When a user makes  purchase at one of the stores, their “free” product is refunded to the merchant by the advertising partner from whom the user purchased.  With the wide product range our partners offer, users can choose frmo a great selection of items for holidays, summer and traveling.

The benefits of PAY.BY.SHOPPING by deal united:

• Incremental Revenue: Use the internet-shoppers willingness to pay during the holiday season
• Monetization: Address users directly with attractive offers and create real turnover!
• Seasonal Event: Benefit from the holiday season, even if your products / sector has nothing to do with it
• No Additional Marketing or Advertising Costs
• International Orientation: deal united is available in many countries and regions throughout Europe and the US.

 

 

For further information check out www.dealunited.com/merchants and register free of charge or contact us at merchant@dealunited.com.

 

Software Industry Conference 2010 on July 16 in Dallas, Texas: In his session “Incremental revenue – get more out of your European trial”, Matthias Niedermeier, Sales Manager at deal united,  will show software vendors ways to create more revenue with trial versions.

 

 

Successful monetization is a challenge every software provider faces, especially considering that the average conversion rate for licensed software hovers at about one percent. This means that an enormous sales potential of more than 90 percent is completely lost, mostly because users tend to stick to free software and are reluctant to pay for the full version. To remedy this problem, deal united develops cross-selling campaigns for software vendors that approach exactly this challenge to monetization.

deal united’s marketing concept PAY.BY.SHOPPING combines free software with renowned advertising partners like OTTO or myToys. If users shop at one of our partners’ online stores, they get the full version of the software free of charge. The free product will then be refunded by the advertising partner the user chose to make a purchase at. In his session, Matthias Niedermeier will show you different ways to integrate cross-selling campaigns into trial versions and how software vendors can create incremental revenue with PAY.BY.SHOPPING.

Together with Adriana Iordan of Avangate, Matthias Niedermeier’s session will take place on Friday 16, 2010 from 10:15 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. in Track. If you want to interview or talk with our Sales Manager at the event, please contact merchant@dealunited.com to make an appointment. deal united Senior Sales Manager Torsten Bongartz will also attend the conference and would be glad to answer any questions.

 

• The online marketing platform deal united is implementing a campaign for Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Home
• Customers can order football merchandise from deal united’s advertising parterns and get Paragon software free!

The Paragon software group is our newest advertising partner, just in time for World Cup season! The software vendow is taking part in our World Cup 2010 campaign, which allows internet shoppers to get Paragon’s Backup & Recovery 10 Home software free of charge if they purchase football fan products at one of deal united’s partner shops. Shoppers get a great deal, and Paragon turns the currently high demand for football merchandise into real revenue with deal united’s Pay4You conversion model. (update: Pay4You renamed PAY.BY.SHOPPING)

“deal united’s Pay4You model enables us to address new customer groups and fans of the football World Cup at the same time, all of whom can benefit from our products,” says Renato Jurjevic, Sales Manager Consumer Channel DACH of Paragon Software. Paragon’s Backup & Recovery 10 Home software saves data and administrates complex backup routines, restoring both single files and complete systems in one stroke.

Pay4You
The Pay4You concept from deal united brings together software vendors, games publishers and other online service providers with offers from renowned advertisers like OTTO, bonprix or myToys in order to increase revenue for OSPs and bring in new customers for advertisers. Such offers, called “campaigns,” are especially lucrative during seasonal events, such as the current World Cup.

“A lot of online shoppers want to buy fan products anyway, so the marketing model comes at the right time”, explains Dr. Jarg Temme, CEO of deal united. “The software awarded by professional magazines will be reimbursed by a commission the advertiser pays to Paragon. Every software package sold generates revenue, since implementingPay4You is completely free of charge for merchants.”

Online merchants can notify users of special offers by email campaigns, pop-unders or banners. To address hesitant buyers directly, pop-unders are particularly suitable for the ideal placement of Pay4You campaigns — when the customer abandons a potential purchase, a pop-under tells them they can get the product for free by shopping with our partners. Pay4You is the best way to increase the user’s willingness to pay for digital goods, services and software over the long term and throughout the year, as well as to generate revenue on specific holdiys like Mother’s Day and Christmas.

About Paragon Software Group:

The Paragon Software Group is was the first to develop and distribute innovative and solid technologies and software solutions for home PCs, company servers and authorities. Paragon is known for producing increasingly strong products for the mobile phones, smart phones and handhelds sectors. The company was founded in 1994 and is well-established in Germany, Russia, Japan and the USA, selling products in over 150 countriesthrough a network of distributors and retailers, as well as the company homepage. Paragon software provides innovative solutions for a wide range of renowned companies and partners such as Cisco, Dell, Toshiba, Siemens, Microsoft, Motorola and Nokia. www.paragon-software.com

About deal united:
deal united provides the groundbreaking worldwide payment method PAY.BY.SHOPPING. We link merchants, advertisers and internet users in a mutually profitable way that supplies merchants with revenue, advertisers with new customers and users with the opportunity to get virtual credits or actual products for free. In collaboration with over 500 merchants — from game developers to online shops — and more than 2,000 advertisers, deal united reaches millions of users worldwide.

On June 11, the FIFA World Cup 2010 will kick off in South Africa. Soccer fans all over the world will once again watch the games to cheer for their favourite team. But the World Cup isn’t just one of the biggest sports events of 2010 — it’s also the biggest sales event of 2010 for savvy businesses. They’ll be rolling in revenue from country flags, whistles of all sizes and soccer jerseys, to ball-shaped pens, brand new grills and even widescreen televisions for a better game expierence.

Retailers have already recognized the potential of the FIFA World Cup, and even businesses in other industries want a slice of the cake. Cafés and bars offer public viewing, bakeries sell ball-shaped loaves of bread and even beer labels have been re-designed to catch fans’ eyes. In online business, web shops and other retail services also offer special goodies for the World Cup. But what about software vendors and online games? Is it far-fetched to think they could benefit from World Cup fever, too?

The thought isn’t as odd as you might think — not if you’re familiar with deal united’s innovative marketing solution Pay4You (UPDATE: Pay4You has been renamed PAY.BY.SHOPPING). We bring together online shops that offer merchandise for the World Cup with merchants like software vendors, online games and services. How? With Pay4You, online service providers can offer customers virtual currency or a free software upgrade for shopping at one of our advertisers’ online fan shops. Users will make a purchase they would have made anyway and get a bonus for free. Moreover, Pay4You doesn’t cost merchants a cent. Integration is free, and the bonus product/virtual currency is reimbursed by the advertiser from a portion of the purchase made.

deal united is an ideal choice for advertisers as well. They win new customers, like online gamers and social community members, who they might not have reached through traditional advertising channels. deal united gets these customers into online shops and ready to make an actual purchase.

With deal united, everybody wins.

Merchants increase revenue.

Advertisers win new customers.

Customers get great 2-for-1 deals.

For further information about possibilities of integration or to register free of charge, please contact us at merchant@dealunited.com or advertisers@dealunited.com or go to www.dealunited.com/merchants.

deal united has concluded its latest round of financing with outstanding results. Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and Venture Incubator have invested a hearty seven-figure sum in the Munich-based online rewards platform. deal united helps providers of software, online games, social networks and online shops to optimize monetization. We have already established ourselves as Europe’s leading online rewards platform for monetization of digital and virtual goods.

deal united’s concept is aimed at improving turnover and conversion rates for online merchants. Only around one percent of people using a software test version are actually willing to purchase the full version — the majority decide to stick with the free downloads. The monetization rate is similarly low for social networks and the sale of premium features or virtual currency in online games. By integrating deal united’s solutions into their websites, online businesses can convert users into paying customers by offering them attractive rewards such as vouchers or free products (e.g. software or virtual currency). This is made possible through cooperation with top advertising partners.

“The deal united concept has already proven very successful and has been implemented by many well-known partners,” said Jan Borgstädt, Principal at Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments. “The approach has had great success in the areas of software, gaming, social networks and retail. deal united is able to provide solutions to these markets of the future which have a particularly strong demand for new monetizing concepts.”

Daniel Gutenberg, General Partner at Venture Incubator, also sees a bright future ahead for deal united. “Through the use of innovative marketing solutions, deal united has created a cross-selling arrangement which benefits all stakeholders — even the end user. In our opinion, this is one of the great strengths of the deal united solution.”

Jarg Temme, deal united CEO, is extremely pleased that the company can expand internationally following the latest round of financing from new investors. “Venture Incubator is a strong partner for us with a lot of experience in eCommerce, and we can benefit greatly from this expertise in the future. As Europe’s leading media and services company, we are also thrilled that Bertlesmann Digital Media Investments is on board with us and that they have seen the potential of our business. Our full focus in now on  international expansion and on extending our position as Europe’s leading provider of ad-funded solutions for monetizing digital goods.”

deal united currently offers two successful marketing solutions for online businesses: Pay4You and Incentive Deal.

With Pay4You, the customer gets a free product like software, virtual currency or membership in a social network if they buy merchandise or coupons from one of deal united’s advertising partners. With Incentive Deal, shoppers who are undecided about purchasing are offered a shopping voucher to use with one of deal united’s advertising partners if they decide to go ahead with their original purchase. This is an added incentive to purchase a previously viewed product or increase the value of their shopping cart.

More than 500 online businesses, including Avira, Deutsche Telekom AG (Softwareload), DivX, GData, libri.de, Owlient, Red Moon and Upjers, have successfully implemented these free solutions for monetization. The partnerhips extend from German-speaking countries to other European countries including Great Britain, France, Spain and Italy. In terms of advertising partners, deal united works with well-known companies such as buecher.de, myToys, Neckermann, OTTO and Tchibo. deal united provides these companies with targeted new customers on a cost-per-order basis.

About deal united:

Since 2008, deal united has been linking merchants, advertisers and internet users in a mutually profitable way that supplies merchants with revenue, advertisers with new customers and users with the opportunity to get virtual credits or actual products for free. In collaboration with over 500 merchants — from game developers to online shops — and more than 2,000 advertisers, deal united reaches millions of users.

About Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI):

BDMI is a strategic venture investor focused on innovative digital media technologies, products and distribution channels across the globe. They look for opportunities to accelerate growth through BDMI’s financial and management resources and close connectivity with one or more Bertelsmann divisions. BDMI is a subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG. With consolidated revenues of over €15.4 billion (U.S. $21.4 billion), Bertelsmann AG is an international media corporation encompassing television (RTL Group), book publishing (Random House), magazine publishing (Gruner + Jahr), media services (Arvato) and media clubs (Direct Group) in more than 50 countries. For further information, visit www.bdmifund.com

About Venture Incubator:

VI Partners is a Swiss venture capital firm that supports university offshoots and other promising startup companies with capital, coaching, consulting and networks. Via their current “Venture Incubator” fund, VI Partners invests “Smart Money” to turn promising technology-based ideas for products and services into successful businesses. Venture Incubator was established by McKinsey & Company and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETHZ), and started operations in 2001. It now manages an investment fund of 101 million Swiss francs with investors representing 10 blue chip enterprises from industry and finance. Website: www.vipartners.ch