eBureau and Sparkroom Form Partnership to Improve Performance of Online Leads

Integration provides online advertisers access to powerful predictive analytics to optimize lead management decisions in real-time

ST. CLOUD, Minnesota/TORONTO, Canada – February 23, 2010 – eBureau, a leading provider of predictive scoring and information services for online marketers and Sparkroom, a leading provider of enrollment marketing automation solutions, today announced a partnership that provides Cost-Per-Lead (CPL) advertisers and lead generators a powerful combined solution for more effectively managing online consumer leads. The integration of eBureau’s real-time lead quality scoring, verification and lead enhancement information services into Sparkroom’s enrollment marketing automation platform enables Sparkroom’s clients to improve Return on Investment (ROI) from online advertising campaigns and lower customer and student acquisition costs.

With online and career-oriented education programs expanding, schools are under increasing pressure to find and enroll prospective students more efficiently. The integration of eBureau’s eScore, eVerify and eTarget offerings with Sparkroom’s enrollment marketing automation plat-form allows schools the ability to accurately predict key outcomes like application, enrollment and retention rates, regardless of where the lead was generated. The joint offering will allow lead buyers to:

• Compare predictive model performance with actual performance results, to gain insight into when a model needs to be refreshed.
• Enable a rich set of end-to-end historical data in order to develop more robust and sophis-ticated models that leverage additional attributes.
• Apply sophisticated qualification and routing rules in real-time based on lead scores.

The combined solution increases overall enrollment rates by empowering schools to focus follow-up activities on those prospects with the highest propensity to enroll, resulting in smarter decisions and better results.

“Establishing a connection with the right prospects is a challenging task for online marketers,” said Jamie McDonald, president and CEO of Sparkroom. “Through our eBureau relationship, our customers now have access to some of the most robust lead scoring, verification, and lead en-hancement information in the industry. The eBureau services and the Sparkroom enrollment marketing automation platform make a great combination for helping our customers accurately identify their highest quality leads and implement winning strategies for customer acquisition.”

“Performance advertisers are focusing closely on information and systems that can help them convert more leads into customers. Our partnership with Sparkroom offers online marketers a powerful combination of tools that have proven to boost lead conversions while enhancing prod-uctivity and cutting costs,” said Mark Doman, executive vice president business development of eBureau. “We’re excited to be partnering with Sparkroom, and the new potential that this part-nership brings to online advertisers across a number of industries.”

About eBureau

eBureau provides a powerful suite of real-time marketing information solutions. Its clients span numerous industries, including financial services, education, insurance, automotive, telecommunications and retail. eBureau has designed and built a patented, state-of-the-art data warehouse and real-time predictive scoring system. Since its founding in 2004, the company has received $43 million in funding from its founders; Split Rock Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Pinnacle Ven-tures, and Tenaya Capital. For more information, please visit www.ebureau.com.

About Sparkroom

Sparkroom delivers innovative solutions to direct marketers, including its comprehensive Lead Performance Management platform. Sparkroom Lead Deliver, Lead IQ, and Lead Market Ana-lytics deliver a hosted business intelligence platform to give direct response marketers the tools and expertise needed to measure, manage, and optimize their lead acquisition spending across every direct response channel. Sparkroom’s software, which it hosts and delivers to its customers on demand, enables customers to capture, store, and analyze information generated by their lead buying activities and to gain critical business insights into the performance and efficiency of marketing and sales initiatives and other business processes. Sparkroom was acquired by CUnet, a subsidiary of Nelnet Inc. (NYSE: NNI) in February, 2010. For more information, visit www.sparkroom.com.

Media Contacts

pr@sparkroom.com