Point It! aims to steer buyers to clients' sites

What: Point It!, based in Seattle

Who: Jon Lisbin, president

Employees: 10

What it does: Specializes in developing and placing clickable advertisements with the content directly related to search results.

Search and find: The company builds keyword lists and writes targeted ad copy to link to a client's Web site. But its most critical function is submitting bids for online placement auctions. Because this process is not open — a bidder does not know the amount of a competing bid — Point It! must determine the cost per action.

The advantage: "A company could do this for themselves," Lisbin said. "But it does get pretty complicated."

A fair price: Search sites such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN take a per-click payment based on the amount of people who follow the link to the advertiser's Web site. But Point It! bills clients for its time and services instead of tying its fee to the number of visitors or sales resulting from the link. "We don't take a percentage," Lisbin said. If the client is satisfied with our work, they will hire us again."

A pitch in sheep's clothing: Many are unaware the links to the right of the search results are paid advertisements. But they're looking to buy, Lisbin said, and "for this reason, some of the linked ads are more useful to them than whatever comes up in the regular search window."

Financing: The five-year-old company has not accepted outside financing and has always been profitable. Lisbin projects $1.5 million of revenue in 2007.

Between two points: While Lisbin said his clients won't buy television spots, they can benefit from a more efficient ad model. With this process, he said, clients "are making money as a direct result of their advertising. And this is a dream experience for me. I am selling something that I really believe in."

— Charles Bermant