Canada Post takes on search engines with online advertising network

Canada Post is set to take on the internet search engines head on, with the launch of a new online advertising network later this year. The company has teamed up with Swiss e-commerce specialists CentrSource to make the new service available as early as November.

For advertisers, the service will offer the flexibility to connect with Canadian consumers both online and offline through traditional admail services.

The service will have no start-up fees for businesses to use, and costs will only be incurred when potential customers actively seek information, register for alerts or coupons, make a sale or perform other target actions.

Canada Post sees the new service as challenging the “limitations” of the online search engine marketing currently available to businesses, such as the poor contextual placement and “virtual invisibility” advertisers can suffer in certain online outlets.

For Canadian consumers, the service will be billed as a new way to shop for products or services online, with a particular emphasis on local shopping and events – which will be determined by the input of their post codes.

Canada Post will steer consumers to a new CentrSource.ca website via a multi-channel advertising campaign, making the most of public trust in its brand, its experience in direct marketing and the database of 15m domestic addresses to which it delivers.

Tim Skelly, the director of product development for Canada Post’s direct marketing division, said he believed the new service would fit well with the company’s existing unaddressed and addressed admail services.

Skelly told Post & Parcel: “We think it is going to be entirely complementary. We were talking to the large and mid-sized businesses, they were telling us that the admail services are important to them, but that they are looking for additional targeted options.

“With the Online Advertising Network we can help advertisers target some consumers online, some offline. It means flexible capabilities,” added Skelly.

The Canada Post director of product development, who has led the work on the Online Advertising Network, said his company had been watching for some time as advertising dollars were moving online, particularly from the unaddressed mail segment.

In response, it started to develop its own online approach, but found that the technology offered by CentrSource provided “almost a perfect fit”.

Under the strategic alliance, CentrSource will manage and maintain the website, provide hosting and support, while Canada Post will provide the credibility of its brand, the direct marketing background and access to local address data.

Bob Westrope, president of CentrSource, said: “We believe there is a unique opportunity to connect consumers with time-sensitive local, national and global shipping content – both online and in-store, that is currently not addressed by any traditional search engine.”

CentrSource, whose principal shareholder is Sandi Cesko, founder and CEO of direct marketing firm Studio Moderna SA, has been running similar applications in Europe for two years.

In Canada, the allies have consulted variously with consumers and businesses to shape the new Online Advertising Network, which helped confirm a potential gap in the market for localized shopping and information service.

Consumer requests have been incorporated into the system, including the ability to connect with social media and allow shoppers to customize their profiles, to sign up for offers and coupons relevant to them, as well as receive alerts to local sales in which they would be interested.

For advertisers, the system features “best-in-class” measuring tools and the opportunity to take control over use of the service. Businesses will be able to upload their own creative elements and enter the postal codes they are targeting, as well as paying for their leads by credit card.

Skelly said larger advertisers are likely to be signed up to the new service first, but Canada Post will be seeking smaller businesses and attracting them with the ease of use and pay-for-performance model.

“Advertisers will know where the consumer is located and can deliver calls to action based on that,” he explained.

“The website will include a range of opportunities to present a message, including full-length videos, but only when the consumer asks for information or books an appointment – or says I want to buy this – will the advertiser pay.

“It’s a pure pay-for-performance model.”