The service is called Fast.Leads and works on a cost-per-lead basis, so there is no wasted expenditure. Marketers can select Lycos members to target with offers or competitions by gender, age and postcode.
Members will see a survey page only once, when they log in to any of the products, such as Chat, Mail, Mobile, Love@Lycos or Web Builder. The page is already filled in with personal details drawn from their Lycos membership information.
According to Lycos, one campaign that ran over three weeks in September generated an 8.5% response rate and more than 20,000 leads. Another ran over 10 days and generated a 6% response rate and more than 5,000 leads.
Duncan Dunlop, commercial director of Lycos, said: "Instead of buying freely available, out-of-date data which they don't own, direct marketers can now get highly targeted leads in real time, which they own 100%."
Lycos members come to the site for their own entertainment, he said, and they are more comfortable with advertising than they might be on more transactional sites and will give it more consideration.
David Cole, managing director of CCB, said: "Fast.Leads is exactly what the direct marketing industry needs. Data is the lifeblood for our industry and without fresh sources of data, response rates will continue to decline. The major innovations by the main data providers of late have generally consisted of amalgamating and re-analysing old data."
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