December 1, CareerBuilder and America Online link up in their new alliance. The MSN/CareerBuilder connection launches January 1, 2004.
ìWe have almost all the work completed, the testing, and weíre ready to go live with AOL on Dec. 1,î said Matt Ferguson, CareerBuilder president and COO. It was back in late July that CareerBuilder stunned the online recruitment community by announcing it had struck multimillion dollar marketing and traffic deals with the Webís two biggest portals. CBDR will throw up to $115 million over four years into the AOL arrangement, and up to $150 million over five years with MSN.
CareerBuilder took the business away from archrival Monster. The portals delivered about 25 percent of Monster.comís unduplicated traffic. Given those numbers, CBDR should surpass Monster in traffic early next year. Monster executives have done their best to spin the moves to their favour, first by saying the company had decided on its own not to renew the deals. More recently, Monster chief Jeff Taylor has downplayed the significance of the alliances.
ìIt is all about driving quality traffic that converts to memberships and resumes,î Taylor said in a conference call with analysts last month.
ìConversion of AOL/MSN traffic into our members was very weak.î
Acknowledging the possibility, CareerBuilder structured its new con-tracts so that it will show AOL and MSN the big money only if the por-tals can deliver on the goods.
ìThere are provisions that deal with the conversion issue. They understand that. They signed up to help us build our business, and we believe the conversions will be strong,î Ferguson said. Monster executives, who repeatedly decline or ignore our interview requests, have said publicly they will redeploy their marketing dollars elsewhere. The company plans to place three ads in next yearís Super Bowl -one in the pre-game show, and two during the contest. It will mark Monsterís sixth straight year in the big game.
ìYou are going to see a nice balance between online and offline brand development,î Taylor told analysts. Monster got a huge short-term traffic boost after last yearís Super Bowl. Resume submissions soared by 142 percent on the day after, and the number of unique visitors grew 149 percent to 2.3 million. Monster has announced plans to raise between $150 million and $200 million by issuing up to 6.9 million new shares of common stock. The company would not give specific information on its plans, but analysts have speculated some of the take might be used for acquisitions, marketing or other general corporate expenses. CareerBuilder, which has done most of its promotion through its partner newspapers, believes the AOL/MSN deals will prove to be a substantial marketing break-through.
ìThe goal of marketing dollars is really to reach an audience. With the AOL and MSN deals in place, CareerBuilder will not need to spend the same amount on consumer marketing that they spent in the last year,î said Hilary Schneider, president and CEO, Knight Ridder Digital, which owns a chunk of CareerBuilder, along with Tribune and Gannett.
CareerBuilder also recently signed a new long-term agreement with its search engine partner, Fast Search & Transfer of Oslo, Norway, a move that would put Careerbuilder at the head of the line in the development of new search technologies that would deliver more relevant results based on a job-seekerís request. With all the parts now in place, Ferguson said 2004 should be a productive year for the company.
ìLife is good,î he said. ìThe economy is turning,
and even a slight improvement is good news for us.î
Online recruitmentís new deals mark Careerbuilderís ascension
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