LookSmart

Type:	Public
Industry:	Internet
Founded:	1997
Headquarters:	San Francisco, CA
Country:	USA
Website:	www.looksmart.com
LinkedIn:	LookSmart
Key People
Jean-Yves Dexmier, Executive Chairman & CEO

LookSmart is a pay per click (PPC) advertising network solutions provider. LookSmart is a public company and it is trading on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol LOOK.O. Jean-Yves Dexmier is the Executive Chairman & CEO of the company. Its headquarters is located in San Francisco, CA.

History

In July 1996, LookSmart was established and its official website was launched in October of the same year. The company is a subsidiary of Readers Digest, a global publishing and marketing company of books, magazines, music, videos and other forms of new media. In 1997, the company established its headquarters in San Francisco. The following year, the company started providing licensed ad directory and listing services to Microsoft. Look Smart went public in August, 1999, with an offering price of $12 per share, which reached as high as $70 in 2000. The company later changed its business model from directory listing to pay-per-click pricing. In 2006, the company started offering platform solutions for Ask's Sponsored Listing's network. The following year, LookSmart AdCenter was recognized by the Search Engine Strategies as Best Search Advertising Platform. In 2011, its wholly owned subsidiary, LookSmart Canada Ltd. was launched with a new operations center in Ontario.

Solutions

The company's service offerings are divided into two categories:

• Advertiser Networks- offers performance search advertising products to search advertising customers and advertising agencies through its API or the LookSmart Ad Center, which allows multiple customers to upload keywords, manage budget, view reports etc.
• Publisher Solutions- provides search management advertising tools and solutions to help publishers increase their audience, and optimize and monetize their websites