It is a marketer’s dream; it is a marketer’s nightmare. It’s a way to pitch a discount offer just as your customer is about to buy a product at your competitor’s Web site. It’s Dash.com.
Dash is an affiliate marketing company with a twist and turn. It provides members discounts at Web merchants such as eToys, J. Crew, OfficeMax, FragranceNet, Reel.com, CD World, Drugstore.com, MotherNature.com and BarnesandNoble. com, among some 50 others. The company – whose name is intended to evoke the speed of the Internet, according to founder and CEO Daniel Kaufman – hopes to have more than 100 DMers signed on by the end of the year.
To get the discounts, members sign up free at Dash’s Web site (www.dash.com). Members then download software that, as a spokesperson for Dash puts it, works with the online shopper.
The software puts a Dash toolbar – a sort of banner assistant – on screen, running alongside the browser. To use Dash’s example, if a member were to log on to Amazon.com, the DashBar might pop up with a 5% discount offer from BarnesandNoble.com.
However, the banner usually provides savings relevant to the e-commerce site the customer already has surfed to on the Web. If customers want to shop where there are bargains, they have to visit Dash’s Web site for a full list of participating stores and discounts.
The software also allows customers to keep track of their discounts and other rebates.
Offers are for Dash members only – no great burden since it costs nothing to join, nor are any purchases necessary. The company promises that the discounts will increase as membership grows.
Dash also sends e-mail updates to members. The updates include information on the latest participating sites and other benefits.
The site will be enabled for one-click access – that is, members will be able to click through to any site they find interesting.
The company has allied with Affinity Partners International to provide co-branded versions of Dash to various groups and their members.
The concept is exciting enough for Wall Street that Dash raised about $12 million from the likes of J.P. Morgan Capital, AT&T Ventures and Wasserstein Perella.
Dash’s soft launch took place in August without much publicity. Nevertheless, it signed on 1,000 members in the first couple of weeks of operation.
A full launch is set for the middle of this month. A campaign consisting of online ads, radio spots and billboards will begin concurrently.
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