EMG Connexus ("Connexus")

EMG Connexus is the premier online, performance-driven marketing platform.

EMG Connexus is the premier online, performance-driven marketing platform, offering a diversified, multi-channel approach to connect advertisers with their target customers. Its innovative approach delivers scale, flexibility and performance to advertisers and publishers across a wide set of marketing vehicles, including display, lead generation, co-registration, proprietary consumer sites, search, and email. EMG Connexus features a multi-channel network with extensive reach that delivers over 30 billion impressions monthly and 20 million leads and customers annually. Additionally, EMG Connexus owned and operated consumer sites aggregate over 17 million visitors, 20 million searches and 3 million registrations monthly across a broad set of consumer interests, such as promotional marketing and financial services. EMG Connexus was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in El Segundo, CA. The company was originally founded as YF Direct, Inc., and later changed its name to NetBlue in 2004. Art Shaw was appointed CEO in 2005 (and held this role until April 2011), and in 2006 the original company merged with Vendare Media Group and changed its name to Connexus. In 2010, the company merged with EpicAds and changed its name to EMG Connexus, aka 'Epic Media Group'. It has additional offices located in New York, Toronto, San Francisco, London, Chicago and Vietnam. Conceived in part as an online industry consolidation platform, EMG Connexus has made twenty-two acquisitions / mergers since it was founded. The company was accredited by the Better Business Bureau in 2010. Business Units & Brands of Consolidated Company EMG Connexus operates as a holding company with four separate businesses or divisions, several of which have sub-units. Each business or division has its own brand name, its own leadership / executive in charge, and each had been a stand-alone company or companies prior to being merged into the parent corporation. These businesses include: 1. Epic Marketplace, formerly known as Traffic Marketplace. This unit is the company’s premier ad network asset. Built around the 2003 Traffic Marketplace acquisition, it also included the 2007 AdModus acquisition. 2. Epic Direct, formerly known as EpicAds, Netblue and eMarketMakers (Vendare). This unit is the company’s performance ad network, and includes an affiliate network operation. It was constituted from elements of three predecessor entities: EpicAds, NetBlue and Vendare Media Group. Epic Direct has three principle business lines of revenue, organized into three sub-units: a. Hosted Media Solutions. This is a lead-gen unit which was operated by EpicAds prior to the Connexus-EpicAds deal. b. Registration Path Monetization. This is a co-registration unit which was operated by Connexus prior to the Connexus-EpicAds deal. Originally, this unit was operated under the Traffic Marketplace brand prior to the Connexus-EpicAds deal c. Performance Ad Network. This unit was combined primarily from EpicAds. 3. Firstlook, formerly known as New.Net. This unit is a domain monetization business, acquired in 2004, and was itself composed of numerous domain name acquisitions, some which represented small companies themselves (e.g., jackpot.com) 4. Epic Social, formerly known as TMPSocial. Created originally under the Traffic Marketplace brand, this unit was built originally around the acquisition of a small company called Facebook Exchange in 2009, and then a company called Social Suitcase, acquired in 2010.