First Light Net

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First Light Net www.firstlightnet.com, a provider of targeted internet advertising for the fishing, hunting, sports & outdoor industries, has been honored with two prestigious awards in the Web Marketing Association’s 2008 Internet Advertising Competition (IAC). First Light Net won with two of its popular email campaigns based on quality of information and overall presentation.

The IAC awards program recognizes excellence in online advertising. The winning entries can be viewed on the First Light Net website (http://www.firstlightnet.com/newsletter_archive).

"These award winning campaigns represent our significant connection to our targeted outdoor demographic and the businesses that seek that demographic," said Michael Hodgdon, CEO of First Light Net.”Winning for business-to-consumer and business-to-business email campaigns demonstrates how First Light Net is uniquely positioned to serve the online outdoor community.”

The IAC judges represented some of the top online advertising and creative agencies. Entries were scored on the basis of creativity, innovation, impact, design, copywriting, and use of the medium.

In the category of Best Online Community Online Newsletter Campaign, First Light Net won for its “Weekly Fishing Tackle and Outdoor Gear Giveaways” newsletter. This highly effective weekly newsletter campaign promotes outdoor retailers and websites by providing contest updates, articles, product reviews, news, advertising, and more to anglers and outdoors enthusiasts.

In the category of Best Advertising Email Message Campaign, First Light Net won for its “Free Pay Per Click Promotion on BigFishSearch.com” campaign. This campaign targeted businesses in the outdoors and fishing demographics, using a giveaway promotion to generate registrations, listings, and pay per click advertising on BigFishSearch.com.

In addition to promoting the site, the email message provided detailed information about the tools and opportunities available on BigFishSearch.com, including traffic for listings and registrations.

"The Web Marketing Association is pleased to help set the standard for Internet excellence," said William Rice, president of the Web Marketing Association, Inc. "The IAC Awards highlight the best in this unique advertising medium by industry."

First Light Net, a provider of targeted internet advertising for the fishing, hunting, sports & outdoor industries, has been awarded three seals of compliance from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The seals represent First Light Net’s commitment to conforming to the IAB’s published standards and best practices in the areas of Rich Media Creative, Digital Video In-Stream Ad Format, and Universal Ad Package (UAP).

“By achieving IAB compliance in these three categories, we ensure that clients can implement the same advertising creative with all compliant advertising networks,” said Michael Hodgdon, COO of First Light Net. “compliance is not meant to place a limit on what can be accepted, just to add convenience to agencies that work with multiple networks.”

Per the IAB’s guidelines, Rich Media Creative compliant publishers adhere to a group of standards that govern “advertisements with which users can interact (as opposed to solely animation and excluding click-through functionality) in a web page format.” Digital Video Ad Format compliant publishers subscribe to a set of standard video advertising specifications designed to be accepted by many of the leading interactive publishers. UAP compliant publishers provide a set of four standard ad unit sizes (728x90, 300x250, 160x600, and 180x150) that allow advertisers to reach the majority of the publisher’s audience.

The details of the IAB’s internet advertising standards and guidelines can be found at this link: http://www.iab.net/iab_products_and_industry_services/1421/1443

First Light Net offers internet advertising on its own network of over 400 fishing, hunting, and outdoors web sites. First Light Net has been active in the online outdoor community since 1996.