I thought this was news worthy enough to post about!  We had a great press conference yesterday here in our Wilkes-Barre offices - we had U.S. Congressman Paul Kanjorski (PA - 11), Mayor Thomas Leighton, Shoemoney, my Mom and about 100 other business leaders, friends and elected officials.  It was an honor to receive the Inc. 500 recognition and I am very, very proud of the Pepperjam Team!  When you hire people smarter than you, great things can happen…

Here is the press release that went over the PR Newswire yesterday in case you haven’t read it.  Note that Pepperjam is one (1) of only three (3) SEM agencies on the Inc. list, the only Affiliate Marketing Agency, and the most successful full-service internet marketing agency to grace the 2006 Inc. 500 list.

WILKES-BARRE, Pa., Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ — Pepperjam(TM), the industry’s leading full-service internet marketing agency, announced today that they have been named to the 2006 Inc. 500. The Inc. 500, published annually by Inc. Magazine, represents a list of the fastest growing privately held businesses in the United States. Pepperjam is ranked NO. 293, with three-year revenue growth of nearly 500%, making them the most successful full-service internet marketing firm on the list.

“Being named to the Inc. 500 is an incredible honor - it means that Pepperjam joins a list of present and past Inc. 500 companies, including Microsoft, Go Daddy, Oracle, Zappos.com and more. This designation is truly the product of a unified team effort at Pepperjam. Becoming an Inc. 500 company even further separates Pepperjam as the most innovative, aggressive online marketing agency in the nation,” said Kristopher B. Jones, President & CEO of Pepperjam.

The 2006 Inc. 500, as revealed in the September issue of Inc., reported the most robust bunch of companies the magazine has ever compiled, with aggregate revenue of $19.7 billion, up from $16.5 billion last year and $12.9 billion in 2000. The two largest companies on this year’s Inc. 500 are the biggest ever to make the list — No. 170 Western Refining ($3.4 billion in revenue) and No. 376 Newegg.com ($1.26 billion) — and the third and fourth companies in Inc. 500 history to crack the billion-dollar mark. In all, 14 companies topped $200 million in annual revenue, compared with 11 last year.

Most important, the 2006 Inc. 500 companies were engines of job growth, having created more than 90,000 jobs since those companies were founded.

This year’s list is the first to include businesses that started up immediately before and after September 11, 2001 — including the No. 1 company and 20 companies in the top 50 — as well as many companies that had to raise capital after the dot-com bubble burst. In total, 104 companies listed on this year’s Inc. 500 were started after 2000.

“If you want to find out which companies are going to change the world, look at the Inc. 500,” said Inc. Editor Jane Berentson. “These are the most innovative, dynamic, fast-growth companies in the nation, the ones coming up with solutions to some of our most intractable ills, creating systems that let us conduct business faster and easier, and manufacturing products we soon discover we can’t live without. The Inc. 500 list is Inc. magazine’s tribute to American business ingenuity and ambition.”

“Internet marketing is quickly changing the face of the advertising world in general. To be involved in the online marketing space is exciting, but to be a leader and trend-setter in the space is truly humbling,” said Jones.

About Inc. Magazine

Inc., http://www.inc.com, the only major business magazine dedicated exclusively to owners and managers of growing private companies, delivers real solutions for today’s innovative company builders. It provides hands-on tools and market-tested strategies for managing people, finances, sales, marketing, and technology. Inc., a Mansueto Ventures LLC publication, inspires and informs, with cutting-edge coverage that reflects our readers’ energy, brashness, and imagination.

About Pepperjam:

Pepperjam, founded in 1999 by internet marketing expert Kristopher B. Jones, is the fastest growing full service internet marketing and technology agency in the country. With core expertise in search engine marketing, affiliate marketing and online media buying, Pepperjam offers an outsourced online marketing solution to many of the internet’s leading brands. Pepperjam is composed of distinct divisions, offering a suite of targeted services dependant on specific client’s marketing needs. These divisions include:

pepperjamMANAGEMENT

pepperjamMANAGEMENT is the most-recognized outsourced affiliate program management company in the world. Launching and managing many of the leading programs on the top networks including Commission Junction and Linkshare, pepperjamMANAGEMENT provides companies with an unparalleled expertise in what it takes to develop a world class affiliate program.

pepperjamSEARCH

pepperjamSEARCH offers powerful search-engine marketing management solutions utilizing the most cutting-edge techniques and technology in the business. Leading a select group of Google Adwords Qualified Companies, Pepperjam boasts an expert staff of certified Google Advertising Professionals and Yahoo Search Marketing Ambassadors. Working with advanced, proprietary API-Driven management tools, pepperjamSEARCH offers the ultimate ROI available through the advertising medium of search.

Pepperjam.com

Pepperjam.com is the internet’s first comparison shopping blog. The Pepperjam Comparison Shopping Blog unifies two of the Internet’s most popular activities: shopping and blogging, while providing users with a high-quality, integrated “shogging” (Shogging = shopping + blogging) experience. The website includes more than 20 million products from over 2,000 merchant partners. Merchants gain placement on http://www.pepperjam.com through an auction-style CPA and CPC model.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 25th, 2006 at 9:53 am and is filed under Inc. 500, search-engine marketing, affiliate marketing, internet marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.