AmIVisible’s Comparative ‘Visibility Reports’ for SMBs Seek to Fill in Gaps

SMBs are missing opportunities for lead generation across major search engines, national and local directories, and vertical channels.  But what if SMBs could receive “visibility reports” that show where their geographic and category gaps are?  That’s the concept behind Palore’s AmIVisible, which launched in December 2009. 

Palore CEO Hanan Lifshitz recently updated us on the growth of AmIVisible, which is currently beta testing in several geographic areas and totals more than 7 million business reports. To date, he says that more than 250,000 SMBs have interacted with their visibility report.

The user interface is straightforward. A business inserts its phone number, and AmIVisible’s algorithm produces the custom visibility report that tabulates “relevance” in three primary areas: listings (Web sites), keywords (categories) and competitor visibility. The screenshots below show this information assembled for a California chiropractor.

Lifshitz emphasizes that AmIVisible’s highest utility lies in its comparative analysis. The platform not only charts an SMB’s presence, but also spotlights its absence in direct comparison with chief competitors. It then turns SMB prospects over to SEM and SEO partners to build out online campaign strategies.

Lifshitz also says that AmIVisible is distinguished by its vigorous presence management goals. Not all e-mail reputation presence management firms are created equal or focus on the same tools. Some are reputation-centered, enabling businesses to monitor consumer sentiment and respond to queries and concerns. Others are hybrids. In the chicken-or-the-egg game of whether presence or rep management supersedes the other, his stance is clear — “you must be found first. Presence precedes reputation.” 

The Palore founder adds that AmIVisible is “looking at all pay models moving forward.” These could include more highly customized reports and further referral-driven partnerships.  

It also plans to release an updated version of the service next month that organizes listings under three distinct headings: vertical sites, geographical sites, and broader directories and engines. Right now, the listings, keywords and competitor dashboards lump all findings into aggregated lists. But first, AmIVisible hopes to achieve national service by year’s end before coming out of beta.

Is AmIVisible on to something? BIA/Kelsey forecasts that local ERPM ad spend will jump to $3.5 billion by 2014. As such, it is an increasingly competitive space, with Marchex, Yellowbot, Vendasta, Yext Rep and others offering ERPM services.