On Monday, BuildZoom announced it has raised $2.2 million. With the latest round of infusion, we asked the Co-Founder, Jiyan Wei, where the company is headed next.

“Our goal is to bring transparency to consumers who are shopping for a home improvement contractors. There is a knowledge gap that exists in hiring contractors. We want to bring transparency to pricing and duration of the project — we have the data.”

The Buildzoom platform is designed to help consumers look for home improvement contract work by matching them with the best-fitting professionals for the job. Buildzoom takes a far different approach than just relying on relying on customer reviews and other info. Buildzoom applies a Big Data method and analyzes more than 50 million construction permits, 3 million contractor profiles, and other third party data sources. The company’s Big Data approach is based on assorted information from state licensing boards and Better Business Bureaus; crowd sourcing via social media sites; insurance and bonding status; and self-provided information. A five star rating is just one piece of the puzzle — mitigating the risk of infrequent ratings.

“What distinguishes us from an Angie’s list is our unique focus on the regulated marketplace,” Jiyan Wei said. Buildzoom has created a two-sided marketplace — one for customers to get recommendations on contractors and the other for home improvement service providers to be listed for prospective projects.

The company will use its funds for hiring and growth. BuildZoom was founded in 2012 by Jiyan Wei and David Petersen and is based in San Francisco. The company previously raised a first seed round of $1.4 million.

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BIA/Kelsey projects Out-of-Home advertising revenue to grow from $7.3 billion in 2012 to $9.0 billion in 2017, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.3%.

While leisure/recreation was Out-of-Home’s biggest spending vertical, more leisure/recreation advertising dollars went to newspaper in 2012 than Out-of-home. In 2012, Out-of-Home Advertising was the second highest media among Leisure/Recreation advertising, according to Media Ad View Plus, with 18.5% of the vertical’s advertising spend. Newspaper accounted for 21.7% of the vertical’s advertising spend. However, as newspaper’s advertising revenue continues to decline, BIA/Kelsey projects leisure/recreation spending on out-of-home will outpace newspaper in 2014.

2012 Leisure/Recreation Ad Spending by Media

Media Ad View Plus breaks the Leisure/Recreation vertical into 10 subcategories: Traveler Accommodation (Hotels-Motels); Airline Transportation; RV (Recreational Vehicle) Parks and Recreational Camps; Performing Arts Companies; Spectator Sports; Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar Institutions; Amusement Parks and Arcades; Gambling Industries; Other Amusement and Recreation Industries; and Motion Picture and Video Exhibition. In 2012, Traveler Accommodation (Hotels-Motels) accounted for more than 35% of the spending on Out-Of-Home advertising in the Leisure-Recreation vertical.

The Out-of-Home advertising medium includes more than just billboards. The chart below, from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA), shows the different Out-of-Home displays available to advertisers.

Source: OAAA

According to OAAA, billboards accounted for 64% of Out-of-Home advertising in 2012, followed by transit with 17%, alternative with 12% and street furniture with 7%.

More information on Media Ad View Plus is available here.

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Vertical businesses that have relied on Yellow Pages and newspapers and other classified channels aren’t always seeing the same performance-based results that they might expect in the Google age. But many of them also aren’t likely to become keyword experts, or spend a lot of time managing their accounts. That’s always the SMB dilemma, right?

That’s what Reply.com is focused on. The two-year-old, 125-person company, backed by $17 million of venture capital, provides vertical advertisers with “enhanced click” packages and validated leads, complete with leads scoring. In addition, advertisers using Reply.com’s auction-based system can filter locations, and put caps on spending and cost-per-click rates.

Vertical segments targeted by Reply.com include key leads categories, including home insurance, health insurance, life insurance, education, auto finance, mortgage, used cars and auto insurance. Auto and real estate segments make up the biggest segments, with 60 percent to 70 percent of Reply’s customer base. Under Reply’s system, each category is customized for the particular aspects of a vertical.

One key differentiator is that the targeted categories are typically not “inventory based.” They may be new cars, rather than used cars; mortgage, or pure relocation leads, rather than search-based rentals leads.

Reply CEO Payem Zamani suggests that Reply’s clicks and lead offers are more efficiently processed than typical ad exchanges, in part due to narrowing the market base with geotargeting and a system for discerning consumer intent. The company is processing 9 million clicks per month, and 1.58 million leads, with customers for its auctions including auto manufacturers, major media companies such as Hearst Newspapers, and vertical sites such as RealEstate.com and Autobytel. The company also works with several of the search engines, SEO sites and e-mail providers.

The basic idea is to create a “Google-like” platform for acquiring traffic, says Zamani. Reply’s knowledge of user intent and location — driven in part by the installation of a pixel to track users — really streamlines the process and drives higher conversion rates, he says. Conversion success depends on how deep the advertiser wants to go. Information that goes all the way through to consumer credit cards for purchase will be a small fraction (maybe 0.1 percent) of more general conversions (30 percent to 40 percent) that provide additional information.

Reply.com COO Sean Fox is a featured speaker at Marketplaces 2010, March 22-24 in San Diego.

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