BankAds to Acquire CreditCards.net

I just received a press release announcing that BankAds, a company I previously covered, “has signed an exclusive agreement to acquire CreditCards.net.” Yesterday, the company announced its acquisition of OnlineBanks.com, but I think CreditCards.net is far superior to this domain name.

BankAds co-founder Sean Sullivan stated, “the re-launched CreditCards.net property is going to be the cornerstone for our credit card advertising business within BankAds.”  Terms of the CreditCards.net acquisition were not disclosed by either party.

BankAds will be operating in a very  competitive  space, and it will give potential clients an idea about how they can expect to perform with their own sites. Many of the major credit card issuers have high ranking websites, and even Google has a credit card portal. In addition, the well-funded CreditCards.com is a major competitor (organically and paid). It was reported that CreditCards.com was acquired by Bankrate for $145 million in 2010.

CreditCards.net has been owned by Acme Media, LLC, a New York City-based company operated by Keith Levenson. Acme Media owns and operates a number of domain names and websites including Rio.com, HomeImprovement.com, Vibrator.com, Devices.com, among many others. I have very high regard for Keith and his business.

Congratulations to Sean and Keith on the announcement.

BankAds press release is below:

BankAds, a leading provider of advertising solutions for the banking and credit card industries, announced today that it has signed an exclusive agreement to acquire CreditCards.net from Acme Media LLC, a leading online publishing company based out of New York. Sean Sullivan, Co-Founder of BankAds, said the following regarding the acquisition.

“CreditCards.net is an incredible domain name, and in my opinion could be easily considered the most valuable .net domain name ever. I am extremely pleased that we were able to work with Keith Levenson, CEO and Founder of Acme Media and complete this deal. He is someone with an incredible record of success and insight and this acquisition is critical for BankAds. Moving forward, the re-launched CreditCards.net property is going to be the cornerstone for our credit card advertising business within BankAds.

We have re-launched the site and given it a completely unique design and approach, not just with regard to the service itself, but also the corporate image and the brand we hope to firmly establish within the US market. BankAds has a very clear goal and frankly that is to create an experience where consumers can not only be presented with factual information and top credit card offers from all major companies, but we hope to bring a little bit of humor to things at the same time.”
While mixing humor and financial services might sound like an odd pairing at first glance, it is actually an approach that you see quite often from credit card issuers or other companies within what are widely considered boring or humorless industries. Capital One has their credit card barbarians, Geico it’s popular Gecko, Aflac it’s bumbling duck and now CreditCards.net has launched with an adorable seal that is certainly unique as well.

Sergei “The Seal of Approval” is nothing short of a laugh riot; dispensing advice on how to balance a budget and avoid massive credit card bills while simultaneously informing the reader that he’s no fan of the walrus, otter and pelican. Creativity and factual information regarding credit cards are not in short supply on this website. Sergei’s back story regarding his dislike of walruses even goes as far as showing an “infamous” illustration of his great, great, great, great grand poppa being “one upped” by a smug walrus. Pelican’s are routinely referred to as “bird brains” and the otter is labeled a “sissy.”

Sergei’s “story” began in Russia, where he refused to follow the career path of his family as a fisherman. Instead he chose to attend university and upon graduation, moved into the fast paced lifestyle as an investment professional managing other people’s money. Quickly tiring of the fast cars, money and partying he then chose to become what else, a blogger….

Sullivan, who had previously worked for more than seven years in the advertising industry producing commercials explained further,
“Everyone that has a business model similar to ours, whether it is CreditCards.com, CardRatings.com or any of the other sites someone is going to see listed within Google when they search for “credit cards”, we are all essentially distributing the same basic information. There are some differences in terms of how we present the information and connect the consumer to the credit card issuer, but fundamentally the information is the same.

So I think if someone is going to have to sit down and research a bunch of credit card offers, they might appreciate having a laugh or two while they’re doing it. We’re a very serious and professional company and everything we do is within all best standards and practices. To work with banks and credit card companies you have to be. That being said, our team likes to laugh and enjoy life so I think we are pretty lucky to have been able to get Sergei to agree to join our team.”

Aside from having up to the minute information on the best credit card offers available from most major card issuers and banks, CreditCards.net also features a lot of articles written by a knowledgeable editorial news staff, some of which are based out of the South Florida headquarters. BankAds is in early negotiations with some well known financial news writers about joining the team in their base office. According to Sullivan, they even got a couple to agree to start writing under “pen names” temporarily.

Further adding, “BankAds being a new company, it is not always easy to get really great writers to jump ship. So we’re fine with some taking a wait-and-see approach before coming over full time. We have a very long time horizon for this company and we really are trying to up the game and increase the quality of the overall experience for the visitor to any of our financial websites.”

One thing that certainly sets BankAds apart from many of its competitors is the sheer number of sites that it owns and / or controls. While the company is relatively unknown within the industry, for some time now it has been increasing the size of its internet footprint. Even acquiring other sites outside of the core business. BankAds has other properties that it feels can be of use to consumers, but mostly small business owners. Many of those sites and services are currently being offered free of charge to anyone who wishes to use it.

Sullivan explained, “A lot of our other properties are focused on small business. We recognize that small businesses are the backbone of the US economy, so whenever we possibly can we’ll offer some kind of service or product for free.

This approach seems a bit odd coming from a company that operates in advertising and finance, both industries not known for being “charitable”.
According to Sullivan, BankAds is fortunate to be in a position where they have the opportunity to give back in those areas where it is needed the most – small business and helping consumers.

“If you look at our core business model, what it really comes down to is helping people save money. Regardless if it is on a bank checking account, credit card interest rates or business incorporation fees, our goal is to save people money, period.”

BankAds almost sounds like an aggressive capitalist mixed with a consumer advocate. Who knew the two could be one in the same?

BankAds is based out of Delray Beach, Florida.

About Acme Media

Acme Media acquires, sells, leases and develops its growing portfolio of domain names and destinations like www.rio.com, www.vibrator.com and www.homeimprovement.com. We have a stern belief that the internet continues to change everyday life on all social and economic levels. We share the belief that such trends are evolving, changing and improving every day. Acme Media thrives to stay on the cutting edge of today’s developing trends and strives develop their portfolio of domains with these trends and technologies.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

17 COMMENTS

  1. That’s interesting news…

    Is the plan for CreditCars.net — to be a PPC type lander for CC traffic ??

    Is that to be for just his traffic or open to others ??

    Is he on LinkedIN / Facebook / Twitter ?? — Maybe he’ll see this and share his contact info… (smile)

    ~Patricia Kaehler – Ohio USA – DomainBELL

  2. Congratulations. CreditCards.net is such a spectacular domain. I’m always amazed when people think that a pure generic .net is not particularly valuable. Of course CreditCards.com is the best possible name in the industry. But CreditCards.net is the next best thing and has the potential to be a very lucrative business. Good luck to the new owners.

  3. This is a press release? Over 15 paragraphs? Serious?

    As an aside isn’t there a way you can properly offset this so it doesn’t flow right from your intro? On a quick look someone who missed the “BankAds press release is below:” might attribute this to you. I wouldn’t want someone to think I wrote that piece. (Should be a

    paragraphs here

    tag or similar to offset?

  4. Actually you do have it as I just demonstrated in my other comment.

    The tag is “blockquote” with the “” to start and the ” to end the paragraphs.

  5. For obvious reasons .com is not available, and if it was, you are better to bank your money, and retire for what it would cost to acquire.

    Surprised nobody mentioned what creditcards.net sold for, as it hasn’t been long prior to it’s last sale.

  6. We are going to be doing a full development for this property, in fact it is going to be our most ambitious project to date. My intention is to create the industries best resource, which I truly believe does not have to be limited to a .Com domain.

    I think that the results are determined by your level of effort not the domain extension.

    We want to create a category leading brand and what is in place on the site currently, represents just a fraction of what is planned.

    To answer some of the other questions, we’re not going to disclose the price.

    Agreed that it is a very long PR. But I think it’s important for the first release to discuss at least some of the things that are going to make CreditCards.net different from everything else out there. We’re not just building another credit card comparison site.

    Anyone can build a website, but building a brand and a leading one at that is a much larger goal. But that’s precisely what we are doing.

    I greatly appreciate everyone’s interest and look forward to releasing updates and more news in the future.

    Thanks,

    Sean Sullivan

  7. “I think that the results are determined by your level of effort not the domain extension.”

    That’s a pretty contradicting and confusing statement – particularly for those who may not be familiar with the domain industry. If domain extensions truly didn’t matter, then surely creditcards.net wouldn’t have been a necessary asset to acquire, right? Why not just grab creditcards.biz? Your purchase of the .net extension was a wise move.

  8. Good luck, you truly need a brand and ability to pull in consumers in a different way in todays internet.

    Considering the changing finance vertical SERP results for Google, with their new comparison module occupying 90% of related spots in the number 1 position.

  9. devon and sean are absolutely right. if sean decides to put 30 hours a week into credit-cards.biz it would do better than creditcards.net would ever do with 10 hours a week. the .com, .net, .biz, .us doesn’t really matter. it’s the brains behind the website, not the domain.

  10. Jimmy, I think you may have misread me. I was actually saying that it’s not necessarily always 100% about the brains behind the website, 100% of the time. Don’t get me wrong, without hard work and brains, you’re chance of success are minimum at best. However, I think a .com is typcially the first choice among most busniesses, with .net and .org as viable alternatives. Owning a premium TLD creates some brand awareness by default, and evens stickiness if quality service or content is there.

    As I said, if extensions truly “do not matter”, then this entire aftermarket industry would not exist. It’s very contradictory to say that any extension will do, right after you just paid big bucks to acquire a premium keyword domain such as creditcards.net. Of course they matter, otherwise they would have bought the name in a crappy extension and saved a bunch of money in the process.

  11. that’s gotta rank as the longest press release ever. . . . they need to hire a better PR firm or at minimum a better writer.

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