Quinstreet

November 20, 2009
The day many of us have been waiting for (including Quinstreet) has arrived - the Quinstreet IPO. After years of speculation and some unanticipated market twists, Quinstreet announced its intention to go public, filing their S-1. Look for a more detailed post outside of this thread. For a company that has been incredibly secretive, the S-1 is an amazing look under the hood of one of the most intriguing companies in the online lead generation space. It details their acquisition history, and while many of us knew about their acquisitive nature, none would have expected it to include more than 100 purchases with at least four eight figure deals. The Quinstreet today is no longer an education lead generation business. They are a roll-up and have been a source of liquidity for countless smaller publishers who sites earn revenue through lead generation. And, today they are a diversified play with some large client concentration but only 50% of the business being edu.
 

April 25, 2008
Quinstreet update. The company has begun to invest heavily to expand its operations into verticals outside of education. They have this year finalized two acquisitions, one in the home services sector and the other which gives them a foothold into insurance. The former is a pure play lead generation shop with rather higher barriers to entry, i.e. a strong deterrent for QS to try and build up internally. The latter is a marketplace but fits very well into their focus of owning and monetizing organic content. Companies names withheld at this time.

June 26 2006:
As one reader pointed out, it is now June, and no filing has taken place.   The Advertising.com deal combined with the large percentage of revenue that came from University of Phoenix would seem to have played a role in the delay. The company has also struggled to break into mortgage, and I imagine any exit would require them to better diversify their earnings. While they have had sizable churn, they still have some strong talent. who, unlike other companies in this space, have the operational expertise that suggest they should pull through. I predict them trying to go public in Q2 2007.

11/11/2005 - (original post)
Quinstreet will file to go public in January 2006 and is on track to do more than $200 million in top line revenue for 2005. They've done well despite their draconian tactics, i.e., they have not won many fans in the industry.

On the acquisition front - Quinstreet has quietly purchased two companies. The first is Deep Star Interactive - operators of onlinedegrees.com, nursingdegrees.com, and nursing-schools.com among others. They have high page rank sites and receive quality organic search traffic. Purchase price between $3 million and $5 million. A great win for them.

The second is World Wide Learn, one of the best at organic search. Along with ClassesUSA and eLearners, arguably no company has a better grasp of SEO than they do (re: education). I believe the purchase price was around $8 million, which is a steal and quite a coup.

Comments

[SC]

QS has not hired a CFO and has been looking forever...I doubt Jan06 is going to see an IPO for them.

[MD]

What leads you to believe QS will file for an IPO? I do believe they will have a CFO on board within 2 weeks though.

[SP]

not sure how you think onlinedegrees.com ; nursingdegrees.com and nursing-schools.com have high page ranks. All 3 have 0 PageRank values, where are you getting your "page rank" from?

[Jay]

I still believe Deep Star a good acquisition by Quinstreet, but as was pointed out by SP above, the page ranks are not what they once were.

[Bobby]

I am curious, what makes you think that QuinStreet will file for IPO? Obviously they are not public yet since it is June 2006......

[TonyFox]

Any new information re Quinstreet? I would have thought they would have filed for an IPO by now.

[Ken]

There is mention of Quinstreet's draconian tactics in some of these posts. Can you provide some clarification on what you are referring to? Thanks.

JW: The Draconian tactics refer to Quinstreet's historical low payouts and litigious nature in working with affiliates. While not necessarily true today, in the past, QS earned a reputation for locking less sophisticated Webmasters into long-term contracts at rates that were below market. They have a track record for uncovering undervalued properties - sites with good traffic that were working perhaps just as affiliates at CJ.com. Over time, other companies that also worked with similar advertisers would stumble upon the same sites (now in a contract with QS) and offer them more money. If the now QS affiliate tried to take that deal QS would sue them. The affiliate would be left with a bad taste because they would realize how underpaid they are but stuck without options as they would be in a year long contract with QS not for a school but for the sector.

With a more competitive and transparent marketplace, their contract lengths have lessened, more out of awareness by affiliates and payouts have increased, again due to better information flow and people knowing what they should be getting. If anything, those at QS aren't evil so much as they are ruthlessly efficient, a sign of their operational expertise and lack utter emotionless style conducting of business.

Ultimately, as an affiliate, you need to go in armed with information if you want to work with them. They will not be generous - whether in payouts or in an acquisition - by default.

[Draconian tactics]

I think you mean that their Draconian tactics refer to them sucking the life blood out of any host they come in contact with. The only way to stop their blood lust is to drive a stake through their heart! Maybe when the go public they will be easier to find.

[Publisher18]

Qunistreet is impossible to deal with. Sometimes they have server problems (software, hardware, chain?? who knows) and conversions drop. Keep an eye on your #'s because something is off right now but we need to band together to get some action.
There is a new google group (Publishers' Think Tank) trying to put some talk together about these things along with finding out who pays the best etc.

[looking looking]

Want to leave Quinstreetand their draconian tactics - who does everyone recommend?

[renee]

I am debating starting a lead gen program with Quinn Street. Any suggestions, thoughts or opinions? Is this a smart thing to do? Would you recommend working with them?

[For QS publisher]

Don't go with QuinStreet whatever you do.

Here are the reasons:
they have a very high scrub rate
they have no transparency in returns they give you a number and will not even tell you why the leads were returned
they have cut campaigns off and threatened to not pay for leads without warning (you can usually get your rep to open a new account and start over)
their payouts absolutely suck

Btw Jay the 2 companies that quinstreet acquired are Reliable Remodeler and Surehits. I was looking up quinstreet on linkedin and wouldnt you know it, it said qs people are most likely to be linked to Reliable Remodeler and Surehits. Look it up yourself.

Stay far away from Quinstreet!!!

Good Tip