By Laura Bishop: BOULDER - Brian Cleveland, Parallel Path LLC's president and chief executive, started the Internet marketing firm after researching ways to attract more customers to another Boulder company he founded - Percept Technology Inc.

During the dot-com slump several years ago Cleveland developed search-marketing techniques that brought in new customers via the Web such as Microsoft Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc. He still owns Percept, an engineering services firm that does testing for technology companies, but he is no longer involved in its day-to-day operations.

Parallel Path works with clients to get the most out of pay-per-click advertising and a higher ranking on a Google, Yahoo or MSN search. When a search results in thousands of pages, clients need to be near the top.

Paid results, which some clients also use, are on the right side of the page, separate from the natural rankings on the left.

"People hire Parallel Path to improve their natural rankings in search engines," Cleveland said. "The goal would be to be on page one. There are several hundred factors Google uses to present search results for a given key word or phrase."

More than 20 customers nationwide pay Parallel Path to design and manage online advertising campaigns as well as page search and banner ads. Clients need a good landing page - the Web site that comes up after clicking on the ad. It isn't always the home page or a general page, it's specific to the search.

"The home page may not be the best destination for a page search ad," Cleveland said. "We design landing pages so customers that search are more compelled to buy or take action. It's a good combination of creativity and analytics."

Parallel Path has developed special software tools that analyze and measure results for clients. About a third of its customers are in Boulder and the Front Range. The return on investment calculator measures the effectiveness of a marketing campaign as well as the customer's return on investment. The calculation takes into account the average cost per click, the value of a sale and the percentage of the people buying.

"It's a great way to see how well you are doing in an advertising campaign," Cleveland said. "Online marketing is extremely measurable. Targeting is a big part of this business. Clients pay us to determine and analyze the best places to target their advertising."

Highland Technical Staffing in Longmont is taking advantage of the targeted advertising Parallel Path offers. The company is an information technology staffing firm that places people in temporary and permanent positions. Advertising can be limited to the Front Range or if the firm wants to attract customers moving to Colorado, the ads are national.

"We aren't paying for someone to click on an ad that wouldn't apply," said Chuck McCoy, president of Highland. "They have been awesome in terms of customizing and maximizing our advertising dollars."

Parallel Path gives Highland a monthly report on how many people saw its ads, how many clicked on the ads and the number of people who took action after going to the landing page.

Boulder-based LifePics has thousands of client Web sites. A number of photo finishers, including several in Boulder, use LifePics to help consumers send in digital photos and pick them up at a later time. Ken McDonald, LifePics vice president of marketing and operations, said during the past nine months, Parallel Path helped one of LifePics' clients improve its Web site for better search engine pickup and for another created an 80 percent drop in the amount needed to be spent on advertising.

McDonald said working with Parallel Path requires spending at least $2,500 a month, but for every dollar spent there is a $7 payback. "It's been a phenomenal payback on these projects," he said. "Revenues to clients go up. It's all about more revenue on the Web sites. It's bringing 40,000 extra customers to our clients' Web sites a month. These are very powerful tools for sure."

Cleveland declined to give company revenues. He said clients pay a monthly retainer based on the amount and complexity of services required. Some clients pay Parallel Path on the number of orders they receive. Clients can invest from $2,000 to more than $100,000 a month for online marketing services.

Cleveland, who self-funded the company, has five employees. He said Parallel Path has been profitable from the beginning and grows more than 100 percent a year. When he started in 2005, he had two customers and was the only employee.

Parallel Path's clients include software and technology firms, apparel companies and business services. Cleveland sees his business growing along with e-commerce. "Anybody who needs more sales and prospects from the Internet," he said.

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