AmericanGreetings.com Affiliate Program Turns E-Cards to Hard Cash; More Than 52,000 Affiliates Now Link to the Web's Fastest-Growing Electronic Greetings Site

Business Wire, June 20, 2000

Business Editors, High-Tech Writers

CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 20, 2000

AmericanGreetings.com (AOL Keyword: AG), the fastest growing, second largest online greeting card site, and a subsidiary of American Greetings Corporation (NYSE:AM), is now also the preferred affiliate partner for thousands of web sites that want to offer high-quality online greetings to their visitors.

AmericanGreetings.com now has one of the most successful and pervasive programs on the Internet with over 52,000 affiliates.

The AmericanGreetings.com affiliate program, managed by performance marketing leader Be Free Inc. (Nasdaq: BFRE), generates millions of impressions for AmericanGreetings.com each month. It allows visitors from some of the Web's largest and best-known sites as well as the smallest sites to easily link to thousands of free greetings through banners and text links. AmericanGreetings.com has nearly eight million unique visitors at home and three million unique visitors at work, and is consistently ranked as one of the top 20 Web sites (Nielsen//NetRatings May 2000).

While AmericanGreetings.com has benefited from strong traffic growth, the affiliated sites also benefit. They earn a competitive rate of $.05 for every click-through from their site to AmericanGreetings.com and can earn up to a 10 percent commission on selected e-commerce transactions.

CashPile.com, an affiliate of AmericanGreetings.com explains their success with the program. "As a directory of over 2700 affiliate programs, CashPile.com has seen programs lack substance and value. However, the AmericanGreetings.com affiliate program is solid, offering detailed information, including a FAQ page, with many opportunities to generate revenue. More importantly, they keep in contact with their affiliates on a consistent basis, providing up-to-date information, resources, and promotional tools. This is what makes affiliates successful," Jim Scott, VP of Business Development & Sales CashPile.com

The AmericanGreetings.com affiliate program has many unique features that have driven its popularity with partner sites all over the Web. The program's features include:

-- Largest collection of online greetings. Because of the wealth

of creative content at AmericanGreetings.com, affiliate sites

can count on finding greeting products that fit the interests

of their own visitors

-- Easy implementation. Affiliates can link to automatically

updated banner ads that reflect upcoming holidays, promotions

and special events. There's no need to cut and paste image

files or write HTML code for every holiday.

-- Virtual Storefront. Provides an online storefront that

supplies affiliates with a large interactive ad, which lets

visitors link to various features within

AmericanGreetings.com.

-- Auto-merchandising. The AmericanGreetings.com creative team

develops 35,000 new products each year -- making it easy for

affiliates to have the latest and most relevant promotions on

their sites.

-- Instant feedback. Affiliates have the ability to review

reports online anytime at http://www.reporting.net.

"Sending online greetings is the second most popular activity on the Web," said Anne Everhart, senior vice president of marketing and communications for AmericanGreetings.com. "Our goal is to ensure that people can share and express themselves from wherever they happen to be on the Web. The affiliate program is a highly effective way for us to make sending greetings both easy for people and profitable for our affiliates," said Everhart.

"AmericanGreetings.com has a viral product that lends itself very well to an affiliate program," said Gordon Hoffstein, chairman and CEO of Be Free Inc. "Be Free worked with AmericanGreetings.com to develop a seamless program that will drive extraordinary results and meet the specific and unique needs of their partners."

About AmericanGreetings.com

AmericanGreetings.com is the fastest growing and second largest provider of electronic greetings and a leading relationship service provider. Through partnerships with AOL, Yahoo! and Lycos, AmericanGreetings.com (America Online keyword: AG) reaches 81 percent of all Web users. In addition, it is the only online greetings site offering interactive games and comics as well as free Web-based software for making customized paper greetings that are printable at home. With more than 14,000 high-quality greetings, licensed characters, invitations, games and Hi-Brow Comix(TM) AmericanGreetings.com puts the fun and the feelings into communicating online.

American Greetings is the world's largest publicly held creator, manufacturer and distributor of greeting cards and social expression products. Its staff of artists, designers and writers comprises one of the largest creative departments in the world and helps consumers "say it best" by supplying more than 15,000 greeting card designs to retail outlets in nearly every English-speaking country. The company markets greeting cards under the brand names American Greetings, Forget Me Not, Carlton Cards and Gibson Greetings. Business units include Balloon Zone, DateWorks calendars, Designers' Collection stationery, DesignWare party goods, GuildHouse candles, Learning Horizons educational products, Magnivision reading glasses, and Plus Mark seasonal gift-wrap and boxed greetings. American Greetings employs more than 21,000 associates around the world and drives more than $2 billion in annual sales. For more information on the company, visit http://www.americangreetings.com on the World Wide Web.