Be Free Launches Performance Partner Program to Reward Top-Performing Affiliate Partners.

Business/Technology Editors

MARLBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--October 3, 2000

New Initiative Offers Enhanced Service Package Including

Consolidated Reporting, New Tools & Special Support Services 

Be Free, Inc. (Nasdaq: BFRE), the leader in performance marketing and a provider of personalization for targeted marketing, today announced its Performance Partner Program, a new program designed to facilitate strategic relationships between Be Free's customers and select, top-tier affiliate partners, called Performance Partners. The program enables effective and productive relationships between select, qualifying Performance Partners and merchants, and provides them with value-added enhanced services. The Performance Partner program vision is to impact these Performance Partners' success by making it easier to manage their relationships with merchants and to generate revenue through the program.

Be Free will offer Performance Partners accepted into this special program consolidated reporting, bulk link creation technology, and dedicated technical and program support on behalf of participating merchants. The initial phase of the program, rolled out today, caters primarily to the needs of high traffic shopping engines, shopping aggregators and member services sites serving loyalty, reward, rebate and charity audiences.

Be Free customers already participating in the program include MicroWarehouse, Paytrust and barnesandnoble.com. Looksmart.com, Spree.com, Schoolpop, Inc. and eBates.com are the first Performance Partners to be accepted into the program. Top performing affiliates or online marketers who wish to be considered for the Performance Partner Program should visit http://www.befree.com/docs/partners/performance/.

"As with any business partnership, the more you put into developing the relationship, the better the return on investment," said Tom Gerace, founder and chief marketing officer at Be Free, Inc. "Nurturing and supporting top-performing affiliates will be a win-win-win situation for Be Free, its merchant customers and the Performance Partners in the program. The Performance Partner Program creates a new level of top-performing sites, maximizing their potential as affiliate partners, and further unlocking the secret of online marketing revenues--and profits."

Performance Partner Program Benefits to Merchants

--Maintain Ownership of Performance Partner Relationship & Offer Enhanced Services--Merchants participating in the program maximize their relationships with top-performing sites in their performance marketing program--offering the extra support and services partners need to be even more successful. Be Free provides consolidated reporting and a single point of contact for questions relating to the program on behalf of the merchants, while enabling the merchants to maintain the direct business relationship they invest in with these high-performance sites.

--Unlock Revenue Potential of High-Traffic Sites--By offering this extra level of support and specialized services, merchants will attract high-traffic and successful Performance Partners to join their program, enhancing the productivity and revenue generated through the performance marketing channel.

--Lower Technical and Administrative Burdens--The tools offered to Performance Partners, such as new link generation technology and responsive technical support, free up merchant resources typically spent on the day-to-day administrative tasks of program management. This allows merchants to spend more time developing relationships and growing their performance marketing channels.

"Ten percent of our affiliate base produces the bulk of the revenue in the MicroWarehouse performance marketing program," said Mark Sedlak, Internet affiliate marketing manager, MicroWarehouse, Inc. "What we needed was a way to recognize these valuable partners, give them better service and attract more partners like them. The Performance Partner Program is easy to implement and enables our Performance Partners to easily generate large quantities of product-specific links and promotions, which have the best results and generate more revenue for us and our affiliates, all without disrupting the performance of our overall affiliate program."

Benefits to Performance Partners

--Consolidated, Detailed Data Reporting--Performance Partners receive convenient consolidated reports for all participating merchants, push delivered via FTP.

--Central Point of Contact for Service Questions--Performance Partners benefit from technical and program support from one source--Be Free, saving them the time it takes to contact each merchant partner separately. This convenience and additional support from Be Free enables the Performance Partners to focus on developing their business relationships with merchants rather than the technology and program basics.

--Generate Merchant Links Easily--Performance Partners benefit from an enhanced link generation technology that allows them to create bulk amounts of affiliate promotions for their sites in a time-efficient and easy manner. This new link generation system is simple, automated and scalable, eliminating the need for product file macros and one-at-a-time link generation.

"LookSmart's network of partner sites generates substantial traffic which we monetize through various programs ranging from impression-based advertisements to performance affiliate deals," said Tony Mamone, e-Commerce Director at LookSmart. "Being a Performance Partner provides us with easy-access to the data and tools necessary to evaluate and optimize our partnerships, while at the same time simplifying the task of managing the overall program."

About Be Free, Inc.

Be Free, Inc. (Nasdaq: BFRE) is the leader of performance marketing and a provider of personalization for targeted marketing. Be Free helps its customers build and manage branded online sales channels, which cost-effectively drive traffic, generate leads and extend brand reach. Be Free also provides a real-time personalization solution for its customers, helping them to increase conversion rates from promotion to sale on their web sites through personalized product or service recommendations. Be Free's customers include some of the Internet's leading merchants, online services and portals such as IBM (NYSE: IBM), America Online, Inc. (NYSE: AOL), barnesandnoble.com (Nasdaq: BNBN), GoTo.com (Nasdaq: GOTO), Mercata, C|Net (Nasdaq: CNET), Garden.com (Nasdaq: GDEN), PC Connection (Nasdaq: PCCC), Lycos (Nasdaq: LCOS), About.com (Nasdaq: BOUT) and Yahoo!(R)GeoCities (Nasdaq: YHOO). Affiliates can enroll in performance marketing programs using Be Free's technology with a streamlined application form called FastApp, located at http://fastapp.befree.com/.

Founded in 1996, Be Free has offices in Marlborough, MA, Pittsburgh, PA, Atlanta, GA, Chicago, IL, Los Angeles, CA, Culver City, CA, Campbell, CA, Austin, TX, Silver Spring, MD, Seattle, WA, New York, NY, Windsor, UK and Paris, France. For more information about Be Free's BFAST(SM) performance marketing service or its BSELECT(SM) personalization service, visit http://www.befree.com/.

Statements in this news release about Be Free, Inc. may be considered forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on the Company's current expectations, hopes, beliefs and estimates. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or projected. Further information about the risk factors that could affect the Company's performance are contained in the Company's filings with the Securities Exchange Commission, including but not limited to its S-1 dated November 3, 1999 and its S-1 dated March 29, 2000.