Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you, sir. Today's question-and-answer session will be conducted electronically (Operator Instructions) And we will go first to Anthony Noto with Goldman Sachs.
Megan Barker- Goldman Sachs
It's actually Megan Barker on for Anthony. Just one question, on WebMD by our calculation, the CPM grew about 16% year-over-year which is an acceleration. I am just wondering if you can give us any color on how much of that is due to sell through versus higher CPM? Thanks.
Kevin Cameron
It’s a combination of both, our sell through continues to increase even as our traffic itself has been going up. But we have also taken opportunities for slight increases in pricing as the market opportunity has presented itself as well. We have been able to demonstrate very strong performance for our client sponsored programs across both our consumer and professional sites.
And while we are able to deliver a very efficient sort of audience matured for our sponsors, the target ability of the sites has also enabled us to raise the value of each targeted visitor that we can deliver for a sponsored program. So our sales momentum is strong. We are selling more than any period in the past, more programs I think as we talked about. But at the same time wherever is some pricing opportunity we have taken that as well.
Operator
We will go next to Corey Tobin with William Blair. Mr. Tobin, your line is open, please go ahead. Alright, we will go next to Sandy Draper with Raymond James.
Sandy Draper - Raymond James
Thank you. First question would be for Wayne. Wayne, last quarter you commented on a little bit of a slow down in the private portal market on an extended sales cycle. Any updates on that, staying the same, getting better, getting worse?
And then a quick follow-on for Marty. On the last call Marty, you commented about your interest in potentially continuing to shrink the capitalization through share repurchases. Obviously, the stock has come down here recently. We'd love to hear your thoughts about the strong cash position, any thoughts on doing some type of accelerated buyback? Thank You.
Wayne Gattinella
Thanks Sandy. I will take the first one. In terms of what we commented on, on the sales cycle in the first quarter, as we referenced as the sophistication of the programs that we begun to deliver on our private portal's market has increased. It slowed the sales decisioning a little bit, because there was a little bit a more of a complex decision on the buyer side. So for example, we acquired Summex just over a year ago a new health coaching capability. We integrated it into our decision support platform and we began to sell health coaching services as part of our core health and benefits platform. As you just heard, we announced our first two installations with our new health coaching platform and we expect that in the second half of this year, you will hear new client implementations with that service as well.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
