Asking Jeeves About Advertising

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While the search side of Ask.com has shown some growth, the potential of the advertising network developing with the various IAC properties presents an even greater prospect for success.

When Mike McDonald sat down to chat with members of the Ask Jeeves staff at SES Chicago, he found out the search engine company has support from the very top of the command chain at IAC/InterActiveCorp.

“Barry Diller has very aggressive plans for market share growth. That’s his number one goal,” said Patrick Crisp, director of public relations for Ask.com. Part of that plan has placed Ask search boxes on the various properties under the IAC umbrella, like TicketMaster and MyWay.

One key step, mentioned by IAC VP for marketing and products James Speer, has been the introduction of the sponsored listings product. With that, the company has been able to at least create mindshare for its advertising products.

The ease of use for the program, which was introduced in August, has seen exponential growth and opened up a new venue for smaller advertisers. Speer noted that ad agencies have expressed interest in purchasing ad inventory.

To make that even more appealing for advertisers has meant building up the publisher side of the network. Ask has done a lot of work on the publisher interface and making tools like metrics available to the publisher network.

Crisp did note the current deal Ask has with Google for sponsored listings ends in 2007, but doesn’t think that should dissuade advertisers from also joining the Ask network. Speer bolstered that contention by saying the audiences Ask draws when compared to those for Google or MSN or AOL don’t have a lot of overlap, according to comScore data.