24/7 Signs Swedish Shopping Portal

Torget, which bills itself as the biggest shopping portal in Sweden, signed with online ad network 24/7 Europe for ad sales representation.

The deal gives 24/7 more than 140 million Swedish impressions available for sale each month.

Working alongside Torget’s in-house sales department, which formerly handled all sales for the site, 24/7 said it will offer banners, sponsorships, buttons, text links and shopping spaces on an exclusive, global basis.

In a consulting capacity, it will also work with the site to help develop new advertising opportunities.

Torget attracts 955,000 unique users and generates more than six million monthly ad impressions. It was launched by Sweden Post Ltd. in 1996 as a mass-market portal. In the spring of 1999 it re-focused to become a dedicated shopping portal in Sweden, offering about 700 shopping outlets.

“We have talked to all the ad networks and 24/7 was clearly the best operation we saw,” said Carolina Hansson, sales manager at Torget. “It is extremely important for us to be able to retain our brand integrity and with 24/7’s common-sense approach to sales, we are entirely confident that our brand is in safe hands.”

24/7 Europe said it now represents six of the top 10 commercial sites in Sweden: Hotmail.com, MSN.se, MSN.com, Passagen.se, Evreka.com and Torget.se.