Pets.com Begins Campaign on XOOM.com

San Francisco-based Pets.com , an online provider of pet products, information and services, began an online campaign with XOOM.com, a direct e-commerce company.

The campaign runs for three months and is the first in a series of aggressive online and offline marketing campaigns aimed at building brand, driving traffic to its site, selling products online and furthering its position as the online pets leader, Pets.com said. Spending was not disclosed.

As part of the agreement, XOOM.com will create a new pets category in its shopping section and will feature Pets.com as a premier sponsor, allowing Pets.com to have a fixed spotlight position on the Shopping Channel home page and direct links to the Pets.com site. In addition, Pets.com will receive direct e-commerce opportunities to sell its products through XOOM.com’s targeted email campaigns to its members.

“An advertising campaign with XOOM.com will afford us the broad Internet reach we need to extend our position as a top e-commerce site,” said Julie Wainwright, CEO of Pets.com. “Plus, XOOM.com’s audience is ideal for online sponsorship and e-commerce — they are active online shoppers. . .”

XOOM.com attracts members by offering free services, including homepage building, chat rooms, message boards, HTML email, online greeting cards, clip art and downloadable software utilities.

Pets.com is a privately held company funded by Amazon.com and Hummer Winblad Venture Partners.