FindWhat Rolls Out Bidding Tool

Paid search company FindWhat announced on Tuesday the availability of a new tool allowing its advertisers to automatically optimize their keyword bids.

With AutoBid, advertisers enter the maximum bid amount they are willing to pay for a keyword. The tool then finds the best position for the bid in the FindWhat network, charging a penny above the next most competitive bid and eliminating bidding gaps.

“The end result is an automated bidding tool that makes keyword bid management at FindWhat faster, simpler, and much more effective for our advertisers,” said Craig Pisaris-Henderson, the company’s chairman and CEO.

Like market leaders Overture and Google, Fort Myers, Fla.-based FindWhat.com operates a pay-per-click advertising network with about 23,000 advertisers. Unlike the two market leaders, which have fought over key distribution deals with the major portals, FindWhat.com’s network consists of second-and third-tier sites like Dogpile, Webcrawler and Excite. In the last quarter, FindWhat.com’s network generated 75.3 million click-throughs.

With keywords on Overture and Google fetching increasingly higher prices, the company has carved out a niche in the mid-market. Last month, FindWhat rolled out AdAnalyzer, a tool that allows advertisers to calculate the return on investment of their keyword advertising programs.

Separately, FindWhat said yesterday that it would move to the Nasdaq National Market Previously, the company had a small-cap listing on the exchange. FindWhat’s stock price has more than doubled in the past year, thanks to the strength of the paid search market. The change goes into effect on Thursday.