GoTo Launches Marketing Campaign To Attract Advertisers

Pay-for-placement search engine GoTo.com Friday kicked-off a national direct and referral marketing campaign with a goal of attracting 10,000 new advertisers by the end of the year.

The four-month campaign will target medium and large companies doing business on the Web. Executives said they hope it will draw attention to GoTo’s recent affiliate alliances and the potentially wide distribution the deals allow advertisers.

Several high-profile, high-priced alliances with America Online and AOL brands CompuServe and Netscape, as well as tech-industry publisher CNET enable the company to run its pay-for-placement search returns on search engines beyond its own.

GoTo estimates that its search results will reach up to 60 million unique users once these alliances are fully implemented, and hopes to communicate that reach to potential advertisers through the campaign.

“This is an excellent opportunity for us to spread the word that GoTo’s pay-for-performance advertising is the most effective way for companies doing business on the Web to drive highly qualified leads to their sites,” said Jay Gallinatti, GoTo senior vice president, advertiser and affiliate marketing.

The campaign, which was jointly created by GoTo and DDB Los Angeles, will use a mix of direct marketing, opt-in email and referral marketing.

The campaign begins with an integrated direct response and online marketing effort.

In addition, spokespeople said the campaign will use some guerilla marketing initiatives, like setting up day spas at San Francisco and New York advertising agencies and delivering co-branded pies to top prospects.

Ultimately, the company says it expects to reach more than 100,000 prospective advertisers between now and the campaign’s December conclusion, hopefully adding 10,000 to its approximately 30,000 advertisers currently.

GoTo’s pay-for-performance advertising proposition, in which advertisers bid per-clickthrough for placement on its search engine results, has attracted several big-name brands in recent months. Current advertisers include eBay, Eddie Bauer, and Hewlett-Packard.

Spending on the campaign was not disclosed.