WebProNews

Yesterday's Piper Jaffray Technology Conference saw Overture discussing its plan for the near future with its search engine advertising business. Among the items discussed by Overture's General Manager David Karnstedt was the introduction of its local search product this quarter.

The local search is being brought about in an effort to capture traditional direct marketers. In an article that appeared in DMNews, Karnstedt said, "our real challenge is not necessarily the other people that participating in the search space but shifting dollars from other direct response advertisers, like direct mail and yellow pages."

Overture is launching its local search advertising campaign in an effort to appeal to the larger advertisers. Karnstedt stated that these efforts are not being done to mimic main competitor Google, who is expected to venture into local search advertising. Yahoo and Google recently added local search as options on their search engines.

Other expansions that Overture is planning on making available this coming year to further their appeal to larger advertisers are keyword advertising, paid inclusion, and contextual-style ads. "We're really focused on those top echelon advertisers," Karnstedt said. "Those are the type of people who help us drive our key economics."

Recently, Overture unveiled a variation of their local search product when they partnered with Citysearch, is a local search engine that you can tailor to your area. It has search functions in most major areas of the US and abroad.

Overture provides the aforementioned style of ads and listings for Citysearch in areas that the engine has ad inventory.

Thanks to Andy Beal for the find.

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