WebProNews

Google and Saleforce.com have teamed up to integrate AdWords with Salesforce's customer relationship management (CRM) applications. Offering a hybrid called Salesforce Group Edition, the alliance is aimed at leveling the playing field for small and medium-sized businesses looking to compete online.

"The Web has quickly become the most powerful tool small and medium sized businesses can use to compete and win in today’s economy," said Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO.

The alliance is global, spanning some 43 countries, and though critics are disappointed in the scope of the partnership (alas, this seems to be the pattern with Google – their plans rarely match the hype), but it does allow direct creation of AdWords accounts, ads, and campaigns via Saleforce.

Here's the bulleted version:

• Immediate connection with AdWords with ability to create ads for both AdWords and AdSense.


• Integrated search advertising and lead generation. Ads appear in the sponsored search results and clicks lead to a capture form (which nobody really likes to fill out, but are necessary in this game).


• Leads are fed into the Salesforce application, allowing sales teams to manage and share leads.


• Dashboards to view sales metrics in real time.


• Application mash-up capabilities via Saleforce's AppExchange directory, with about 600 apps.

"Now there is a single online destination for businesses of all sizes to attract and acquire new customers, while closely tracking the return on their valuable marketing dollars," said Sheryl Sandberg, Vice President, global online sales and operations at Google.

"This alliance is about introducing new audiences to the benefits of online advertising, marketing and sales through the integration of two world-class solutions to help small and medium businesses succeed in today’s global marketplace."

Ephraim Schwartz of InfoWorld, isn't so terribly impressed however. It's impressive he could stay awake long enough to point out:

The only difference now is that the Google AdWords stats can now be incorporated into the Salesforce lead-generation form, giving salespeople more data on the customer, such as how long they stayed on the site, what they looked at, and so on.