Tuesday 8 January 2002 - Yahoo!, the world's number 1 portal, today announced a pan-European alliance with Espotting Media, Jupiter's MMXI's Top 10 future successful companies, to launch Yahoo! Sponsored Matches, an enhanced placement programme that allows Espotting to feature its top five Pay-Per-Click search listings on Yahoo!'s search results pages. The deal will harness Yahoo!s expansive user base and will power 2.5 billion search requests a year across five territories - the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Sponsored Matches is Yahoo! UK & Ireland's first deal of the new year in keeping with chairman and chief executive officer of Yahoo! Inc, Terry Semel's vision to leverage the company's core strengths while building growing and diverse revenue streams.
"Launching Sponsored Matches is a fantastic start to our New Year! It's a great opportunity for businesses to promote themselves to our massive audience and is absolutely inline with the new global strategy of developing alternative revenue streams, moving away from our core media model focus," comments James Bilefield, Yahoo! UK & Ireland's business development director. "Not only does Sponsored Matches fulfil the needs of our users, businesses will also benefit from the high quality results and proven cost effective model of Espotting."
The launch of Sponsored Matches builds on Yahoo!'s strengths as a leading search and directory service. As a result of the deal, Espotting's growing base of 4,500 advertisers, such as Procter & Gamble, eBay and Orange, will be able to reach even more targeted consumers by ensuring their listing appears within Espotting's top five Pay-Per-Click search results. In order to differentiate between paid and editorial placements within Yahoo!'s search results, enhanced placement listings will be clearly marked.
"It is testament to Espotting's superior technology, highly relevant search results and strong European presence, that Yahoo! has chosen us as their European partner" commented David Ishag, Chairman, Espotting Media. "Our partnership with Yahoo! strongly re-affirms Espotting as the No. 1 European player in performance based advertising."
Relevant search results are of utmost importance. The primary benefit of Yahoo!'s search and directory is that it is human-built, placing a user's search in context. Yahoo! experts categorise websites into an organisational structure, effectively connecting consumers with the demographic, geographical or subject-based content, services and businesses they need. Espotting's Editorial Team humanly check that the search terms advertisers bid upon are relevant to their website and wherever possible, direct users to specific pages of a website rather than just the homepage. For example, if someone is searching for Harry Potter books, Espotting directs them to the relevant page for Harry Potter books, which makes the searching experience far more relevant and efficient for the user.
Espotting is the market leader in performance based advertising in the UK, Germany and France and the agreement facilitates the launch of Espotting into Italy and Spain later this year.
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For further information, please contact:
Yahoo! UK & Ireland Press Office on 0207 306 9188.
Chrys Philalithes, UK Marketing Director on 0207 539 0508
Notes to Editors:
About Yahoo! UK & Ireland
Yahoo! UK & Ireland provides commerce, communication and media services to meet the needs of local consumers. This includes world leading communication services such as Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Mobile; community products such as Yahoo! Clubs and Yahoo! Geocities; rich content such as Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Sport, Yahoo! Music and commerce services such as Yahoo! Shopping and Yahoo! Auctions.
Yahoo.co.uk is one of the most popular and most visited websites in the UK & Ireland, generating over 635 million page views in September 2001 (ABC Electronics).
About Yahoo!
Yahoo! UK & Ireland is part of Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet communications, commerce and media company that offers a comprehensive branded network of services to more than 218 million individuals each month worldwide. As the first online navigational guide to the Web, www.yahoo.com is the leading guide in terms of traffic, advertising, household and business user reach. Yahoo! is the No. 1 Internet brand globally and reaches the largest audience worldwide. The company also provides online business and enterprise services designed to enhance the productivity and Web presence of Yahoo!'s clients. These services include Corporate Yahoo!, a popular customised enterprise portal solution; audio and video streaming; store hosting and management; and Web site tools and services. The company's global Web network includes 24 World properties. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., Yahoo! Have offices in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia, Canada and the United States.
About Espotting Media
Espotting Media, is Europe's No. 1 performance based advertising medium. Espotting operates a marketplace where advertisers bid against each other for prominence within their search listings. The higher they bid, the higher they are listed. What's more, advertisers only pay for the traffic they receive - it's pay-per-click advertising that's 100% cost-effective and accountable. Espotting currently has 4,500 advertisers including eBay, beeb.com, Norwich Union Direct, Orange and Go Airlines.
Espotting is established in the UK (espotting.com), France (espotting.fr) and Germany (espotting.de). Espotting results are incorporated into 1,000 affiliate websites, including Yahoo!, Lycos Europe, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, BTLookSmart, ntl:home, Netscape and the easyInternet chain of cafes. Through its affiliate network Espotting powers 540 million search requests each month. In December 2001, Jupiter MMXI analysts picked Espotting Media as one of their Top 10 sites for Future Success.
