• by David Goetzl , May 6, 2009

Some conference attendees listening to a local ESPN radio station this morning may have heard an ad for a competitor. The spot for email service provider (ESP) Constant Constant promised businesses to “help … generate the almighty referrals” and plugged a trial offer.

The publicly traded ESP has been running the campaign since last September and management has suggested it is helping grab new customers, which it said grew 54% in 2008 to 253,400. But its CEO Gail Goodman said on an earnings call last fall that “the majority of the campaign’s impact is expected to be seen in 2009.”

In February, hwoever, he added: “It's worth noting that our evaluation of radio when done completely, really actually needs more time than we've had to date, so our full evaluation of our spend won't happen until we can look back and do statistical analysis.”

Constant Contact is believed to be the first and only ESP to run a campaign in a non business-to-business medium.

Goodman said the budget calls for the campaign to continue for the full year. The company did not specify the cost of the media spend, but said sales and marketing expenses were $13.1 million (52% of revenue) in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Besides ESPN, ads have run on AM stations owned by CBS; the company says they are on “five major networks,” which it did not identify in an earnings call.

Curious what happens if the radio campaign is deemed an unequivocal success. Will Constant Contact run into any trouble persuading clients to pull money out of a traditional marketing budget and shift it to email marketing?