MSN's local search engine Thursday began to include three local search ads, provided by Verizon's SuperPages.com, for every search result. The ads are a mix of pay-per-click, pay-per-call, and
fixed-rate pricing; all are sold by Verizon's local sales teams.
"It gives our advertisers more exposure to their users, and obviously help drives traffic to our users," said Robyn
Rose, SuperPages' director of product and channel marketing. "MSN is really putting a high value on our local sales force as well. That's something they really don't have en masse--We have the
relationships with the local people."
The ad unit populated by SuperPages' ads appears at the top of the results pages for MSN Local Search--which MSN launched last June. Rose said the ads are
culled from SuperPages.com's list of local advertisers for the given geography and then selected by an MSN-developed algorithm. Pay-per-click and pay-per-call ads are selected first, and if there are
not enough pay-per-performance ads available, the remaining units are populated with fixed-rate ads.
SuperPages' other distribution partners include WhitePages.com, 411.com, About.com, and MSN's
biggest competitor, search giant Google.