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eBay enters radio ads segment

eBay is getting into radio advertising and will make available "prime" inventory from more than 2,300 radio stations.

eBay is on its way to competing with Google by getting into the radio advertising business. The online auction leader is trying to expand into offline ads and has become a broker of ad spots.

eBay will partner with privately held Bid4Spots Inc., an Encino-based startup hosting weekly online auctions of radio airtime since January 2005. The agreement means advertisers can bid on eBay for commercial time on more than 2,300 Internet and terrestrial radio stations.

The offline advertising push is one of several areas where San Jose-based eBay is going head to head against Google, which announced in April that it would sell ads on hundreds of stations owned by Clear Channel Communications.

Like Google, eBay will use the Internet to attempt to improve the way these radio ads are bought and sold, and the way radio marketing campaigns are tracked and analyzed.

The eBay Media Marketplace also has a component for brokering cable TV ads, but it is designed for major national advertisers to make planned ad purchases. That cable TV ad service hasn't achieved much popularity yet. The radio service, on the other hand, offers more flexibility, so that advertisers can make "last minute" ad purchases, eBay said. This in turn will let radio stations be more aggressive in pricing, it said.

[ Via computerworld ] [ Via moneycentral ]