Shopping.com Leverages Switchboard’s LocalClicksSM Performance-based Advertising to Promote Products to Local Searchers
Shopping.com Product Information Expands Switchboard Content in Key Retail Categories
WESTBOROUGH, Mass., January 13, 2004 – Switchboard Incorporated (NASDAQ: SWBD), a leading provider of local online advertising solutions and Internet-based yellow pages, today announced that Shopping.com, the leading provider of comparison shopping services, has selected LocalClicks, Switchboard’s performance-based advertising for local search, to promote its comparison shopping service, product offerings and valuable consumer information in key categories on the Switchboard.com website.
Under the companies’ new relationship, Shopping.com has created a customized, co-branded version of its website for Switchboard that has been programmed directly into Switchboard Yellow Pages results. Through a variety of paid LocalClicks links, interwoven with the local business listings in the top-searched retail categories on the Switchboard site, users are now able to easily access related Shopping.com product specifications, pricing and availability information as well as ratings and reviews from its Epinions community. Switchboard users, who are searching for businesses that meet their product or service needs, can now comparison shop before purchasing from either the local retailers they find in the popular Internet directory, or the many trusted Shopping.com online stores.
“Switchboard’s more than 5 million unique monthly users represent an important segment of online shoppers who are ready-to-buy,” said Nirav Tolia, Chief Operating Officer of Shopping.com. “Through Switchboard’s LocalClicks promotion, we can put our valuable consumer information as well as our online merchant’s product offerings directly in front of shoppers who are statistically proven to be highly likely to make a purchase based on their search experience.”
"We continue to extend our local business content by using our LocalClicks products to attract new and interesting advertisers,” said Dean Polnerow, President and CEO of Switchboard. “Shopping.com’s breadth of product information adds great value to the Switchboard user experience, and is an important addition to our LocalClicks advertising program.”
About Switchboard Incorporated
Switchboard is a leading provider of local online advertising solutions for merchants and national advertisers, enabled by our innovative, consumer-oriented, online yellow and white pages directory technology. A pioneer of locally-oriented business searching, Switchboard.com and the sites of its many directory affiliates connect nearly 9 million unique, ready-to-buy consumers each month with the businesses that have what they need, driving local commerce through online innovation. Switchboard is headquartered in Westborough, MA. For more information, visit www.switchboard.com. ePresence (NASDAQ: EPRE) owns approximately 51.1% of the outstanding shares of Switchboard.
About Shopping.com
Shopping.com is a comparison shopping service committed to delivering the world`s ultimate shopping experience, where people use the power of information to make the best shopping decisions. It is the only resource that combines millions of in-depth consumer product reviews with detailed price information on millions of products from thousand of stores.
Shopping.com is the result of the April 2003 merger of two pioneering Internet companies: DealTime, the leading shopping search engine; and Epinions, the leading consumer reviews platform. Shopping.com is privately-held and backed by August Capital, Bain Capital, Benchmark Capital, Bertelsmann, Goldman Sachs, Israel Seed Partners and others.
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