Ask.com to Roll Contextual Ad Network

IAC/InterActive Corp., the company that operates the Ask.com search engine, will launch a contextual ad network to let advertisers place pay-per-click ads on the content pages of some of its Web properties, including Match.com, Ticketmaster, Evite and Citysearch.

The contextual portion of the Ask Sponsored Listings platform, scheduled to launch the end of next month, will also extend to some publisher sites among the 90 that use Ask.com for search and pay-per-click search ads. Other Web publishers will be able to sign up for the contextual network later in the year; IAC Advertising Solutions will reportedly offer an automated sign-up for smaller publishers.

The ASL platform will offer advertisers separate bidding for search and contextual ads, along with unique reporting tools and the ability to block referrers. Publishers will be able to set thresholds for both page yield and ad relevance, to suit those who want to emphasize either ad revenue or relevance to their pages.

“We have consistently heard that publishers want more diversity in their revenue streams and transparency into the true value of their inventory,” said James Speer, general manager for search marketing at IAC Advertising Solutions in a statement. “We fully expect that our new contextual product will satisfy the needs of these content owners.”