Ask.com Updates Features in Paid Search Platform

Search engine Ask.com continued its drive for a slot in the first rank of pay-per-click properties yesterday with the launch of an updated version of its advertising platform, offering more management tools for ad campaigns and more real estate on its results pages.

The changes include a simplified dashboard interface that will permit tracking the performance of multiple campaigns on the Ask.com platform and bulk upload enhancements that can automate the handling of up to 65,000 keywords.

Advertisers on the Ask Sponsored Listing platform will also get daily budgeting tools that provide budget caps rather than monthly tools with spending targets, according to James Speer, vice president of products and marketing at Ask.com. “The reality is that the target simply was that — a target — and we would underdeliver against it sometimes and over-deliver other times,” he said. “Now it’s buttoned up, and we can guarantee that if you want to spend $100 today, that’s all that you’ll spend.”

ASL will also open up three pay-per-click ad slots on Ask search results pages and some other properties operated by parent company IAC/InterActive. For the last year or so, Ask.com has been offering only the top slot on its pages, with the other positioned backfilled by ads from Google.

Speer says offering more inventory choices will accommodate advertisers who may find they get more efficient returns on search marketing in the lower positions and at lower costs.

It gives the advertisers a little more control over solving for their ROI goals,” he said. “You don’t need to bid now to be in the first position. A lot of people are comfortable with the traffic they get in third position.” He pointed to studies that indicate that the three lead ad positions on the right side get most of the ad viewership on a results page.

The same changes in ad display will also occur on selected IAC Web properties such as Evite, CitySearch and RealEstate.com.

Ask has also initiated an Open Platform Partner Program that will make its application programming interface (API) available for free to third-party developers. The aim is to encourage partners to develop tools and services that support and extend the ASL platform without requiring Ask to take a hand in the development work.

Speer said more than 100 partners are currently working with the Ask API. Some of the first tools that have resulted are integrated bid and campaign management applications, important to marketers and agencies that are also running ads on Google, Yahoo! and Windows Live Search.

“We see [the open API initiative] as a growth engine for the program going forward,” Speer said.

In April, Google announced it would institute a per-use charge for developers accessing its AdWords API, replacing a model that let them use it for free as long as they kept use below a certain level. Originally slated to go into effect in July, that change was pushed back and actually took effect on Oct. 1 instead.