SEATTLE, Feb. 21, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- WhitePages.com, a top-50 Web site, today introduced Geo-destination Targeting to online advertisers looking for an effective solution for reaching a local audience. Using the latest Geo-destination Targeting technology, WhitePages.com enables national advertisers to deliver advertising to a geographically targeted audience based on a combination of the user's location and the location of their search.
WhitePages.com, the leading online provider of free residential contact information, has more than 20 million unique visitors per month. Customers using the site conduct millions of people searches in the U.S. and Canada every day, often searching for friends, family or business contacts outside of their immediate geographical area. Geo-destination Targeting allows an advertiser to serve an ad on WhitePages.com to customers with an inherent interest in a specific city or state when their computer is located in another region.
For example, someone in San Francisco searching for their college roommate in New York City would be served a relevant ad highlighting special airfare rates from San Francisco to New York City. In this case, Geo-destination Targeting enables the advertiser to reach a customer interested in New York City with a promotion directly tied to their search for a person in that market. Geo-destination Targeting assumes an increased likelihood that the customer would be interested in the local promotion based on their search behavior. Through this technology, advertisers are able to more effectively reach their audience by targeting their ad to a customer with a greater interest in the product or promotion.
The product is especially appealing for agencies with a diverse client list that are looking for unique and effective ways to reach a specific audience. Interactive agency Avenue A / Razorfish was the first agency to offer Geo-destination Targeting to their clients.
"We are always looking for opportunities that enable our clients to reach their target audience in a relevant and meaningful way," said Kristie Frankland, account director of Avenue A / Razorfish. "Targeting based on location is an effective solution, and for businesses in many categories WhitePages.com's new product is a strong opportunity for advertisers seeking out audiences by geography."
Geo-destination Targeting enables advertisers to gain the same rewards they would from a traditional local search site, but at a higher value. WhitePages.com executes nearly 240 million searches per month, many of those searches for contacts outside of the user's local area. According to comScore (a), WhitePages.com is the most trafficked directory site on the Internet.
"WhitePages.com has always been able to deliver exceptional value to advertisers," said Susie Kang, senior vice president, WhitePages.com Network. "Geo-destination Targeting is a value-add that allows us to help national advertisers better target their local market promotions to users with a strong inclination to click through to their site based on simple non-personally identifiable search behavior."
About WhitePages.com, Inc.
WhitePages.com Inc., a privately held company based in Seattle, provides online directory assistance and contact management services and is the largest provider of free online residential directory assistance in North America. The company's network of sites include WhitePages.com (www.whitepages.com), WhitePages.ca (www.whitepages.ca), 411.com (www.411.com), PhoneNumber.com (www.phonenumber.com), and its 1,300 partner sites including MSN, RealPages.com, SmartPages.com, YellowPages.com and the Yellow Pages Group in Canada. WhitePages.com was selected in the past year as the WSA Consumer Product of the Year, named the 55th fastest growing technology company in North America on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, named the 57th fastest growing private company by Inc. Magazine and selected as a 'Best Company to Work For' by Washington CEO magazine.
The WhitePages.com, Inc. logo is available at: http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2367
(a) comScore Media Metrix, Dec. 2005