As reported by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, eBay will be expanding it’s MediaMarketplace ad auction system into radio time through a partnership with radio ad auction startup Bid4Spot. eBay started MediaMarketplace last year to sell ad time on national cable networks for a coalition of well-known advertisers, including Home Depot Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard.
The announcement puts eBay up against Google, which last year acquired Bid4Spot competitor dMarc Broadcasting for $1.24 billion. Google has already soft launched an audio ad auction system and, in April, struck a deal with Clear Channel to sell ads across all the company’s 675 stations and recently started selling ad space on Dish Networks channels.
eBay’s Encino California based partner, Bid4Spots, has been selling radio ads in the US for the past two years and recently expanded to the UK last month. The partnership will allow advertisers to buy unsold radio inventory from 2,300 radio stations in the top 300 media markets in the United States through eBay’s MediaMarketplace or Bid4Spots own site.
The Journal cites the $20 billion radio-advertising business as an attractive market, but highlights eBay’s experience in cable advertising. eBay’s initial foray into cable was balked by networks wary of an auction system depressing ad revenue until the Oxygen channel agreed to participate in a test. It may be more of the same may for radio advertisers.
It doesn’t appear that eBay is assisting advertisers in creating spots, something that is crucial to getting smaller advertisers to participate. Google is helping with ad creation, as does competitor Voices.com.
Does Ebay have so much cash on hand the SEC wants to call them a bank?
- I don’t think so … (Google does)
- The only reason they can compete is maybe becuase they are starting around the same time …
- Cash on hand + More PHD’s + being Google not Ebay
= Google wins this one
Looks like eBay is struggling with it’s core business growth rate slowing now…one evidence of this is the huge payouts they are giving affiliate marketers to sign anyone up who does not have an eBay account.
I’m not sure I buy this as a good way for eBay to compete with Google. I also don’t think Google will suceed in trying to fix the radio ad market.
eBay should be eBay, don’t try to compete with Google on their terms.
I have some experience with the folks at bid4spots and they have a very sound model and a good record of success. These folks have good radio industry contacts and that will be good leverage.
Google landed a deal with Clear Channel?
Good night, game over, thanks for playing!
Wow, this market is really heating up. Now let’s what for MSN and Yahoo! to make a move.
To clarify: Google bought dMarc for $102m in cash with performance incentives that could have pushed the sale to $1.2b. The founders left, the performance targets were not met and the sale of dMarc is estimated to be approximately $200m, $1b shy of the often reported amount.
Interesting times are ahead with eBay and Google competing for audio ads market share.
I like when other companies step on Google’s toes every once in a while.
I’m not sure this is going to be a winner for eBay but if feels like so many other companies either try to mimic google (microsoft +yahoo) or simple roll over and play dead when they enter the sandbox.
maybe its just me (and I like google a lot) but I hate the megacorp monopoly vibe I been getting from google lately.
You know what … Good for eBay … someone has to give Google a squeeze somewhere … if Google keeps up at it’s current pace … the internet won’t be the internet any more … it will just be Google … “let me jump on the google and check my gmail … look at a few you tube videos … click on a few doubleclick ads for other google properties … and read my blogs that all feed through FeedBurner (a google company)”!
If eBay just creates the option … it will keep google on their toes …
Darin
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I feel Ebay is capable of penetrate the market with such advertising, I would want to see Google get some competition too.