Google, eBay Team in Overseas Ad Pact

Google, the world’s leading search engine, and eBay, the online auction powerhouse, have inked a multiyear pact that will see Google exclusively provide text advertisements for eBay’s auction sites outside of the United States, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Google and eBay will start testing the text ads in 2007, and they’ll also dually develop “click-to-call” ad projects under which Web surfers will be able to simply click on an ad to make a call directly to advertisers or Web retailers, the Journal reports.

Both companies will share portions of the revenue derived from the new ads, and eBay said such earnings wouldn’t impact its 2006 or 2007 financials, though additional details about the deal weren’t made publicly available, according to the Journal.

In May, eBay made a similar deal with Google rival Yahoo that granted the search firm exclusive rights to distribute ads on eBay sites in the United States, the Journal reports. Yahoo also said it would push eBay’s PayPal Web payment offering on its sites, according to the Journal.

The most recent deal suggests that eBay isn’t putting all of its eggs in one basket in the Web advertising space, and it’s trying to cozy up to a number of Web heavies to boost its popular online auction business as well as its thriving advertising service.

The deal is the latest for Google, which has been quite busy in recent days striking deals with the likes of Dell, AOL and a number of News Corp. companies to extend its reach on the Web and build additional services, the Journal reports. Earlier this month, Google said it won itself a major contract to exclusively provide search technology on the MySpace.com site.

eBay was one of Google’s first advertisers, and it has stayed with the search firm over the years to become one of its largest ad customers, according to the Journal.

Within the past year, Google started taking steps into eBay’s traditional space, launching a service that enables Web surfers to post on its site products for sale and advertisements, as well as a Web payment service to rival PayPal, called Google Checkout.

Related Links:

• The Enterprise Gets Googled

• eBay Bars Use of Google Checkout

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