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Advertising - Wednesday, June 6, 2007

eBay Partners W/ Bid4Spots On Radio Ad Auctions

eBay has entered into an alliance with Encino, CA-based Bid4Spots. Thisputs eBay in direct competition with Google's AdWords for radio initiative.

Privately-held Bid4Sspots runs weekly reverse auctions to radio ad buying and selling. Bid4Spots says 1,500 advertisers and agencies are now signed into the system. It is used by 2,300 radio stations nationwide, representing nearly all of the top 300 US markets. IBid4Spots last-minute auction rates/CPMs have generally been 70-90% lower then the regular rate card. Availables are for last-minute inventory, airtime that hasn’t been sold as of the Thursday before the broadcast week. In a recent record week, Bid4Spots put the spot value transacted at $224K for the week.

Google in April announced plans to sell ads on more than 675 radio stations owned by Clear Channel. Last year Google bought dMarc Broadcasting which sells radio ad space online.

For its part, EBay, meanwhile, last year began its Media Marketplace Web site, meant to broker cableTV ads for a consortium of advertisers, including Home Depot, Microsoft. and HP. The marketplace has struggled to find a cable network willing to test the site, but last week Oxygen network says it would give it a go.

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