DM News: Overture Starts Local Search Ad Program

Overture plans to announce the introduction of Local Match today, its answer to Google's locally targeted paid search. Advertisers will be able to limit their paid search listings appearances to those people within a 20-mile to 100-mile distance to a location of the advertiser's choice. Local Match will be available on Yahoo, MSN and several other sites to start, but only for locations in the U.S.

Unlike Google's service, Overture is requiring advertisers to have a proximate physical location before joining the Local Match program.

Sites participating in the targeting scheme can choose how the geo-targeting works. For example, if the site maintains user registration information with zip codes, it can employ that. It can also use IP number resolving and other alternatives, or even simply ask the users explicitly just where they are at the time of the search.