Ask.com is launching a new sponsored listings contextual product and will go live the week of May 21st.

The Ask contextual product will initially launch within IAC’s own network of sites including Match.com, Ticketmaster, Evite and Citysearch and will then expand to trusted third party publishers. Individual publishers will most likely have to wait until next quarter to gain access to this contextual product.

OAKLAND, Calif. – April 25, 2007 – IAC Advertising Solutions (IACAS), a wholly-owned business of IAC (Nasdaq; IACI), today announced a contextual advertising product that enables publishers to generate revenue via contextually-relevant ad units on their content pages. The contextual product is integrated into the Ask Sponsored Listings (ASL) platform and allows ASL advertisers to seamlessly extend their pay per click advertising campaigns to content pages. Reaching over 34 million unique users each month the ASL content advertising network will launch with sites from IAC’s portfolio of brands including Match.com, Ticketmaster, Evite and Citysearch.

“IAC Advertising Solutions already operates the 3rd largest search advertising network1. We’ve achieved this scale by providing innovative and flexible monetization solutions to more than 90 publishers. We are excited about this new offering and the expanded set of publishers that we’ll be able to serve through a content advertising network.” said James Speer, GM Search Marketing at IAC Advertising Solutions.

IACAS continues to make significant investments in people and technology to better support a growing network of publishers. “We have consistently heard that publishers want more diversity in their revenue streams and transparency into the true value of their inventory. We fully expect that our new contextual product will satisfy the needs of these content owners” said Speer.

The value of contextual lies in its ability to deliver relevant high yield advertisements deep within the content channels of web properties. As a result publishers are free to focus resources on other revenue streams including integrated brand sponsorships. The ASL contextual product provides superior sell through today for publishers of technology, telecommunications, travel, automotive, real estate and finance content.

Contextual Advertising Features and Benefits

Increased Page Yield
Higher revenues due to an established and growing advertiser base
Improved relevance and higher yields than ROS/RON CPM ads
Customizable yield thresholds to support page yield management
Self-serve revenue reporting portal
Revenue reporting across multiple channels and products

Enhanced Editorial Control
Customization of ad look and feel (background color, font, layout, graphics)
Customizable relevancy settings to meet user experience goals
Editorial control of advertisers (competitive advertiser blocking)
Editorial categorization of site pages is supported

Improved Integration Capabilities
Contextual ad tags can be served via existing publisher ad servers (i.e. DFP, AdManager)
Standardized ad tags promote quick and easy implementations with little or no maintenance

The Ask Sponsored Listings contextual product will be available during the week of May 21st. For more information publishers can send email to bizdev@ask.com