Ingenio Becomes Sponsor of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO)
Palo Alto, CA - Jan 9, 2006 - The Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) today announced that Ingenio, Inc., the pioneer and leading provider of Pay Per Call® advertising, has become a sponsor for the organization's 2006 initiatives and activities.
SEMPO is a non-profit professional association working worldwide to increase awareness and promote the value of Search Engine Marketing worldwide. SEMPO sponsors support the organization and provide the funds for primary research and developing educational materials for the industry.
"Ingenio values SEMPO's mission to advance awareness and knowledge of search marketing," said Mark Britto, chief executive officer, Ingenio. "The space has grown from simple text ads to more robust offerings in local and global search marketing. Pay Per Call is a natural next step to bringing the search marketing value proposition to a whole new segment of advertisers. We're excited to keep our momentum going by teaming up with an organization like SEMPO."
According to SEMPO research, advertisers worldwide spend billions of dollars a year on search engine marketing programs. This includes payments to search engines and search-related media companies, search engine marketing agencies as well as in-house expenditures in support of such programs, including "paid placement," "paid inclusion" and "organic search engine optimization."
Dana Todd, President of SEMPO Inc., said, "Pay Per Call is clearly gathering steam, especially as local search evolves and merchants of all shapes and sizes are looking to leverage the Web as a lead generation vehicle. There is a great deal of growth to come, as our members and the SEM community move to embrace what is no doubt a large marketing opportunity. Ingenio pioneered the Pay Per Call advertising category, and we look forward to working with them to further educate marketers about the effectiveness of this model, especially as it relates to mobile and local search."