Online marketing services firm Overture has officially launched in Australia to grow the business and provide a local point of contact for existing customers, according to Overture Australia's managing director Mel Bohse.

"We've been live for just over two weeks but already have 2000 local advertisers using Overture from overseas," Bohse said. "Our local partners include Yahoo!, OzEmail, AltaVista, HP and CCH."

With 14 staff in Australia, Overture is looking to add partners as an initial marketing program and will then move to a referral program.

"We're sitting at about 40 percent market reach so as we continue to add partners we will then hit the second-tier sites, such as ISPs, that have high traffic," Bohse said. "Sites can put up an Overture tile and we then pay the referral site a one-off bounty."

Overture recently conducted a four-state roadshow targeting accountants and financial planners, and entered into a content partnership with CCH Business Services "to educate Australian CCH subscribers on the benefits of pay-for-performance search marketing".

Bohse said this partnership confirms Overture's commitment to the Australian SME sector.

"We estimate that within the next two to three years SMEs will make up approximately 50 percent of our total customer base," she said.

Overture International's president Brian Steel, who is visiting for the launch, said although search engine marketing is unlikely to become a dominant form of advertising the market is growing rapidly.

"A number of independent sources indicate that the market for paid search engine advertising will reach $US15 billion in a few years, from $4 billion this year," Steel said. "This includes pay-for-performance and paid inclusions but even that [$15b] is a fraction of total advertising spend."

Overture offers a marketing console that monitors the performance of paid searches as well as other forms of advertising like banner ads.

"Our message is to see the incredible growth of online searching as now 90 percent of online transactions originate from Web searching," Steel said. "With search, companies only pay when a contact is made. For example, the average company is receiving $2000 for a $400 advertising spend."

Steel said the concept of paid inclusions and sponsored listings doesn't conflict with the perceived role of search engines as a tool to provide objective information and, as such, end users benefit.

"The trouble with traditional spiders crawling the Web is that a lot of content is not 'crawlable' and it takes time," he said. "Relevant content may be missed so paid inclusions ensures relevant results are included. Also, sponsored listings are more relevant to search enquiries than general searches."

Overture employs "hundreds" of editors, including a team in Australia, to ensure search queries work and are relevant.

Steel said the acquisition by Yahoo! was "surprisingly seamless" as the two businesses complement each other and the Yahoo! brand has helped Overture's recognition.

Locally, Bohse said there are no plans to amalgamate Overture and Yahoo! as the two businesses run separately and complement each other.