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Google is offering free online marketing to thousands of small and medium sized business to help them beat the economic blues.
Google said there were about 350,000 small to medium sized enterprises in the country but any company that had not tried its AdWords service could sign up for a $75 search marketing campaign.
Google general manager Australia & New Zealand Karim Temsamani said an online search result displayed a mixture of free and sponsored links, which when clicked on would generally cost a company no more than a few cents.
"A few dollars can go a very long way," Temsamani said. "We've got a number of examples of small businesses in New Zealand that have started very small with AdWords campaign and got enormous return investment and therefore we want to make sure that all businesses in New Zealand have the opportunity to really be able to trial search marketing."
Google globally generated more than US$20 billion of revenue, with the vast majority coming from its search products, including AdWords and AdSense, which partners with website owners to place adverts on their sites.
Google did not have set expectations for the response to its marketing campaign giveaway, Temsamani said.
"Essentially our view is that we need the eco system to continue growing and as we are helping small businesses grow their business we can see that if they are getting the right results from their search campaigns they will continue to use search as a means to dialogue and reach customers in the future."
Google has seen strong growth in search queries in the past year, he said.
"Kiwis are going online to research their purchases more carefully, whether it's a hotel or flights, a restaurant booking, a new credit card or a new consumer electronics gadget."
Google said travel searches were up nearly 30 per cent year on year since May, 2008, while automotive, finance/insurance and computer/ electronics were up 27 per cent, 20 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.
Google Adwords
