Filipino businesses and advertisers can now promote their products through the Yahoo! search engine.

This new advertising product “enables small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs), as well as large businesses in the Philippines, to reach over 53 million potential new customers in Southeast Asia and 500 million Yahoo! users worldwide, said Yahoo! Southeast Asia general manager for Philippine operations Joselito Añonuevo.

Dubbed “Panama,” this new Yahoo! product “delivers highly-targeted customer leads to businesses by displaying their advertisements as paid search results across the Internet,” Añonuevo said. “The new sponsored search product allows businesses to place contextually-relevant text ads within consumer search results, allowing them to connect with customers searching online for precisely what they sell.”

Contextual marketing is an online marketing model in which people are served with targeted advertising based on terms they search for or their recent browsing behavior.

The advertising product is based on a “pay-per-click” model in which advertisers can get qualified leads for as little as $0.01. “Any advertiser can launch a search-advertising campaign within minutes through an online signup process,” Añonuevo said.”

He said this Yahoo! product offers SMEs the benefits of a “cost-effective method for advertising.”

“In the Philippines, approximately 781,000 SMEs in the country stand to benefit from a cost-effective and easy-to-use sponsored-search product that will give them a wider reach across Southeast Asia and the worldwide marketplace,” Añonuevo said.

Margaret Chang, Yahoo! Southeast Asia general manager for search marketing, said the introduction of this new product has strengthened Yahoo!’s position as a “must-buy” advertising network in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

The new online advertising product has core features that include geo-targeting to enable advertisers to display their ads broadly across the entire market or target specific countries in the Southeast Asia; ad testing that allows them to test multiple versions of their ads to determine the message that works best for their customers; an easy-to-use control panel that helps advertisers zero in on what works and provides insights that help them take action so they achieve better results; campaign budgeting and scheduling that allows advertisers to create, budget and schedule individual ad campaigns so they have greater control over their ad strategy and spending and; an enhanced conversion tracking application that tracks campaigns that convert immediately and those that contribute, over time, through deferred transactions.

Besides offering online advertising facilities, Yahoo! is also offering mobile advertising for cellular phone users with Internet-capable handsets. With this product, Yahoo! offers a “rich, comprehensive set of mobile advertising products designed to empower marketeers to tap the rapidly growing and lucrative audience of mobile consumers,” Añonuevo said.

LISTED First Philippine Holdings Corp. (FPHC) admitted to have considered listing its shares at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) but present conditions forced the company to rethink its plan.

Sun now covers 6M users, says 3G service is ‘better’

DIGITEL Mobile Philippines Inc.’s (DMPI) wireless brand, Sun Cellular, has already signed up six million subscribers and vowed to add four million more in the remaining months of the year.

Filipino businesses and advertisers can now promote their products through the Yahoo! search engine.

THE dust is not expected to settle down even after the issue of whoever gains or retains control of the management of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) is resolved today at its annual stockholders meeting.

DAVAO CITY—The mango production venture formed by a former mango contractor that hit a gold find in chemical distribution and a Middle East-financed buyer based in Cagayan de Oro City is now reaping the success of this union.

MARKET investors have a lesson to learn from the way Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has suffered as a result of the relentless attack made by Winston Garcia—president, general manager and vice chairman of the board of trustees of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS)—against the company and the Lopezes, who control its board and management. That lesson is: at the first sign of trouble, sell. Or In this case, at Garcia’s initial salvo, sell?