Salesforce.com has acquired a service that lets users create adverts for Google AdWords and monitor the success of their search-engine marketing campaigns without leaving the online salesforce automation and customer relationship management host. However, rival NetSuite may have trumped it by offering a similar service free and with additional Yahoo support.

Called Salesforce for Google AdWords, the mash-up tracks results of adverts placed, including deals that close, and can deliver return-on-investment metrics.

“The really cool thing is seeing the stats come through at the keyword level,” wrote a reviewer on the Perspectives on Salesforce.com blog. “You can see how many times you ad was displayed vs. clicked by keyword. You can also see the number of leads by keyword and the Google cost of any clicks by keyword.”

The technology behind Salesforce for Google AdWords is from Kieden, a tiny startup acquired by Salesforce earlier this month. In April, Salesforce also acquired Sendia, a company that develops technology for mobilising on-demand applications. Both firms offered their products on Salesforce’s AppExchange marketplace for plug-in programs.

“It’s a small acquisition but we feel there’s a huge opportunity as search-engine marketing is changing advertising,” said Phill Robinson, Salesforce marketing vice-president. “We plan to deepen integration and support all the major search brands.”

Salesforce for Google AdWords can be downloaded from the AppExchange marketplace as a free 30-day trial or for $300 per organisation, per month. AppExchange has now registered more than 12,000 installations since its debut last September.

Search engine marketing is booming as firms take advantage of the internet to achieve more targeted campaigns than would have been possible with traditional media.

Salesforce cited research from the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization that suggests campaigns in North America alone will almost double to be worth $11bn in 2010.

Not to be outdone, Salesforce rival NetSuite has released a similar service at no extra charge to its users. NetSuite Keyword Marketing Module supports Yahoo Sponsored Search as well as Google AdWords. NetSuite and Google have posted a web seminar on the collaboration.

“Salesforce.com's acquistion is an attempt to catch up with NetSuite in this space,” said Zach Nelson, NetSuite chief executive.

“The fact that NetSuite has order management integrated in system will always give us a better solution as we can track word-to-close. Despite their claims, since they have no order data in Salesforce.com, they can't track word to close. Also, NetSuite Keyword Marketing Module supports Yahoo, which represents 30 per cent of al keyword purchases. And NetSuite wrote the NetSuite Keyword Marketing Module. Code that is tightly integrated with a product will always work more efficiently than code kludged together from multiple sources.”