Google Uses the Salesforce

• Email
• Share
• Print

Things have been going so well for Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) that now, even other companies are earning a cozy from sending advertisers to its website. Yesterday, Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) announced that it was launching a new service to make sponsored campaigns more effective through Google AdWords.

After a free 30-day trial, Salesforce customers can pay $300 a month to continue the service, which manages paid-search campaigns while also tracking potential leads. With nearly 25,000 corporate clients and more than half a million subscribers to its hosted applications, Salesforce -- which provides online services for employees to track customer leads, accounts, marketing campaigns -- is no slouch.

If successful, Salesforce.com's service has many implications. Obviously, if its blue-chip client list takes to the application, it makes Google a more attractive route for generating leads than other contextual advertising heavies like Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT).

To a lesser extent, if customers see Salesforce as a one-stop shop for their paid-search needs, it may bite into the business of interactive marketing boutiques like aQuantive (Nasdaq: AQNT) and 24/7 Real Media (Nasdaq: TFSM). It may only be a small nibble there, since those companies do so much more than simply manage ad campaigns. But who knows how deep Salesforce will go in this realm if the service takes off?

Rich Smith recently dug into Salesforce's quarterly report. With yet another revenue stream worth tapping, one can only imaging how big this fast-growing company can get.

Microsoft is an Motley Fool Inside Value selection, while Yahoo! is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor pick. Whatever your investing style, the Fool has a newsletter for you, and a free 30-day trial to go with it.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a huge fan of Google, and it would be his homepage if it weren't for Fool.com. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. The Fool has a disclosure policy.