June 12 2007

Salesforce and Google form alliance

Salesforce.com and Google have formed a strategic alliance, the first offering from which combines the power of Salesforce on-demand CRM applications with the Google AdWords platform.

Press release follows:

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the market and technology leader in on-demand business services, and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) today announced that they have formed a strategic global alliance to help millions of businesses leverage the Internet to achieve success. The newest product resulting from this alliance, Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, is a robust offering that combines the power of Salesforce on-demand CRM applications with the Google AdWords™ platform to achieve integrated sales and marketing success. This joint solution provides businesses of all sizes with the same tools used by larger enterprises to successfully attract and retain customers.

"The Web has quickly become the most powerful tool small and medium sized businesses can use to compete and win in today's economy," said Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer at Google. "Combining the power and simplicity of Salesforce with Google AdWords helps businesses find and keep customers to ultimately drive their continued success."

"The alliance of Google and salesforce.com brings together the world's leading platforms to empower small and medium size businesses to accelerate and thrive," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. "The Internet has completely changed the landscape for small and medium businesses and the alliance between Google and salesforce.com enables companies of all sizes to acquire new customers and streamline their business to experience unfettered success."

"Now there is a single online destination for businesses of all sizes to attract and acquire new customers, while closely tracking the return on their valuable marketing dollars," said Sheryl Sandberg, Vice President, global online sales and operations at Google. "This alliance is about introducing new audiences to the benefits of online advertising, marketing and sales through the integration of two world-class solutions to help small and medium businesses succeed in today's global marketplace."

Salesforce.com and Google Strategic Alliance Both salesforce.com and Google have revolutionized how customers and businesses utilize the Internet. Salesforce has altered the business software landscape by delivering an award-winning CRM application as a subscription-based service over the Web, completely eliminating the need for software, hardware or IT support. At the same time, Google has transformed the advertising industry with Google AdWords, enabling marketers to spend less money and still reach a larger percentage of their key audience by associating ads with specific keyword searches.

Now, salesforce.com and Google have formed a strategic global alliance to mutually use their product, packaging, and promotional resources to enable companies of all sizes to realize unprecedented levels of success. As part of the alliance, salesforce.com will be the first on-demand company to resell the Google AdWords platform, acting as an official distribution channel for the Google AdWords product. The alliance is across 43 countries and encompasses distribution, technology and co-marketing efforts.

Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords - The Engine for Business Growth Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords provides an integrated and effective solution that gives companies of all sizes all the tools they need to acquire new customers and grow their business. By encapsulating every element of the customer lifecycle - advertising, creating leads, closing business and retaining customers - in one solution, Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords enables any company to jump start their business by creating an online marketing and sales presence.

Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords enables users to:

Advertise Online - With Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, companies can immediately connect to Google AdWords, and create an ad that is displayed with the relevant search results on Google.com or across the Google AdSense™ content network of partner websites. Users can create an ad in as quickly as five minutes and with as little as $5.

Attract Prospects - When people search the Web for the products and services that your company sells, your ad appears with the relevant search results. When they click on your ad, visitors are taken to your website. Capture Leads - Once you have potential customers on your website, you can entice visitors to fill out a name capture form on your site with an offer for a Webinar or white paper. The information collected on the form flows directly into Salesforce as a new lead.

Acquire Customers - As soon as a lead is added into Salesforce, it is distributed to the sales team. Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords enables businesses to effectively manage and share leads, track opportunities through the sales cycle and close deals faster. Sales teams can manage all customer interactions in Salesforce and turn qualified leads into new customers.

Analyze Growth - Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords features dashboards that gives companies a bird's eye view into lead generation, sales metrics, and company growth. Dashboards and reports are quick and easy to access with real-time information and allow companies to make decisions quickly and alter advertising strategies appropriately.

Mash-up Other Business Applications - Through the power of Salesforce.com's AppExchange directory, customers have the opportunity to mash-up any of 600 business applications including technologies for mapping and productivity. In addition to these features, Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords also includes a custom designed user experience starting with an exclusive login page. Joint customers can go to the Google site at http://www.google.com/adwords/salesforce to login to their AdWords account and can access Salesforce directly at http://www.salesforce.com/google.

"By working with Google to create a brand new streamlined user experience, one-stop shop feature set, and a breakthrough price point, we've taken the great idea behind Salesforce for Google AdWords and now made it the perfect fit for any-sized company looking to jump start their business," said George Hu, Chief Marketing Officer, salesforce.com. "We believe this opens up largely untapped market opportunities around the globe for both companies."

"Our site traffic is up 55 percent since we started using the integrated salesforce.com and Google AdWords solution, and now I know where that traffic came from and what piqued their interest," said Erin Jacobs of TFC. "The joint solution allows companies like TFC to utilize the full power of the Internet by combining the best from Google and salesforce.com."