The deal allows Thomson Local to give businesses an enhanced geo-targeting capability to match their adverts to location specific queries by Bing users, improving their relevance accuracy which it is hoped will increase sales for Bing consumers and conversion rates for Thomson Local's own customers.

Richard Avery, head of digital and development at  ThomsonLocal.com said, "We have a long standing partnership with Microsoft and are delighted to be able to offer our customers new, innovative opportunities to target consumers on Microsoft's new search experience, Bing."

"Bing consumers will benefit from increasingly relevant sponsored listings targeted either to their location or an area they specify."
 
Avery continued, "Whilst ‘local' is a word that a number of companies are trying to associate themselves with, it has been at the heart of our company for nearly 30 years. Our partnership with Bing is the first in a number of developments we will be introducing to reinforce this position.

"Our focus is to ensure our customers gain the local, targeted consumer exposure they need and to give users relevant search results across a wide range of media."