Web hosting provider Affinity Internet today launched ValueTraffic, a service to manage online, pay-per-click ad campaigns for small and mid-sized businesses.

"Marketing is critical to our customers' success, but they haven't got time to worry about it. They want to run their business," said Affinity CEO Peter Chambers.

The service targets smaller businesses, usually ones with less than 50 employees, who may not have the time or the expertise to market their business online, but still want to reach an online audience, he said. Initial vertical focuses include real estate, retail, and professional services shops.

Every customer who signs up is assigned an Affinity account manager. The company has five account managers, but plans to scale as the number of customers increases, Chambers said. About 50 customers have been using a trial version of the service since August.

Affinity's team reviews the site of each customer before putting together a campaign that includes performance-based ads on Google, Overture, AOL, Ask Jeeves, and FindWhat. For a $100 set up fee and a $100 monthly subscription, Affinity guarantees that a customer's campaign will result in a minimum of 10,000 impressions or 50 click-throughs per month, or the customer is not charged for that month's service.

The monthly subscription fee helps small businesses avoid a large up-front payment, and it keeps Affinity's interests aligned with its customers' interests, Chambers said.

"As a premium provider, we need to have credibility and be able to deliver on it. If we charged a one-time fee, it would take the accountability off it. This way, we need to keep winning their business," he said.

One problem with selling the service to small businesses is overcoming their desire to do everything themselves, coupled with their tendency to underestimate the complexity of a project while overestimating their skills or available time to dedicate to things like advertising, Chambers said.

"Many customers think they can do it on their own. They'll try managing AdSense themselves for the first 45 days, and then see how hard it is. Then they come to us," he said. "AdSense is a wonderful offering, but at the same time it can be hard to use sometimes. It's a big advantage for customers to get us to do it, because we understand it."

The difference between new customers signing up for the ValueTraffic service and those who have been hosting with Affinity for 45 to 60 days is five to one, he added.

While some companies may balk at entrusting their marketing campaign to a technology provider, Chambers insists that those worries are baseless. He believes that Affinity's experience managing pay-per-click advertising gives the company an edge over self-service offerings like Google's AdSense or Overture's Precision Match; and its knowledge of small businesses and affordable pricing make it a better option than ad agencies.

"We've got great expertise in online marketing, we've got relationships with the search engines, and we understand small businesses. Plus, we're providing a human element to the service," he said.

Affinity has more than 300,000 customers for its hosting business, and a few thousand of those currently take advantage of Affinity's other premium services, launched in July. Those services include bundled suites of products for Web design, Web site management, promotion, security, and e-commerce. Applications are offered from partners like Brightmail, Macromedia, and FindWhat's Miva division.

The company will focus on existing customers in its marketing efforts, hoping to expand those relationships with additional services, Chambers said. "Most small businesses don't want to go to all different places for services. Once they're comfortable that you can do a certain thing, they want to see if you can do more," he said.

Directories publisher Dex Media Dex recently teamed with Web host Interland and media broker SME Global Solutions to launch a similar service for SMBs, Web Clicks