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The tool is part of OgilvyOne's AdvancePositions.com search engine promotion offering, one of a growing number of 'middlemen' services.

These sit between advertiser and cost-per-click providers such as Espotting Media and Overture, offering 'bid gap management' - removing the distance between bids so that the advertiser pays the minimum possible for its position.

For example, if an advertiser pays £1.48 for a keyword, but could pay £1.03 to maintain the same search rankings, that could potentially be a waste of a chunk of marketing budget.

So it could be very good news for advertisers, especially those that want to establish a brand presence in a new country, such as easyJet, which signed a pan-European deal with OgilvyOne to manage pay-per-click campaigns across six countries.

Alistair Buckle, head of marketing at the budget airline, says: "We've just launched an office out of Paris, and this enables us to get a fast start there. We know we are not paying over the market rate and it benefits us in terms of efficiency, as we used to have to manage our accounts manually."

Buckle adds that once a brand is established in the new country, cost-per-click campaigns are likely to be cut back, but that for getting to the top of search engine listings, management services really come into their own.

Christian Peck, manager of Optimedia's television and online media planning and buying arm, I-Trade, claims these services are not bringing something completely new to the market.

"As far as I can see, it is another web optimisation tool, which increases an advertiser's placement, he says. "It's a nice process to have, but it only affects the front end, driving traffic to a site for a short time.

It would be more interesting if it drilled down further and increased the likelihood of making a sale."

Indeed, unless a campaign is solely about branding, search engine listings for the sake of it are of little value.

But what is important is being able to identify which search terms and which engines to work with - and that's where the middlemen come in.

Richard Collins, chairman of AdvancePositions.com, explains that advertisers would previously select a smaller number of keywords and manage them manually on, for example, Espotting or Overture's own web sites, but they are now going for a higher volume of keywords.

"We put together traffic monitoring reports and integrate them with other search activity. Even if it's only a few pence wasted, that can add up to thousands of pounds on high-volume keywords, so it's an easy sell to clients, he says.

According to Teddie Cowell, technical director at online marketing firm Neutralize, which has just signed a deal with US pay-per-click optimisation software firm GoToast to provide improved management services, a pay-per-click campaign across the top search engines can cost from £1,500 to £15,000 a month. This can result in between 6,000 and 10,0000 new visitors to a web site.

"We've been managing pay-per-click campaigns for more than a year, he says. "We plan the campaign to establish what the approximate cost and clickthrough response will be before the campaign starts for a given set of keywords."

Both Espotting and Overture have offered clients their own bid-management tools for some time, which they claim ensures advertisers get the best price on their own network.

But Overture's sales director, Jim Brigden, agrees that middle-men are a positive development. "It's a complicated service we offer, so anything that makes it easier for advertisers to do business with us is a good thing - as long as we approve the partners, he says.