Google Pay Per Call - The new PPC ?
By Arnab December 30, 2006 filed in Internet Marketing, PPC, Newsletter
Pay-per-call is the newest entry in the field of online advertising that combines search functionality and on-the-phone interaction giving rise to a great marketing opportunity for all small to medium sized businesses, especially the local ones that do not have a website. So while the Ad still appears as a Small Text Ad (Sponsored Links that we see on Search Engines), clicking on the Ad connects the clicker to the Advertiser’s Phone Line. Great way to get telephonic leads, and if you have a few trained customer service agents to handle these calls, you could be in business soon.
For those with past experience in using Google Adwords PPC, it is pretty simple to set up a Pay-Per-Call promotion campaign; the merchants specify the appropriate key words (or you decide on their behalf), select the categories and define the location or geographic area where they would like their advertisement to appear.
An ad is created with all the details like company name, contact number (along with a track able toll free number) and a short description of the product; when a visitor views the product and clicks on the toll free number, he or she is automatically directed to the advertiser’s actual phone number. This is an incredible yet simple model that does not contain a title, description and URL (a PPC ad format) but a title, description and phone number.
Google has taken its first step in the field of pay per call. The businesses that are going to be affected by this method are likely the conventional industries that prefer consultative sale over the telephone – the insurance agents, mortgage lenders and floral Ecommerce players.
The pay per call model adopted by Google is simple; when a visitor tries to do a search on Google and gets Google Normal results and the Sponsored Links on the Right Hand Side, some of these sponsored links display a green telephone logo. Along with this there appears a small box asking the researcher to type in his or her contact telephone number. Once this is accomplished, the researcher gets connected to the representative of the website/company to discuss the various aspects.
My expectation is that the conversion levels of a Google pay-per-call campaign should be very high and in turn generate a higher click price. Since this is relatively new not much data is available on how this is working out for the advertiser yet. Also - According to theory click fraud should be less in Google pay per call. This is definitely something that all Advertisers would be looking forward to.
The only issue in this model that is immediately visible is the additional operational cost. Till date the operational costs of most ecommerce sites are low with a majority of the dealings taking place through the Web, without the interaction of an employee. Google’s pay per call will make some businesses re-think this premise and get online Customer Service/ Sales agents, which is bound to move upwards the operational costs of doing business on the Web.
Are we watching the beginning of a new revolution ? Will many merchants be prepared to invest in the extra cost to get hold of live telephonic leads. Will these convert better than online leads. We all need to keep a close watch on this one… and maybe we can have a discussion going on this… Tell me what you think about Google Pay-Per-Call here…
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December 30th, 2006 at 6:00 am
Its really cooooool…..
December 30th, 2006 at 7:26 am
how can i crate free rss or live news in my website !