Question:
I am a local realtor or mortgage broker that is looking for new ways to generate quality leads at affordable prices. I’ve been using traditional marketing tools and have ventured into Pay Per Click advertising on Google.But I’ve recently discovered Pay Per Call advertising….Is it worth trying???Answer:
So-called pay-per-call advertising is far from reaching the popularity of "pay per click." But for the legions of small and local businesses and services that rely more on the telephone than the Web for business, buying calls instead of clicks makes more sense.Like all performance-based advertising, businesses only pay when they reap results from their ads—in this case when someone calls the number listed in their pay-per-call ad. Over the past two years, several companies including Ingenio, Citysearch, and Verizon, have introduced pay-per-call ad services that circulate their ads on various Web sites' paid search results, often alongside pay-per-click ads.
Here's how it usually works:
A business signs up with a service that designs it an Internet ad that lists some information about the business and a unique number used to track and bill for calls generated from the ad. The ad appears in paid search results on whatever Web sites the provider distributes them on with when consumers search for such a business in its geographic area. The advertiser pays a fee—ranging anywhere from $2 to $50—when someone calls the number listed in the ad. The average call fee is about $5 to $8.Each service operates a little differently, however. Ingenio, for instance, hosts an online auction where businesses bid on their per-call fee to jockey for better placement in search results. The highest bidder pays a penny more than the next-highest bidder in their business category and geographic area. Others charge a flat fee per call depending on the business type.
Where are Pay Per Call Ads placed:
But pay-per-call ads are just now gaining traction, as more search providers use them. Ingenio, which distributes its ads on AOL, AOL Yellowpages, Online Yellowpages, Local.com, Infospace, Switchboard, MSN Mobile, AOL Mobile, Mapquest, 1800-FREE-411 and other search and directory sites . Kelsey Group, a Princeton, N.J. market-research firm, estimates that pay-per-call advertising will reach 15% of all local search advertising by 2010, up from about 2% today.A big reason pay-per-call hasn't been widely used so far is that the largest search behemoths like Google and Yahoo have yet to deploy it. Yahoo has tested pay-per-call ads and Google recently announced plans to retest a similar feature early next year called click-to-call advertising, where consumers type their phone number into a designated box on the ad and the call is automatically connected.
There's little risk to testing out a pay-per-call service:
Call ads can be particularly beneficial to local businesses and service providers that operate solely in their geographic area depending primarily on the telephone to conduct business. Not to mention that an estimated half of all small businesses don't even have a Web site, so pay-per-click ads are impractical. And even those that do have a Web site aren't adept at converting clicks into actual business.Typically a business will pay 10 times more for a call than a click. But callers are generally more serious shoppers than those who just click on ads(Kelsey Group). A caller will convert to a paying customer roughly half the time, whereas it might take about 100 clicks to a Web site to generate one phone call.
Another advantage: No Click Fraud
"Click fraud," or the problem of people clicking on pay-per-click ads without the intent to possibly buy something, isn't an issue with call ads because impressions and clicks are FREE.Though some businesses do worry they will rack up high fees from irrelevant or prank calls, most pay-per-call services try to dodge such concerns by not charging for a call until after it's been connected for a certain duration, such as 15 seconds. Ingenio also doesn’t charge for repeat callers within a 30-day period.
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