by Dean Phillips
Is a phone call better than a click? Pretty soon advertisers Advertising developers are pushing a new type of paid search ad dubbed "pay-per-call." The technology for pay-per-call was actually introduced in Five-year-old, privately held Ingenio has 90 employees and Barach says Ingenio has received a patent for the main In paid search, advertisers pay companies like Google to The main type of paid search involves pay-per-click ads. Pay-per-call takes that idea one step further. Here's how it Pay-per-call ads are currently in the process of being Advertisers will have to pay more per call than per click, Jupiter Research says U.S. advertisers will spend $3.2 Developers think bigger companies will also use pay-per- "The customer sees the ad, calls in and the call is routed Advertisers know who called, where they called from and how Ingenio has just completed most of the testing on its pay- Barach says Internet marketing company FindWhat.com of Fort FindWhat runs online ad campaigns and places ads for clients Spokeswoman Karen Yagnesak says FindWhat is starting to FindWhat says interest is "strong," but it won't say how Barach says pay-per-call gives small companies a "bigger bang for their buck." These companies can't afford to waste Phone calls give companies a much better chance of making a Another plus for small companies is that pay-per-call According to researcher Kelsey Group, 70% of small and
will be able to make the final call on that question.
April by Ingenio, a San Francisco-based company that
develops technology for delivering online ads.
expects 2004 revenue of $65 million to $70 million, says
Marc Barach, chief marketing officer. He says it's been
profitable the last seven quarters.
technology that enables pay-per-call. It deals with call-
switching software and hardware that track and route 1-800
calls made by consumers to advertisers.
place their ads prominently on their results pages for
specific search terms.
That's where advertisers pay a certain amount each time
someone clicks on their ad.
works: Advertisers pay a certain amount only after a user
dials the 1-800 number that appears with the ad. In theory,
advertisers will be getting an even more interactive
response than if someone merely clicks on their ad.
tested. The target market appears to be mostly small businesses. The ads will be programmed to appear in local searches, which target a specific ZIP code. Local search is a quickly developing market.
but if the pay-per-call ads provide a better lead than the
pay-per-click ads, developers and analysts alike expect the
market to really take off.
billion on paid searches in 2005, up 23% from an expected
$2.6 billion this year, so a lot of advertising dollars
could be at stake.
call, if they see small businesses having success.
through our software and hardware to the advertiser's
phone," Barach said.
many calls were made by any caller.
per-call technology, and the first big distributor is signed
up.
Myers, FL., is promoting the ads with clients.
on search engine networks.
distribute pay-per-call ads on hundreds of search engine and
portals, including Terra Lycos and Verizon SuperPages.com.
many advertisers it's signed up for pay-per-call.
advertising dollars trying to get clicks that don't lead to
sales, he says.
sale, Barach says.
doesn't require that they have a website.
midsize U.S. businesses don't have a website.
"Pay-per-call opens Internet advertising to millions of In the case of FindWhat, advertisers will bid to get placed That's a method commonly used with pay-per-click as well. FindWhat says there will be no extra charges for multiple In addition to paying $2 per call from a consumer, FindWhat FindWhat is waiving the 10-cent charge for now to encourage Personally, I love the pay-per-call idea! If someone is About the Author
Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, Make Money Online! Internet marketing expert, Dean Phillips Website: http://www.lets-make-money.net
businesses that wouldn't otherwise participate in it,"
Barach said.
in the results of certain search terms.
FindWhat expects that the minimum price will be about $2 per
call, much higher than the pennies, that advertisers pay per
click.
calls from the same consumer made within a 10-day window.
might charge advertisers up to 10 cents for each minute they
talk after the first, free 10 minutes.
advertisers to try pay-per-call.
willing to pay $2 for a telephone call, I would consider that a pretty solid lead.
publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be
reached at mailto: dean@lets-make-money.net
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