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SMX Mobile / Local – Pay Per Call Advertising – Living up to the Hype?

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  3. SMX Mobile / Local –…

Moderator:
Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

Marc Barach, CMO, Ingenio joined for the Q&A

Throughout this writup: PPC = pay per click.� Don’t confuse it with PPcall
Lots more after the jump…


Patricia Hursh, President, Smart Search Marketing
What is the buzz?
Certain Types of Advertisers are having more success than others.
70% of SMB do not have a website – but still want to be found online.
PPCall gives these folks a chance to hook up.

  • 98% are not engaged in pay per click advertising – but they all have phones.
    People are able to understand PPCall.
  • 71% prefer a phone call to a click. (kelsey)
  • 48% are very interested in pay per call
  • would pay 5-15 than to have a phone lead (Jupiter)
  • They understand the value of a phone call better.
  • Fewer concerns about fraud – you’re talking to people. You can tell if they’re qualified.
  • 85% of SMB can estimate phone conversion rate (!) but clueless about website conversion rate. (Ingenio/jupiter)
  • Incoming calls convert 45% vs 3% of pay per click (kelsey)
  • PPC can convert 10x better than PPC (ingenio)
  • close lag is shortened – 14 days (click) vs. 1 day (call)
  • Can be locally focused – very specific service regions can be highly targeted – time of day – business hours – perhaps when you need to boost business.
  • Leads can be received anywhere there is a phone – mobile.
  • merchants don’t answer the phone all the time (20% connection rate !!!) – Ingenio Disputes This below. This number is from the call the call tracking space.

Challenges

  • lack of market inventory. hard set-up. not enough volume. is it worth the effort?
  • Some find it’s only 1-2 calls per month (!)
  • High costs and lower volume than PPC – you have to change your expectations.
  • Broad categories – less precise
  • Google allows phone numbers in pay per click ads… and these are free to show.

Early adopters

  • People who can’t manage PPC campaigns
  • Businesses with complex products – lots of explanation
  • Model that has a call center already – they can tap right in.
  • Service providers 70% of YP ads are service businesses.
  • Morgage, credit card, banks are examples.

Future

  • It’s not in the mainstream yet.
  • It’s happening slower than we thought.
  • Once the big players offer something, it’ll move.
  • Distribution networks need to grow.
  • Agencies need to talk about it – embrace it.
  • Scott: Chicken and egg problem.

Greg Sterling comments

Google/Ebay – announced it but haven’t rolled it out. Marc may speak about it. There are a lot of efforts like Superpages.

James Price, Group Manager – Performance Based Products, Superpages.com

Findings

  • Local search in buying cycle – consumer is knows what they want now they want to know where to get it.
  • consumers spend 97% offline – 3% online – but lots of research online.
  • OYP users buy quicker and spend more… IYP do less searches, ready to buy.
  • Superpages: 75% plan to contact business, 51% plan to purchase, 50% making 1st buy from that business.

TMP – local search users – correlates with superpages data
82% of online users follow up with offline visit, 61% of offsite visit make a purchase

slides moving fast :-(
IYP shows an excellent ROI – storage, movers, auto, repair, insurance, hospitality, auto dealers

ROI in online local and classified ads – good ROI -slide too fast

Pay Per Call Case studies

florist
spends $1200/month, cost per call $4.50, conversion rate 82%, $64/sale, Sales ROI 12:1
entertainment product:
spends $2500/month, $13 per call, 47% conv, $147/sale, sales 5:1 monthly, 60:1 anual
prof services local serv delivery:
spends $1100/month, cost per call $12, 30% conv, $1800/sale, 47:1 ROI
skilled trade, delivered locally:
spends $300/month, $35/call, 74%, $89/sale, 2:1 ROI
lasik surgery service:
spends $700/month,$3.70/call, 58% conv, $1999/sale,309:1 conv

Pay per call can also be done in print yellow pages, billboards, other channels.

Scott Kliger, Founder/CTO, Jingle Networks

1-800-3733-411 – speed dial this for 411. Free. – has 5% share of 411 space.

Pay per call is their entire business model. They start on the phone.

US : 5b phone calls to 411, $1.50 avg cost, 7.5B industry. (!)

  • Switches to competitor during 411 call – if they are searching by co. name
  • If they are category searching, they use a live bid model to provide a list of solutions.
  • They use the Google model, applied to phone, but big difference. Keyword based targets. Advertisers only pay for success.
  • The “Live connection to the consumer” is the big difference. Timing, captive, interactive, uncluttered
  • 85% seeking businesses, 15% residential
  • Locksmiths, Bail Bondsman are big customers (!) audience giggles.
  • Expedia – Ad response is 2.75% – 3% response (switch pitch) rate – closes 50% of calls
  • Nationwide Insurance – PPC ads response 1.5%, once connected close is 15%, PPC is $20
  • DirectTV – 3% response rate – Close is 20%, PPC is $15.00

takeaway Tip: No user behavior changes are needed for this all to work.

Marc Barach – Ingenio

Just sharing some observations, no prepared presentation.

  • Nice to see there is an industry now, 2-3 y ago there wasn’t.
  • Untold Billions are spent on other advertising to drive phone calls.
  • Local inventory is still at a low level, so people will see very few searches in some cases.
  • Sole complaint is about wanting more volume. ROI is spectacular.

Remedies?

  1. Not limiting advertisers from single channel. Billboard, print, tv, web, etc.
  2. Companies in space need to come together to pool distribution to improve consumer experience.
  3. Relevance – categories – length of call (avg 5m) and through qualitative research.

He thinks that more are answering phone than the 20% … a negligible percent don’t answer the phone. If they are involved in PPCall advertising they answer the phone.


  • Concerns about dirty inventory, rotations of phone numbers, but this has hopefully been taken care of.
  • Pay per call UI tip: If your goal is to pass as many leads, visible phone numbers work far better than a button of any type.
  • Ingenio says it’s a no brainer.
  • Consumers told them they don’t want any internet experiences… they want a bloody phone number right now.
  • But it’s harder to use real phone numbers of course.
  • Why did Google not really jump in yet? No great answers yet. There may be a concern about provisioning phone numbers?
Category: EventsBy Scott ClarkOctober 2, 2007
Tags: Eventslocal seomobile seosmxsmxlomo

Author: Scott Clark

Nationally Proven Sr. SEO/SEM Consultant/Strategist Google Partner / Bing Accredited Professional

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