Online Advertisers Turning to Pay-Per-Call - Forbes.com
Forbes.com David Koenig writes: "In pay-per-call, keywords also are auctioned. But instead of a link to click, the ad directs the user to the telephone. In one version, the user calls a special number that is forwarded to the advertiser's regular phone. In another, users type in their phone numbers and get a return call from the merchant. Either way, the advertiser is billed for the referral.America Online Inc. and smaller Web portals have partnered with a pay-per-call pioneer called Ingenio Inc., whose investors include eBay Inc. and Microsoft Corp...
The Kelsey Group, a market-research firm based in Princeton, N.J., projects that pay-per-call will become a $1.4 billion to $4 billion industry by 2009.
That would roughly parallel the recent growth of pay-per-click advertising, which jumped from about $100 million in 2000 to $3.1 billion last year, according to Jupiter Research....
Advertisers may believe fraud is less likely with calls because they get a person on the other end of the line. Ingenio says it uses other safeguards against fraud, including not charging advertisers for suspiciously brief calls or repeat calls from the same number.
Still, pay-per-call has its limitations.
Although businesses that now rely heavily on the phone and Yellow Pages ads might embrace it, the large national advertisers will still prefer clicks, said Jupiter analyst David Card...
Laver also believes that Verizon's sales representatives, who know local businesses from years of selling Yellow Pages ads, will give it an advantage over Internet-only rivals such as Google and Yahoo Inc. Neither offers pay-per-call, although Yahoo says it is studying it.
Greg Sterling, an analyst at Kelsey, said Verizon's entry will give pay-per-call more legitimacy and prompt similar support from other phone companies that, like Verizon, already produce print directories.
And for merchants, it's about dealing with the familiar telephone rather than the mysteries of the Internet.
"The adoption curve will be fast because it's not something that has to be explained," Sterling said. "People get it pretty quickly.""
posted by Jen @ 7:00 AM
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