Production
Using Call Tracking To Support Pay-Per-Call ROI
01/21/2010 - The Yellow Pages industry has probably been the one medium which really jump start the use of call tracking to justify advertiser ROI. Of note is that advertisers are increasingly interested in using calls (and not clicks) for digital advertising just as it has been a key performance metric for traditional print advertising. This trend is resulting in increased interest in performance-based or Pay-Per-Call (PPC) advertising for online/digitals products.
One of the industry's major call tracking suppliers Telmetrics recently announced a list of top pay per call trends they see for 2010. They are:
- Online media continues to adopt pay per call: Recognizing that calls can be a cross media metric (i.e. use online for one part of my buying search, and then print for another part), and a metric that small advertisers quickly understand, digital players will continue to add pay per call to complement existing pay per click campaigns.
- Agencies buy ads and bill per call: With so many different media options available, advertisers are challenging agency media plans and demanding more pay for performance ad models. In 2010, agencies will buy ads via subscription and bill back to customers on a pay per call basis.
- Quality of calls closely evaluated: As pay per call moves from infancy to mainstream, advertisers will want a more clear definition of call quality. Publishers and agencies will have to carefully consider what defines a billable call, evaluating call duration by media type and category and looking at repeat callers over variable time intervals. Also, there will be a continued emphasis on call recordings for assessing leads.
- No shift to pay per conversion: Pay-per-conversion, in which advertisers only pay for advertising if a sale is completed, will not take off this year. While calls make it easier to track conversions, the model presents too much risk for publishers and agencies as it relies on advertisers to convert calls to sales after the lead has been delivered.
"We see major growth for the pay per call model in 2010 because it offers important campaign performance visibility and gives advertising brokers - publishers, agencies, SEM resellers and others - another opportunity to monetize the leads their medium delivers," said Bill Dinan, president, Telmetrics. "Also, pay per call presents a good way to ease smaller advertisers into digital media offering qualified and high-value phone leads with very little risk."
Dinan indicated that Telmetrics is seeing an increase this year in Pay-Per-Call programs for both print and online. The interesting twist is that 70% of Telmetrics tracking line business is now for digital ads (search engines, SEM, IYP, etc.). The majority of the investments in these digital call tracking programs has been from midsized to national businesses.
The process, the dynamics for online tracking isn't that much different from tracking print ads. Dinan noted that the biggest hurdle for publishers and CMRs is usually in deploying enough call tracking to be able to establish model pricing. For example short, quick information only calls should obviously be based on different pricing then longer sales calls. With call tracking costs typically running from $2 to upwards of $500 per call it's important that publishers and CMRs get this right.
About Telmetrics, Inc.
Since 1990, media publishers, agencies and marketers have relied on Telmetrics to provide innovative call tracking solutions to help maximize the effectiveness of their marketing programs and increase revenues. Telmetrics offers the widest North American local number coverage with unmatched industry experience and quality of service, and scalable pay per call and subscription-based solutions to support enterprise-level measurement programs. Integrated reporting across online and offline channels provides publishers with the tools they need to prove value for traditional and digital mediums; while providing marketers with a more complete ROI picture across converging media.
For more information, visit www.telmetrics.com.