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?
- Not limiting advertisers from single channel. Billboard, print, tv, web, etc.
- Companies in space need to come together to pool distribution to improve consumer experience.
- 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?
