What is Pay Per Call? How does it work?
Pay Per Call is the next wave of advertising on the Internet. Similar
to a Pay – Per –Click advertising. Pay Per Call has a lot more to offer
and a wider audience in mind. The Pay-Per Call (PP-Call) is geared
towards small businesses that do not have a web presence on the
internet. However, this form of advertising can be used by all types of
business or services offered on the net.
Advertisers create an
ad similar to a Pay-Per-Click (PP-Click) ad. Advertisers choose key
terms in which they would like to appear under. They also choose their
geographical location (local, regional or national) Pricing starts at
$2 and can exceed $20. The ad itself consists of a headline and 2
additional lines of text, (including a URL if the company has one).
Surfers then call the toll free number shown in the ad. After the
surfer calls the number, the call is forwarded to the actual business
phone. Seems pretty basic doesn’t it? But, I had a few questions I
needed answered so I contacted Ingenio and spoke to them about their
service.
My first question regarded calls placed after
business hours. If my business phones are manned Monday – Friday, 9 to
5, will calls still come in after 5pm on Friday? The answer is that
currently there is no automated scheduling that will turn your ads on
or off at a specified time. However, you can go in manually and pause
your account so that your ads are not shown during non-business hours.
The automated scheduling is in the process of being implemented but
there is currently no set date for this to take effect. Of course, you
can place your business hours in the ad as well but this may take up
valuable space that could be better utilized describing products or
services. Businesses that have a call center for after hours calls are
effectively 24 hour businesses, so this should not be an issue for them.
My
next question concerned wrong numbers and short calls. We have all done
it. We see one number and dial another. Or, we see something and on
impulse we reach for the phone, and then change our mind ten seconds
after dialing. So, does the advertiser pay for these types of calls? Is
there a time limit a person needs to be on the phone for? There answer
is yes. The calls need to last at least ten seconds. This should be
more than enough time to establish that a wrong number as been dialed.
I also wondered about people trying to beat the system. The trouble
with PP-Click is that people may dial and occupy a salesperson with no
intent other than to try and boost their revenue off the ads placed on
their site. Ingenio has taken this into account. They can track calls
that come in through their system. Any numbers seen abusing it can be
blocked. Hopefully, this will discourage any type of scam to boost
profits on sites that sponsors these ads.
I was also interested
to know about ads that did provide a URL. Was there an additional
charge levied when someone clicked on the ad? Fortunately, there is
not. If a business sells over the net as well, they could certainly use
this to their advantage. Of course, one of the main advantages to this
type of advertising is that it caters to potential customers that do
not, for whatever reason, like to make purchases online. Overall
PP-Call may be worth its weight in gold. At least the potential is
there. Will it surpass PP-Click as far as the preferred method of
advertising? Probably, not. It does however give advertises who
couldn’t advertise on the net before a reason to start. Maybe then they
will see the importance of having a web presence on the Internet.