If a new article on Forbes.com is right (which it may or may not be) pay-per-call is going to become gigantic. The article says the following about how pay-per-call fits into Google’s business model in the next 10 years:
Pay per call could be 10x bigger than pay per click…It represents a much better deal for publishers and their technology providers.
Google has been involved in pay per call for a while. It started offering pay-per-call ads in 2010. Nikesh Aurora, Google’s chief business officer, stated that the company now handles 15 million calls a month for advertisers. This number could grow rapidly as more businesses see the advantages of pay per call compared to other advertising methods.
What is Pay-Per-Call?
Google’s pay-per-call model works as its name suggests: Google bills advertisers every time a call is made instead of each click. These pay-per-call ads appear through Google Ads on mobile devices. The ad includes a phone number that mobile users can tap to call. Google then charges the advertiser based on how many times the phone number is tapped and a call is initiated.
Why Will Pay-Per-Call Explode?
1. Mobile Search Exploding
Google is serving up these pay-per-call ads as results of mobile search. Mobile search is getting bigger. Estimates from Google and other sources say that mobile search will surpass desktop search by the end fo 2013 or start of 2014. That’s not very far away. Thus, as mobile search increase, mobile pay-per-call ad volume and impressions will increase.
2. Mobile Search Generates Calls
The early research from Google, xAd, and other sources indicates that the most common (and natural action) after mobile search is a phone call. This means that as mobile search volumes increase, so to will phone calls generated from pay-per-call campaigns.
3. Phone Calls Are the Best
Our research shows, clearly, that inbound phone calls produce conversions 15 to 20 times more frequently than inbound web leads. In short: phone calls are better. Marketers will gravitate to pay-per-call models because they like calls and the business that calls generate.
So, while our data doesn’t necessarily show that pay-per-call will be 10x larger pay-per-click, we do believe it will be huge. And we believe LogMyCalls will be a big, big part of it.