Pay Per Call outranks Pay Per Click on AOL

[dartman]

I haven't seen this discussed yet but here is the jimmy - Pay Per Call ads now appear ABOVE Pay Per Click ads on AOL. Did some research on this and the Pay Per Call ads are set thru Ingenio (www.ingenio.com). I would have expected that Google would have an exclusive agreement with AOL for running sponsored ads but it appears this is not the case.

I called Google advertising about this and as usual they played the "we can't discuss it card".

Also called Ingenio and they have the standard pay per click scenario except it's based on a phone call rather then a click. They provide a TF number which is then forwarded to your number of choice. You pay only if the call completes. According to Ingenio, AOL allows them 1 ad per page which will appear above the Google Adwords ads. Bidding starts at $2 per call and the high bidder appears on pg1, next highest on pg2, etc.

Do a search on AOL for flowers and you can get a better idea of what's going on. The ads with the little telephone image are the Ingenio ads.

I don't know how this is going to sit with long time adwords advertisers but I'll bet the link farm owners will be chomping at the bit to get a piece of this action.

There is no honor amongst thieves.

[Christian_SEO]

We have two clients running ads with Ingenio. It's too early to say how well this will work, but I can tell you that Ingenio is GREAT to work with for the most part. One client had two calls come in that were pretty much "wrong numbers" and a third that did respond to the ad, but was looking for something not menioned in the ad. I called and they refunded all 3 even though I said one was valid, if not useful. They have treated me right so far and I'm excited to see how this works over time.

Some things do take a bit of time to get them completed by the company, such as adding a new category (There is no keyword bidding. It's easy, but leaves you feeling like you have less control.

I think this is a great option since your average AOL user may be more inclined to use technology they have more experience with (a phone and toll-free number) than surf to yet another web site and try to find what they want. I like it because I think it's easier to get conversions if you can actually talk to the person and respond to the signals they give you.

I am thinking about trying this for my SEO consulting business, but there are a surprising number of SEOs already using the service. Hmmm, what does that say about SEO working for us...? Well, it works for me so I don't need to get into a bidding frenzy, but it would be interesting to try since I generally can convert most leads into sales... :-)

[dartman]

I tested their signup procedure and there is a facility to bid on a keyword or phrase. I'm sure they will not say no to any legitimate search term you come up with. The bidding war on pay per call starts at $2.00 so having a pay per call ad is not going to be cheap if there is serious competition. I agree that actually speaking with a potential customer serves well to closing the sale.

[khurramali]

I think the call centre industry will be getting alot of business though this, as for small businesses who wish to advertise in Pay Per Call, but do not have the necessary infrastructure to be able to receive so many calls, can outsource this work to India and Pakistan.

Lets explore the possibilities.

[dartman]

I think the main point here is that adwords advertisers have come to expect that G feeds the sponsored ads on aol (and other high traffic sites).

Now there is a new player (Ingenio) that gets to feed the #1 sponsored ad position. The result - you can be #1 on G but #2 on aol if there is an Ingenio ad running for your particular search term on aol.

I think one of the reasons we bid for the top spot on G is that we also get the top spot on other venues that get ad feeds from G. I am not a big supporter of aol but they have a large customer base that search thru aols'portal.

Interestingly, I spoke with a G ad dept person today who had no knowledge of Ingenio or what is happening on aol.

Hard to digest that G would readily accept potential loss of revenue by not controlling the entire sponsored ad space. I think it's early in the game on this one but give it a little time - curious to see how this is going to shake out.

[Christian_SEO]

Well, I had one client that canceled their account. They got one valid lead, but everything else was junk or wrong numbers.

My other client had big problems with old listings for some of the 800 numbers and had to change them a couple of times before getting one that is fairly quiet. Unfortunately, it's also quite for leads as well. They have gotten some, but at $38-$70 per call, it's a pain to have to make sure each one is not a wrong number (so we can get credited), and the quality of the valid calls is not very good either.

It could partly be due to our ad copy, and we have changed that once or twice, but I think it's mostly due to not being able to choose keywords and only categories.

I don't know. I'd like to hear of other PPCall vendors that might be better. I think the service has potential, but so far it's been pretty disappointing with Ingenio.

[MaineWeb]

I tried Ingenio and had a similar experience. They are very nice to deal with, but I didn't get the ROI I was hoping for. Most of the calls that were billed were not long enough to assure me that they ever got past our auto attendant. It is nice that they don't bill for really short calls, but maybe for companies not having a receptionist they could up the range of calls that don't get billed.

[doj464]

I noticed that google has started their own "free" pay per call service in conjunction with google maps. If you click call on the side, they ask for your phone number and make the call to you and to the business you are calling. My guess is that google is preparing to take ingenio on at some point once they have matured their own system.

I have a friend who used it for a doctor's office, however, they could not get the geotargeting right and stopped. Has anyone used an alternative to ingenio?