Google’s Click to Call into PPCall?

Telmetrics’ Bill Dinan offers a column at Search Engine Land and thoughts on Google’s mobile Click to Call offering. He wonders:

Will national advertisers flock to the Google click-to-call model in droves and effectively out price many local advertisers? Will Google use the click pricing temporarily while it builds critical mass?

At the recent CTIA show in Las Vegas I fortuitously ran into Google’s Chris La Sala (now in mobile) and a colleague while waiting for a cab. I opportunistically asked about click to call and pricing. I’ve always said “It’s a call for the price of a click.” What I didn’t realize is that Google will allow marketers to totally opt-out of online targeting.

The above image is a screenshot from the AdWords dashboard. Advertisers can “uncheck” the “desktop and laptop computers” box and, viola, mobile-only targeting. As more advertisers realize this and embrace “Click to Call” it may become “Pay per Call” with prices rising accordingly. This is what Google would like to see as well.

There was a brief mention of Click to Call by Product Management VP Susan Wojcicki on the recent Google Q1 earnings call:

We also rolled out new formats and targeting options specific for mobile. This quarter we launched a Click to Call feature that automatically puts the phone number in the ad that is running on a Smart Phone. So if you are looking for auto insurance and do that query from your Android or iPhone the ads will include a number to call. Not surprisingly this has increased click through, or should I say call through.

Last year comScore and TMPDM reported that 46% of users who conducted a successful local business search online went on to contact that business via telephone.

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