Pay-for-Call and Local Businesses

Jeff Braislin at Search Engine Land has a good article describing Pay-for-Call (PFC).

Pay-For-Call is a performance-based advertising medium that delivers qualified customer inquiries to advertisers via the telephone. PFC utilizes a variety of advertising distribution channels, such as search engines, Internet yellow pages, directories, vertical web sites or increasingly, mobile sources, to reach an advertiser's target audience with call-focused advertisements.

Especially for local business, and especially in the era of the iPhone, the telephone remains the primary tool to connect with a product or service provider to receive instant attention. Thus web-based outreach that channels customers to a phone call is surmised to be more likely to succeed than other options; however, PFC adds the extra value of trackability. Different phone numbers are attached to the different outreach methods so success can be identified and relative value established among the various media. The advertiser can make decisions on future budget choices based on hard data rather than indistinct or ephemeral feelings, which is good business.

Read the full article at:

http://searchengineland.com/pay-for-call-moving-clicks-to-live-sales-leads-19387