Larry Page is back as CEO of Google. He co-founded the company along with Sergey Brin in 1998. Will this change Google’s direction? Don’t expect any major shakeups in the how important Google is to search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, etc. Eric Schmidt may no longer be CEO come April, but he’ll still be part of the organization and Page and Brin have always been active in decision making.
Some interesting news from Google this week. The company has been testing telephone response tracking for AdWords and is now starting to roll out the service to more users.
The Good News
We’ll soon be able to attach a unique toll free number to our clients AdWords ads and track those calls at no additional charge. Google is making the service free for now, while they get it rolling. This is excellent news because in the past we have often used a phone number in AdWords text or display ads but there is significant additional cost involved in setting up a seperate phone number and then tracking calls coming into that number. This integration will be seamless and at no cost, the price tag is perfect for local advertisers. Not only is the toll-free number and the tracking free, Google does not initially plan to charge for calls made in response to its ads. So every call made instead of a click will be added value for the advertiser. Not only that, but callers are more likely to be purchasers than clicks, so the conversion rate on calls should be much higher than those clicking to the website.
The Not So Bad News
Unlike other Google services which serve to keep people exposed to ads or provide platforms for ads to be shown on, this one probably won’t remain free. Google is clearly looking to leverage its technology to take back dollars being spent with third parties to track AdWords phone responses, and that will mean charging per phone call. The question is how much? Our guess is that Google will run the service for free for a while to gather enough information to determine what a fair charge per call would be. There’s no way to use an auction style system to price calls like ad placement, so it would probably have to be a standard rate. Most likely, though, it will still be a lot cheaper than many companies are paying right now to track phone calls from AdWords.
A Side Effect
Tracking phone calls will be a benefit to advertisers and makes AdWords an even better value than it has been in the past (which is still pretty good). But, it also stands to make display advertising on Google’s network more valuable. In general, display advertising is more visible, but suffers from lower click-through rates than search advertising. However, our guess is that display ads will generate more calls than text ads, making them more attractive to advertisers, something Google has been working on for a while now.
We’ll be adding this service to our current advertisers accounts as soon as it become available.
Google has taken a step to protect its ad network and provide an option for people who want the features of Facebook and Twitter without having to log into several sites each day. Google’s new Buzz feature in Gmail is really just a combining of its other offerings, bringing Gmail email, Picasa photos and chat features together. From an advertising perspective, the announcement doesn’t change the landscape a whole lot right now. It may keep people on Google longer, providing more possible exposure to Adwords ads. Google is promising some additional development that may provide businesses with additional ways to reach their audience, but don’t expect to see 100 million Facebook users migrate to Buzz anytime soon.
Customers will soon be able to dial your business directly by clicking on your Google Adwords Ad. Google announced the update today. Anyone with a web-browser enabled smartphone (iPhone, Palm, Android, etc) will see your company’s address and phone number on a special 5th line of your ad. Advertisers will pay the same for a click-to-call as they would for a normal click-to-website ad.
The click-to-call feature saves motivated customers time, allowing them to reach your business directly without having to look for a phone number on your website. It also provides a whole new level of trackability for phone calls. Now you can track just how many mobile callers respond to your ads with a phone call and compare that to how many visit your website.
Of course this new clickability only applys to a small fraction of the total Internet audience, but it looks to be a nice addition to Google Adwords.
Google is the search engine of choice for Americans. Our recent post on one reason Google gets results explains more about Google’s popularity. But how many people you reach is just one measure of effective advertising. Unlike most advertising, Google ads reach only people who have indicated an interest in a product or service by running a keyword search. Most businesses in the past understood the importance of being listed in the phone book and a search advertising campaign is just a modern version of reaching customers when they are looking for your goods or services.
Many small business owners have limited advertising budgets, so they need to be very efficient with the dollars they do have. With Google Adwords, you can pick a budget that you can afford and you can stop your campaign at anytime.
Why use us to manage your Google campaign, when you can sign up yourself? Clients who choose to have us manage their campaigns do so because they have limited time, and understand that experience counts when selecting keywords, bidding amounts, writing/creating ads, testing different ads, and tracking results.