Mediabids works with Marchex on a few per-inquiry advertising campaigns, so if you are a publication who runs PI ads, you may have contributed to their success.
Marchex Harnesses the Power of the Call
ADOTAS –
So I’m walking along, minding my own business, when suddenly my iPhone
starts making a weird sound — kinda like a marimba. It’s not the sound
for a text message, Facebook update or a new email, so I’m a little
frightened. After I slink it out of my pocket, I’m confused when the
screen says, “Incoming call.”
A phone call? Wha? People still make them in the age of clicks and
texts?
They certainly do, and Marchex has found that inbound phone calls
convert at five times the rate of clicks. No wonder the company has
launched a pay-for-call exchange, a performance-based call advertising
service.
Marchex believes the pay-for-call market is about to explode due to
the huge digital supply on a wealth of platforms and innovations in
technology that cost-effectively serve, track, optimize and filter phone
calls. In addition, advertisers can now glean far more user information
from calls including geographic and demographic data.
The pay-for-call exchange — which spreads across 50 offline, online
and mobile publisher partnerships — provides both campaign creation
tools and call-filtering technologies. In beta testing, average call
conversions ranged from 20% to 30% while consumer engagement on the
phone averaged more than eight minutes.
If the last decade of digital marketing revolved around online
conversions via clicks, Marchex believes the next 10 will revolve around
driving conversions through calls.
“Pay-for-call advertising is the natural next step in the evolution
of performance media,” said Marchex Chief Operating Officer Pete
Christothoulou. “It is the last mile for advertisers, literally
connecting them to their prospective customers through the phone. Each
iteration of advertising products and business models — from
pay-per-view to pay-per-click to pay-per-conversation — brings
advertisers closer to customers and the actual transaction while
increasing efficiency and ROI.”
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