As I posted at SEL, Google has introduced free call tracking for AdWords campaigns (rolling out in the US over the next couple months). The product is called AdWords Call Analytics.
You get the following:
- Call time of day
- Call duration
- Area codes (in the aggregate)
- Local or 800 numbers
There’s no call recording or transcription right now. Numbers are provided via Google Voice. There are no fees associated with this offering.
It also appears to be a kind of prelude to PPCall. This is speculation but here’s the relevant part of my SEL post:
On mobile devices marketers have the option of buying calls exclusively (“Click to Call”). However that option doesn’t yet exist on the PC. While Google wouldn’t confirm this, it’s reasonable to assume that over time Google will seek to align its PC and mobile offerings, making what amounts to pay-per-call available to PC-based campaigns.
In fact, in its blog post, Google says, “You’ll still only pay for clicks on your ad, although this may change as the product continues to evolve.” Pretty strong evidence that pay-per-call is coming to PC AdWords campaigns.
Who does call analytics with paid search right now (partial list):
- Marchex
- Telmetrics
- Mongoose Metrics
- Kenshoo (with the above providers)
The Google product is not as detailed or as sophisticated as some of the above but it’s Google so it’s sure to get a close look and a great deal of usage by many search marketers when it rolls out more broadly.
November 2nd, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Greg,
Thanks for the article. I think this is great news for Call Analytics providers as it raises the profile of our offerings through the excellent Google marketing machine. We are excited to see external validation of the business model and look forward to some innovation from Google.
-Brad
Bradley Reynolds
CEO
Mongoose Metrics
November 2nd, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Agree it will raise the profile of call tracking.
November 2nd, 2010 at 8:09 pm
[...] Greg Sterling wrote “Free Call Tracking Comes to AdWords, PPCall Can’t be Far Behind,” and authored a piece for SearchEngineLand.com titled, “AdWords and Google Voice Hook [...]
November 2nd, 2010 at 10:43 pm
As Brad said, I’m excited of click-to-call possibilities.
But at the same time I’m scared of how Google will “sell” phone calls in the future. Google will dominate ad space and trafic at a fraction of the cost of a click of SMBs, and sell phone calls to the big clients who have more money to spend.
November 2nd, 2010 at 11:44 pm
[...] is the original post: Free Call Tracking Comes to AdWords, PPCall Can't Be Far Behind Share and [...]
November 3rd, 2010 at 11:21 am
There is a company called adX, http://www.adxsearch.com A leading search marketing solutions provider in Scandinavia, they have a platform that provides a single gateway to multiple search engines including Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Baidu and more. Here’s the kicker: They have recently launched call tracking across ALL of these platforms! You are welcome
November 3rd, 2010 at 4:19 pm
[...] datapoints. Marchex has a call analytics offering that offers similar data. And yesterday Google introduced its own call tracking solution with a more limited set of call analytics: Google Call [...]
November 6th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
As someone who markets sales and lead tracking products exclusively to small businesses this is a great addition and excellent source of validation, as Brad pointed out. Small business is much slower to adapt but it is much easier to implement these strategies than it is for enterprise. Although Google does not offer the level of detail that Mongoose does it will help educaate the small business market and accelerate the adoption rate. Not everyone needs to keyword tracking and heavy analytics that the other players offer out of the gate but as they grow the familiarity will be there. The ease of implementation via Google should make it a much easier product to sell.
April 28th, 2011 at 6:33 pm
[...] free call tracking solution, AdWords Call Metrics was introduced in November, 2010. I wrote about it at the time of launch. It allows users to add a local or toll-free number (provisioned by Google) [...]
May 27th, 2011 at 9:01 am
When is this function going to roll out in Europe? And does it only work with 800-numbers?
May 27th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
It’s not clear. However, if the program continues then probably at some point late this year or early next year. However I’m not sure how easy or difficult it is to do call tracking in Europe from a number provisioning standpoint. That could be a problem.
July 19th, 2011 at 3:56 pm
[...] call tracking launched in limited beta on Google last November, I wrote Free Call Tracking Comes to AdWords, PPCall [...]
August 10th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Hi Greg,
Any updates on this? I live in europe and would like to add this to my whole process. I actually never heard much of this further, can we regard it as a flop?
August 10th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Hi Greg,Any updates on this? I live in europe and would like to add this to my whole process. I actually never heard much of this further, can we regard it as a flop?
August 10th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
I wouldn’t say it’s a flop. No outlook on European expansion.
October 25th, 2011 at 10:47 am
[...] year when Google’s call tracking program “Call Metrics” debuted out I suspected PPCall couldn’t be far behind. And despite its relatively low-key introduction, this is a [...]
October 25th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
[...] year when Google’s call tracking program “Call Metrics” was first introduced I suspected PPCall wouldn’t be far behind. Google experimented with PPCall on the PC years ago but never [...]
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