Google to Lure “National Advertisers” through “Click to Call” Mobile Ads

In a bid to improve its mobile advertisers’ CTR rates, Google had added support for Clickable Phone Numbers as part of a business’s SERP listing in January, this year. This allowed mobile advertisers to include their business phone numbers in the NAP citations (Name, Address and Phone number) that would be displayed as added text in mobile SERPs for high-end smartphone users.

Clicking on these phone numbers leads to a call being initiated automatically. That means an advertiser has to pay a certain amount to Google per click generation. The working is quite similar to the clicks generated on URLs. But in most cases, one can explore more business opportunities over a call as compared to URL clicks.

Previously, to make use of the click to call feature, businesses were required to submit their contact numbers along with their physical addresses in business NAP citations. In an effort to get more advertisers on-board, Google has decided to do away with the Business Address Requirement in advertisers’ business NAP citations. This will simplify matters for “National” as well as “Local” businesses, as a lot customers can reach them directly through their business contact numbers.

Let’s see what Surojit Chatterjee, Google’s Product Lead, Local Mobile Advertising channel has to say about Google’s latest advertising initiative

Google told me previously that click-through rates (“CTRs”) on these ads have been from “5 to 30 percent better” than other AdWords CTRs in mobile. Even the URLs in these ads get more click.

In addition to that, the move was partly inspired by the growing response of national level advertisers, says Chatterjee about their latest advertising initiative.

There was a tremendous response from large insurance companies, travel and rental car companies and healthcare, among others. There has just be a great response.

That being said, Google believes that its latest advertising initiative to simplify business advertising requirements on its platform will have more smart advertisers bidding aggressively. The addition of the Click to Call program may simplify business matters, but the price that one has to pay for this service will have a final say on the future of this new service.

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