Friday, February 23, 2007
Local Scene Needs Pay-Per-Call
Local.com put out a press release saying that Hearst has invested 8 million in the company. That's good news for a company that is challenging Yahoo, Google, CitySearch and countless regional publishers. Local.com says it attracts 10 million visitors each month. The company has multiple advertising options including "subscription, pay per click, banner and pay per call ad products." Unfortunately for small businesses they aren't being completely forthright, as the pay per call product isn't up and running just yet, according to a sales representative. Pay-per-call is the best model for small service providers who can't afford to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars each month on a PPC campaign in the hopes that some of it will turn into traffic. There is a huge opportunity for someone in the local search arena to sell on an auction-based pay per call basis. MSN, Yahoo and Google do not offer pay-per-call for local search but smaller companies Miva and CitySearch do. Plumbers, accountants, mechanics, etc. would gladly pay a few bucks per call, and using an auction structure would enhance the revenue possibilities for the publishers. If Yahoo wants to make a move on Google, offering more pay per action services could be the ticket.
By John Gartner at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)
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