On September 17th at Digiday:MOBILE, a panel of speakers will discuss how to innovate with new mobile ad units. I expect there will be lots of interesting discussion around applications, video, the mobile web and in particular, the announcement that Google is returning to PPCall as a mobile ad format. According to analyst Greg Sterling who participated in the conference call yesterday, Google experimented with pay per call and click to call functionality in AdWords several years ago on the PC and then killed it. Now it appears that Google is returning to PPCall or click- to-call which is a new mobile monetization ad format.
This makes good sense. When building mobile ad units — its critical to take the device into account and how people use it most — for conversation. Calling or “voice” is obvious, but remember that most teens hardly ever call anyone. They text. In fact, According to Nielsen, they sent almost 3,000 text messages per month as compared to 191 calls. ChaCha figured out how to get you - the advertiser - into these conversations with SMS ad units. An old format, but when leveraged effectively can be fun, personal, relevant and extremely effective. In addition, ChaCha offers ways to leverage calling (or voice) to extend SMS ad units with creative response-based Text-to-Call (TTCall) and even a Text-to-Call Back (TextConnect) CPC ad units.
Remember: Phones are primarily for conversation. SMS, or texting is preferred by teens and young adults. When marketing to teens on mobile devices, SMS ad units are the best way to engage them. Once “hooked,” advertisers can get them to call, or have an advertiser call them back.
“Hi! Its ChaCha! How can I help you?”
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