Although praises of pay-per-click advertising on search engines is on the rise, profitability is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve according to a leading direct response television advertising agency.
According to Joseph Gray, CEO of REVShare, competition and click fraud can be profit killers in the search engine space. However, these aren’t issues for companies engaging in pay-per-call television advertising.
“With pay-per-click, advertisers have to constantly outbid each other just to rise above all the competition on the page,” says Gray. “With pay-per-call television, the advertiser has the audience all to itself for 30 or 60 seconds and only pays a fixed rate for qualified customer leads, not just site traffic.”
The rising cost of clicks on search engines isn’t the only drain to advertisers’ profits. Click fraud, artificial clicks on paid listings caused by competitors or search engine affiliates, also cuts profit margins.
“Clicks are easy to manufacturer on the web,” notes Gray. “However, thanks to ANI technology it is virtually impossible to fake phone calls since the origination phone number of the lead is always known. Corporate advertisers are better protected from inflated costs through pay-per-call TV advertising.”
Some companies in highly-competitive industries can no longer afford to promote their business on pay-per-click search engines. According to Gray, these include companies that target broad consumer segments by bidding on keywords such as “refinance”, “life insurance”, “credit counseling” or “home loan.”
For example, the keyword “credit counseling” is $15.00 or more per click for the top listings on Overture. At an estimated 10-to-1 click-to-lead conversion, a lead could average $150.00 or more. Gray notes that the credit counseling category is averaging well under $40.00 on a pay-per-call television basis.
Pay-per-call television advertising also delivers a high volume of leads; REVShare’s top five clients generated over 371,433 leads in 2003.
Murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
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