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Google is testing click-to-call (pay-per-call) ads on search engine results pages, reports ClickZ (via MarketingVox). Users who click on phone icons appearing next to sponsored search listings can enter their phone number; the system first calls the search user then connects with the merchant. Blogger and tech consultant Greg Yardley, among the first to notice the new feature, provides a series of screen shots of the process, which Google describes in an FAQ item.
Google also takes note of privacy concerns, saying in another FAQ item that it “won’t share your telephone number with anyone, including the advertiser…. In addition, we’ll delete the number from our servers after a short period of time.”
Google has only confirmed that it is conducting tests of a pay-per-call model but would not provide any more information.
Arbitron has reached a settlement with the State of New York, in a move that will resolve all claims against Arbitron that were alleged in the lawsuit filed against the company by the NY Attorney General relating to the marketing…
Just weeks after shuttering the print edition of PC Magazine and moving it entirely online, Ziff Davis has announced that it is closing the books on Electronic Gaming Magazine, due to the sale of its collection of video game sites,…
Angered by a London bus advertisement that sent her to a website where she was told that she was going to hell, to spend all eternity in torment, comedy writer Ariane Sherine decided to launch a counter-campaign.
She began raising…
Time Warner said today that the economy has been more challenging in terms of its advertising business than it had expected, particularly at AOL and the Time Inc. publishing units.
The company said it will post a net operating loss…
On its Google Checkout page, Google claims a “Checkout” icon can increase ad click-through by 10%. (At least one client, Fred Lerner of e-commerce network Ritz Interactive, claims the Checkout icon increased clickthroughs by 23%.)
What’s more, Google Checkout users purportedly…
Even through a recession U.S. consumers redeem just 1%-3% of paper coupons, but up to half of the coupons that Kroger sends to its customers are redeemed - because it uses a data-mining firm it part-owns to target specific customers.
Kroger,…
