Google’s Click-to-Call Advertising Goes National


When you’re Googling for something on your phone and hit sponsored results, it’s best if you can click that ad to find out more information as seamlessly as possible. For Google, they make more money when you click, so adding features to encourage clicking makes sense for their business. The trick is making the user want to click and also making that click qualified and worthwhile for the advertiser.

Keeping that in mind, Google recently released a “Click-to-Call” feature where advertisers could put a phone number or prompt in their ads that a user could literally click to call. However, the feature was limited to local advertisers only, which limited its growth on a national scale. According to a Google spokesperson, on average, advertisers who participated in the original Click-to-Call beta saw very positive results, ranging from a 5 to 30 % increase in click-through rates.

Yesterday, Google announced that they’ve expanded click-to-call phone numbers for national advertisers. For the types of larger businesses that run call centers, this makes the feature usable. Google’s latest Mobile Blog post gives the example of searching for travel services and being able to click-to-call directly to a travel agent.

The feature works on iPhone, Android and Palm Pre devices. If you’re an advertiser and want to add a click-to-call phone number to a Google mobile ad, this post on the Google AdWords blog explains how to set one up.