IP Democracy: Google Takes New Steps on Ad Fronts

ClickZ cites news on several fronts in Google’s quest to expand the reach and functionality of its advertising model. Pamela Parker reports that the search giant “is experimenting with plotting local advertisers’ locations on its Maps product, giving marketers a visual and spatial accompaniment to their locally targeted ads.” And Kevin Newcomb has some interesting details on a Google patent filing for “call-on-select” functionality.

According to Parker:

A search on “hotels” in New York City returns an organic list of local hotels, plotted on the map with red markers and bracketed by sponsored hotel listings, plotted on the map with blue markers. Clicking on a blue marker brings up a balloon with more information about the hotel advertiser, such as address and phone number. It also includes a logo for the hotel brand. Logos haven’t previously been part of Google paid listings, but in talks of its recent deal with AOL, the company said it would likely begin offering logos in the future. The new ad format was first spotted by blogger and Moreover founder David Galbraith, who mentioned it on his blog.

Noting that “Google began testing click-to-call ads on its site in November, but has not yet rolled out that service to mobile phones,” Newcomb says the company’s patent application “describes a process that takes into consideration a device’s screen size, connection speed, and input capabilities to determine if it would be better to serve an ad with a link to a Web page or one that causes the phone or other mobile device to place a phone call to the advertiser.”

“Everybody talks about pay-per-call in wireless as a natural business model,” Greg Sterling, program director at the Kelsey Group, told ClickZ News.” There’s definitely a lot of interest among advertisers in receiving phone calls. Our data indicate that 71 percent of small and mid-sized businesses would rather receive a phone call than a click in a performance-based ad model.” This preference for phone contact, combined with the presumed immediacy of the mobile environment, could allow Google and others to charge a premium for these kinds of ads, he said.

Newcomb also highlights some of the reasons cited in the patent why “call-on-select” would be useful, “including avoiding download delays on devices with limited bandwidth and preventing advertisers from looking bad when their site doesn’t render properly on a small screen…[and] entering shipping information and credit card information with a mobile telephone keyboard may be slow and frustrating.”

Posted by Mitch Shapiro on January 12, 2006 8:59 PM to IP Democracy