PPC. The acronym is most commonly associated with Pay Per Click in search marketing, but now there is a new kid in town sporting the same name but with a vastly different reputation. While Pay Per Click has now become a proven marketing commodity, Pay Per Call is a an emerging marketing concept that has yet to earn the same accolades. So let’s take a look at what marketers are saying about Pay Per Call and whether they are enthusiastic about incorporating this new PPC into their marketing campaigns.

Marketing Sherpa produces a number of informative guides based on their research of a wide array of internet marketing practices. One of their best Benchmark Guides is their annual Search Marketing Benchmark Guide. For 2007, Marketing Sherpa asked nearly 4000 search marketers their opinion of Pay Per Call and asked them to rate their experiences with it along with their enthusiasm for it as a future marketing tool. In addition to Pay Per Call, they were asked to rate the potential for other emerging marketing vehicles such as local search, blogs, video, etc. Here is a breakdown of their findings:

So let’s examine these results:

• Only 23% of the respondents ranked Pay Per Call a 4 or 5. The most enthusiasm is for Local Search with 60% of respondents scoring it a 4 or 5. Blogs, Press Releases, Social Search, & Vertical Search all score 50% or above in scores of 4 or 5. Video & Mobile both scored 38%.
• 45% of respondents scored Pay Per Call a 1 or 2 which shows a sheer lack of enthusiasm for the model. Conversely, Local Search only had 12% of respondents rate it as a 1 or 2 for excitement. Again, Blogs, PR, Social, Vertical all score in the low 20%, while Video and Mobile scored in the low 30%.
• Every model in the survey had between ¼ and 1/3 of all respondents rated the model as a neutral score of 3. This would seem to indicate that higher and lower scores have significant relevance as the level of uncertainty is about equal for all 8 models surveyed.

In a related survey, the same 4000 marketers were asked about their experiences with Pay Per Call. About 1/3 of surveyed marketers have had experience with Pay Per Call and the results again show a general lack of success with the Pay Per Call model.

• 49% of marketers said the results were mixed
• 41% of marketers said there was insufficient call volume and it generated few qualified leads.
• Only 10% of marketers rated Pay Per Call as a strong tactic that delivered well qualified leads.

It would seem that Pay Per Call should be a marketing model that should be given a low priority at this time. Internet marketers would be better served placing time and resources into other emerging models, particularly Local Search, Blogs, PR, Social & Vertical Search markets. While Pay Per Call may be an effective tool for certain types of products and campaigns, the vast majority of marketers would be better served to treat Pay Per Call with a wait & see approach.