Pandora Squared - Web and Business Architects, Consultants, Social Media Marketing, Software and Blogging hope not hype

The idea of the company Who’s Calling started when they were a small telecommunications company. They had plenty of 1-800 numbers and needed to advertise. Deciding to place advertising on big white trucks, they placed huge unique 800 numbers on each side. They began, starting tracking, tracking, and tracking. It was only a couple days that the data decided which street corners and which stores to park the truck that got the most amounts of calls and customers. They were now able to justify paying the local liquor store money to park the advertisement truck and not the low quality space the deli three blocks away provided. Now, Who’s Calling continues to serve unique 800 numbers and still tracks, tracks, and tracks.

I was lucky enough to receive a demo last year at AdTechSF with the CEO. The product was amazing, some of the benefits were having the ability to record all calls including sales calls, and then downloading those calls on an ipod to audit when you’re on a plane� Now they have just tied in Pay-Per-Call with their ClickPath acquire.

“Enable Pay-Per-Call business model with dynamically served phone numbers linked back to ad sources and full search context.â€? Who’s Calling CEO Stuart DePina

This now ties in your offline sales call and centralizes and aggregates the data on the same playing field. Talk about some real analytics; via location, time of day, response time from ad to phone, and tons more relevant data. This stuff gets me excited !!!

Years Ago – “AOL Keyword: Pontiac�

Now – “Google Pontiac�

A recent GM television ad included an unusual call to action:

“Don’t take our word for it. Google Pontiac and discover for yourself.”

And the ad ended not with a URL or phone number for a local dealer, but an actual Google screenshot with Pontiac typed in. I point out the difference in marketing in the Flickr Image.

Remember AOL Keyword several years ago…this makes me laugh.

So the question is why would Pontiac pay for clicks when they are #1 in organic listings?

Many clients ask me the same question.

“Are you nuts? Why would I ever want to run a paid search campaign on my branded keywords? I’m already ranked well organically.�

Well, If you don’t do it someone else will!! If you don’t buy and manage your branded keywords, you’re missing out on the opportunity to control the way your company is represented in search. Are you willing to leave your customers experience up to chance? You can’t control what Google is going to display for your description in your organic listings but, pay-per-click you can.

Lock out competitors: In addition to controlling your message, every ad slot you take up is one less for your competition that can potentially use to lure away your competitors. The more times you are on the page the more times you will be clicked. Remember the 70/30 rule. 70% of searchers click on the organic links, 30% of searchers click on the sponsored links.

Don’t you want 30% more leads?