While Pay-Per-Call (PPCall) metrics are similar to Pay-Per-Click (PPC) metrics, there are some distinct differences and as a savvy Merchant (Advertiser), you should have a thorough grounding in Pay-Per-Call metrics to get the highest return from those precious advertising dollars.

Merchants who use Pay-Per-Call love it because conversion rates are so much higher than other mediums for capturing leads.   Leads captured by form have conversions in the low single digits, whereas Pay-Per-Call which drives inbound phone leads can have conversion rates of 20 – 50%.

The reasons for the high conversion are simple.  One, it’s the immediacy.  Consumers are impatient.  They’re surfing the Net and they want information NOW.  If they fill out a form, it’s often 24 hours before they are called.   In that time, they’ve continued to surf and fill out forms, which means there’s much more competition.

With a phone lead, it’s immediate.  The salesperson can establish a rapport, and in some cases close the prospect on the first call.

Given marketing’s reliance on cooperation from sales, you may not be able to track all these metrics, and that’s okay.  Track what you can.  Obviously, the more data—accurate data—the better equipped you are to calculate true ROI and know how much you can offer publishers per lead.

I’m not going to explain how to calculate the following metrics, as I assume if you are reading this article you have a grasp of basic marketing metrics.

1)      Sales conversion rate (CVR): Important so you can compare the CVR between mediums and in conjunction with CPL and/or CPS, you can determine affiliate compensation rates.

2)      Cost per Lead (CPL) and Cost per Sale (CPS): Obviously important, because they are used with CVR to determine how much to compensate your publishers.

Also, given the higher conversion rates on Pay-Per-Call versus for-generated leads, everything else being equal, your sales people will spend less time on Pay-Per-Call versus form-captured leads giving you a strong incentive to compensate publishers at a higher rate on Pay-Per-Call leads.

If you want to get really granular, you can factor in how much time your sales people spend on form-capture leads versus Pay-Per-Call leads, and factor in the added productivity.

3)      Revenue per Transaction: This can be an important metric as you compare revenue between Pay-Per-Call leads and form-captured leads.   Do prospects who call in spend more (or less) than leads that were generated from a form?

4)      Call duration: If you can calculate call duration, it’s a good metric to capture.   Calls under two minutes probably have a very low conversion ratio, so perhaps you don’t compensate publishers for these calls.  Two minutes also gives your salespeople enough time to weed out bogus calls, like telemarketers.  Further, maybe the sweet spot for conversion rates are calls over 6 minutes, so you may want to compensate publishers differently for calls between two and six minutes, versus calls over six minutes.

This may not be the easiest metric to track, so if you can’t track it, I wouldn’t be overly concerned.

5)      Demographics: If you want to get really granular, there are tons more metrics you can track such as geography (suburban, urban, rural, city, state, etc), age, income, etc. which can be useful for approaching publishers.  If you can develop buyer personas and figure out the most profitable personas, you can approach publishers with sites who cater to your most profitable personas.

Granted, getting this granular may not be that easy, but even if you run a sample it may be helpful as you define your campaign strategy.

6)      Top-selling products: Knowing which products sell the most and how much revenue each one generates can guide you in developing campaigns and promotions that you can push out to your publisher channel.

7)      ROI: The king of metrics.  ROI tells you how effectively you are spending your advertising dollars.  In theory, it’s the only metric that counts.  But, curiously many marketers seem to place higher priority on other metrics, sometimes even overlooking it all together.

Tracking all of these would be quite a feat, so don’t worry if you finding the task daunting.  I’m simply providing an array of different metrics that you if you’re so inclined you can track.  The good news is Pay-Per-Call, like Pay-Per-Click, is so easily quantifiable that you can continually make refinements.  Likewise, in uncertain economic times, the more quantifiable your marketing initiatives, the better.

Inbound Marketing is an incredible book.  It is one of the best marketing books to come out to date.   The wait list at Amazon is lengthy.   The authors are the founders of Hubspot.

Inbound Marketing is an incredible book.  It is one of the best marketing books to come out to date.   The wait list at Amazon is lengthy.   The authors are the founders of Hubspot.

Inbound Marketing is an incredible book.  It is one of the best marketing books to come out to date.   The wait list at Amazon is lengthy.   The authors are the founders of Hubspot. Inbound Marketing is an incredible book.  It is one of the best marketing books to come out to date.   The wait list at Amazon is lengthy.   The authors are the founders of Hubspot.

Inbound Marketing is an incredible book.  It is one of the best marketing books to come out to date.   The wait list at Amazon is lengthy.   The authors are the founders of Hubspot.

Pay-Per-Call can be a highly lucrative option for advertiser and affiliate alike.   It’s proven to be highly effective, both from a lead generation standpoint and an ancillary revenue source for not just super-affiliates, but for bloggers who cover high margin industries.

Pay-Per-Call can be a highly lucrative option for advertiser and affiliate alike.   It’s proven to be highly effective, both from a lead generation standpoint and an ancillary revenue source for not just super-affiliates, but for bloggers who cover high margin industries.

The name Chris Brogan is synonymous with Social Media and Web 2.0.  Chris has established himself as the preeminent thought leader in the Social Media space.   Whilst thousands of wannabes run around with the “Social Media Expert” moniker appended to their title, Chris truly is an undisputed expert and guru.

The name Chris Brogan is synonymous with Social Media and Web 2.0.  Chris has established himself as the preeminent thought leader in the Social Media space.   Whilst thousands of wannabes run around with the “Social Media Expert” moniker appended to their title, Chris truly is an undisputed expert and guru.

The name Chris Brogan is synonymous with Social Media and Web 2.0.  Chris has established himself as the preeminent thought leader in the Social Media space.   Whilst thousands of wannabes run around with the “Social Media Expert” moniker appended to their title, Chris truly is an undisputed expert and guru.

The name Chris Brogan is synonymous with Social Media and Web 2.0.  Chris has established himself as the preeminent thought leader in the Social Media space.   Whilst thousands of wannabes run around with the “Social Media Expert” moniker appended to their title, Chris truly is an undisputed expert and guru.

Perhaps equally insidious in the Pay-Per-Call industry is the surfacing of telemarketers who call Pay-Per-Call numbers whilst prospecting.   Who wants to not only be harassed by a telemarketer, but have to pay for it too.

Best practices.   Spammers be gone!   Spammers are like a virus.  And, worst of all, they give entire industries a bad name.

That’s why establishing best practices from the beginning is important.Perhaps equally insidious in the Pay-Per-Call industry is the surfacing of telemarketers who call Pay-Per-Call numbers whilst prospecting.  Who wants to not only be harassed by a telemarketer, but have to pay for it too.  Best practices.   Spammers be gone!

Spammers are like a virus.  And, worst of all, they give entire industries a bad name.   That’s why establishing best practices from the beginning is important.Perhaps equally insidious in the Pay-Per-Call industry is the surfacing of telemarketers who call Pay-Per-Call numbers whilst prospecting.   Who wants to not only be harassed by a telemarketer, but have to pay for it too.

Social Media can be easily quatified with Pay-Per-Call unlike other forms of social media.  This is great news!

Social Media – Have you joined the conversation? Social Media and Pay-Per-Call may go together swimingly, particularly for ROI-sensitive executives in turbulent economic times like this.

Social Media can be easily quatified with Pay-Per-Call unlike other forms of social media.  This is great news!

Social Media – When Are You Joining the Conversation? Social Media – When Are You Joining the Conversation? Social Media – When Are You Joining the Conversation? Social Media – When Are You Joining the Conversation? Social Media – When Are You Joining the Conversation? Social Media – When Are You Joining the Conversation?

Social Media – Have you joined the conversation? Social Media and Pay-Per-Call may go together swimingly, particularly for ROI-sensitive executives in turbulent economic times like this.

Social Media can be easily quatified with Pay-Per-Call unlike other forms of social media.  This is great news!

It’s about time Pay-Per-Call found herself a blog.  Woot!

It’s about time Pay-Per-Call found herself a blog.  Woot!  Blogging and pay-per-call go together like Amos and Andy, peanut butter and chocolate, Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell.  Ok, maybe not The Donald and Rosie.

It’s about time Pay-Per-Call found herself a blog.  Woot!  Blogging and pay-per-call go together like Amos and Andy, peanut butter and chocolate, Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell.  Ok, maybe not The Donald and Rosie.

It’s about time Pay-Per-Call found herself a blog.  Woot!  Blogging and pay-per-call go together like Amos and Andy, peanut butter and chocolate, Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell.  Ok, maybe not The Donald and Rosie.

Where is my martini?

Featured on AMC, a network obscure to most boob-tube viewing Americans, Mad Men has become a cultural phenomenon.

Oblivious to modern conventions of political correctness, Mad Men transplants viewers for an hour each Sunday to a bygone era of three-martini lunches, inappropriate office romances, and smoking in the office.

Fast forward nearly half a century and we’ve become much more serious at work.

No smoking, no drinking and the mere thought of an office romance with an underling will land you a career ending sexual harassment suit faster than Reverend Ted Haggard dropping drawers at a RuPaul revival.

In an era of puritanical restraint in the office, such ebullient excesses do sound like fun, but alas, those days are long gone.

So what does all this have to do with Pay-Per-Call technology besides the fact I love the show, and anytime I can slip in a popular cultural reference into a blog about technology, I find it hard to resist?  Well, not much, except that agencies need Pay-Per-Call and Pay-Per-Call needs agencies like Rush Limbaugh needs OxyContin and Viagra.

Unsurprisingly, stodgy old-school creative directors have been slow (or reticent) to adopt Pay-Per-Call.  That probably won’t change soon.  Traditional agencies will continue to be resistant due to the fact, Pay-Per-Call provides an incredible amount of transparency, and Madison Avenue hates transparency.  Heck, when your top creative directors bill out at an average of $964 per hour (AdAge 10/5/09), who wants people to know how effective you really are?

In all seriousness, I kid the agencies.  And in fact, an early proponent of Pay-Per-Call is neo@Ogilvy.   Sure, neo@Ogilvy is a digital media agency, but they are still very much a part of Ogilvy & Mather, an agency that while no longer still physically on Madison Avenue, surely is the paradigmatic Madison Avenue agency.

So back to my original question, who are the Mad Men of Pay-Per-Call Avenue?  Well, the men (and women) don’t work on Madison Avenue.   While a few of the players work at interactive agencies, most of the movers and shakers operate outside this world, as high-tech executives, entrepreneurs and VCs.

Here is a list, which is by all means, anything but exhaustive:

Agency Executives

AJ Resnick:  AJ managed a successful Pay-Per-Call campaign for neo@Ogilvy last year that delivered thousands of qualified leads to their client at an acquisition cost 20% below their campaign objectives.  The campaign utilized both online and mobile media to drive leads to their client’s national call center.

AJ has since moved on to GyroHSR where he is Senior Strategist of Search & Analytics and oversees search campaigns for top 100 advertisers and emerging brands.

Hollis Thomases:  Hollis, President & CEO of Web Ad.vantage may not be a “mad man”, but she’s been a thought leader in the space, and penned a prescient column for ClickZ entitled, “Why Pay-Per-Call Advertising Needs Agencies”, where she made a case for agencies and outlined best practices.

The Entrepreneurs

While some of the early entrepreneurs cashed out–such Marc Barach who sold Ingenio to AT&T–there are others who are coming on strong, particularly in the affiliate marketing space.

Jason Spievak and Robert Duva:  RingRevenue CEO and CMO respectively, Jason and Robert, both CallWave veterans founded the Santa Barbara up-start with just $3.5M and a dream.   RingRevenue is quickly making waves by solidifying partnerships with the leading affiliate networks including Commission Junction, ShareASale and LinkShare.

Gary Campbell:  Gary comes hails from the directory publishing space, and is among a handful of executives with the extensive experience building a performance-based ad model in a print product.   He hopes this experience will bode well for the venture he started earlier this year, Cost Per Call Solutions.

The Venture Capitalist

John Greathouse:  John, a serial entrepreuner and founder of performance marketing and search marketing consultancy, RevUpNet, has been active in the space and is an investor and board member of RingRevenue.  John,  known for his wit and commentary on start-ups and “Wantrepreneurs”, also writes a humorous blog, infoChackie.

The Analyst

Greg Sterling, an analyst for The Kelsey Group, has been covering the space since 2005.   Although his forecast of Pay-Per-Call reaching $1.4B to $4B in gross revenues by 2009 may have been optimistic, he’s been a keen observer and articulate proponent of the technology.

The Executives

Chad Schott and Ed O’Keefe:  Both executives at Marchex, Chad is VP of Business Development and Ed is Vice President of Product Strategy & Management.   Chad spearheaded the launch of Pay-Per-Call with AOL, while Ed has been busy creating next generation, scalable   Search, Pay-Per-Call, Mobile and IYP offerings for agencies, SMBs, resellers and national brands.

So sure, although Madison Avenue debauchery and the fictional world of Sterling Cooper may be but a distant memory, on a recent visit to the RingRevenue headquarters in Santa Barbara, I’m pretty sure I spied a bottle of single-malt scotch.   Don Draper would be proud.