Google Click-to-Call – It’s Official

Via their blog Google officially announced today the availability of “click-to-call” for Google Maps. The official announcement has been long anticipated going back to March when the trial was announced.

Google is absorbing the cost of this feature in order to accelerate their revenue growth in the local search arena, offering it free-of-charge to their advertisers. Smart move! The feature is useful and increases the effectiveness of the ads on which it is enabled. How do I know it is effective? Well, I don’t have access to Google’s trial data, but I don’t need it because data from publishers that have deployed the ContactAtOnce! service is so conclusive. In our experience, the effectiveness of ads increases by at least 25%.

So how long until every classified publisher, internet yellow page provider, local search site, and ad network selling advertising to local businesses follows suit? We think soon! If they want to stay in business for long, that is.

And ContactAtOnce! stands ready to enable such publishers, providers, and networks. Our service will enable them to compete with Google, at least in this dimension, and it couldn’t be simpler to roll out.