Pay Per Call (PPCall) advertising is all the rage at the moment, particularly in the local search arena. Google’s PPCall trial has added even more fuel to the inferno. PPCall presents clear business rationale to the advertiser. Many advertisers, particularly, local SME advertisers want a “lead” — a real person they can sell something — not a click which is afterall only a means to … a lead. The “mythical typical” small local advertiser remains, unfortunately, woefully underprepared to do a reasonable job converting clicks to leads. Thus, a call has much higher perceived and actual value than a click. PPCall creates advertiser value. So far, so good.

Advertising publishers can sell “leads” for far higher prices than clicks. Their SME customers have a more innate understanding of the value of the lead than the click. The PPCall publishers that I’ve spoken to tell me that the PPCall leads are easier to sell to the SME despite price points that may be 100x or higher the cost per click. PPCall clearly creates publisher value. So far, so good again.

But where’s the consumer value? The consumer must still dial the digits, either on their keyboard or dialpad. And click-to-call is notoriously lightly used, proving that most consumers don’t want to dial their digits into a keyboard. Once connected, consumers still have the phone experience that many find, shall we say, less than satisfying. That phone experience is even less satisfying for the internet-savvy consumer. Thus, there is limited to no consumer value to PPCall.

PPCall is conceptually correct and creates a more rational economic model for many advertisers and publishers. But given no consumer value, there should be a better way. And there is a better way that delivers the same value to the advertiser and publisher and to the consumer.