Friday, November 6, 2009

Call tracking: Slick as snot, or just good service?

This continuing call tracking discussion on Greg Sterling's blog frames a fundamental challenge within mobile local search: data quality. A quick search for plumbers on HelpHive returns 687 results (Los Angeles also returns 687 results so this is perhaps programmed by HelpHive). Search for Seattle Plumber with Google Maps and there are 2,368 results. Directories such as HelpHive aim to help consumers sort through these very unmanageable lists.

In my recent article on iMediaCONNECTION: "Left in the dark: How search fails at mobile local", I provide examples of base mobile local search data that is out-of-date, unverified by the business owner, inaccurate, poorly categorized, etc.

Our testing at FastCall411 has revealed that if /when the consumer calls the 2,368 results on Google, they will – on average - receive a disconnected number, busy signal or no answer about 700 times. About 700 times they will be connected to an answering machine or IVR (which may in turn connect to a live person or voice mail). The remaining consumers would be lucky to find a plumber who answers their phone. Of these, we can assume some will be available to serve the consumer's need and some will not.

Call tracking enables publishers to apply a level of analysis to a mostly unfiltered database of local merchants well beyond spidering the web. The call disposition (disconnect, busy, etc) provides insight into the status of the merchant that we could never uncover from a base listing or meta data alone. Further, examining average call length reveals even more about the interaction between the caller and merchant. While there are exceptions, I believe average call length – taken over a series of calls – is a great proxy for customer service. Unlike consumer reviews, the call detail records present empirical data.

The net result: plumbers who better serve their clients can be rewarded by tracking calls.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Huge Call Tracking Discussion over on Screenwerk

Greg Sterling's Screenwerk has a hot conversation going on a dispute between Seattle-based HelpHive and a local merchant. The original post and comments are here.

I jumped into the fray and (of course) agreed that if a Merchant fails to meet a publisher's quality of service standard or worse, doesn't pay their bills; the publisher should redirect their calls. [Note: I would council my publisher clients to cover call redirection in their terms of service so that advertisers would have to agree to these terms when they sign the insertion order.]

FastCall411's TryAnother application was designed for this type of call redirection.

Mobile local search has many challenges, and for better or worse, call tracking offers many solutions. In June I wrote in response to Greg's post on pay-per-call: “Will Local Market Ultimately Reject PFP/PPC”

I have argued many times that customer service is the key to success in mobile local search. Consumers expect immediate availability when hiring a local merchant.

FastCall411 research confirms what most of us have experienced: merchants don’t always answer their phones or are otherwise not available.

From the publisher's POV is it a better consumer experience to connect the calling consumer to the merchant's voicemail, or is it a better consumer experience to offer to connect the consumer to other available merchants and redirect the call?

Yes, in this scenario some merchants will lose leads, but others will win. More importantly, the consumer is served.

By tracking calls we are able to identify merchants who are more likely to be available and responsive. This rewards merchants who deliver better customer service. So while merchants should be hyper diligent about who is controlling their identity and reputation, they can find solace in the potential to be rewarded for their good service.

Friday, October 30, 2009

Google Voice Integrated in Goog Comparison Ads

Over at Search Engine Land Danny Sullivan wrote about the new Google Comparison Ads. Sold on a cost-per-lead (CPL) basis (initially just Mortgages). The Comparison Ads (a typical format in lead generation) enable consumers to fill out a form and the lead is delivered to multiple vendors. However, Google is not giving the vendor, in this case the mortgage broker, the consumer's phone number (to abuse) but rather Google is provisioning a Google Voice *Virtual* number so that Goog can intermediate the call between the broker and consumer. This is a great feature for the consumer and sure to drive innovation in lead generation.

Here's the quote from Danny's article and the post:
Ads are sold on a cost-per-lead basis. When someone clicks to receive a quote, the advertiser is forwarded the information and billed. The advertiser also receives no personal information about the person. In fact, they don’t even get the person’s real phone number. Google provides a temporary bridging number that connects the advertiser to the customer. After that, it’s up to the customer to provide their own “real” number if they want follow-up, Fox said. more...

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Five Rules For Running A Successful Pay-Per-Call Campaign

My column on pay-per-call success recently published on Search Engine Land:.

Oct 16, 2009 by Rich Rosen

Although it’s been around for years, pay-per-call advertising may be finally hitting its stride. Greg Sterling, a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land, recently wrote:

We’ve long known that calls are much more valuable than clicks to small businesses in particular, but also to many larger entities with call-center sales operations. However… it’s taken PPCall much longer to get going than I originally anticipated.


Sterling sees pay-per-call growth in traditional media and mobile. He also notes that pay-per-call programs are now increasingly being used in print Yellow Page directories such as AT&T which just announced pay-per-call programs via the YPmobile App for iPhone and iTouch . Merchant Circle also recently announced pay-per-acquisition pricing – including pay-per-call.

And it’s not just AT&T and Merchant Circle. Other traditional yellow page publishes are renewing interest, and venture rounds by MojoPages, Balihoo, RingRevenue, as well as the TechCrunch50 launch of Redbeacon and Yext show that there is a growing supply of pay per call offerings coming into the mobile local search market.

more on SEL...

Sunday, October 4, 2009

PPCall is an Opportunity for Innovation, Not a Necessity out of Desperation

At the mobile local search industry confab, the Kelsey Group’s DMS ’09 conference held recently in Orlando, Telmetrics CEO Bill Dinan, urged traditional yellow page companies to move to performance based pricing (press release.)

In his panel and press release Dinan argued that traditional media has proven its worth – when the number and length of calls are tracked the metrics are successful - and said now is the time to prove it with pay per call (ppcall) pricing. Dinan told Kelsey’s Charles Laughlin that he expects ppcall will become the largest revenue category for Yellow Pages, from overwhelmingly subscription today to 70-30 in favor of performance pricing within a few years.

Dinan backs up his argument with data that he says indicates print yellow page (PYP) leads are more valuable than internet yellow page leads (IYP) – as measured by average call length. Here’s the data:
• Print Yellow Pages ads average 20.5 calls per month at 2.7 minutes in length
• Internet Yellow Pages ads average 20 calls per month at 1.3 minutes in length
• Direct Mail ads average 8.4 calls per month at 1.7 minutes in length
• Interactive / SEM average 6.4 calls per month at 1.3 minutes in length

With several years in the call measurement space serving Yellow Page publishers, I concur that Print YPs deliver leads and should not be afraid to report them. However, the difference in the data – average call length of IYP (1.3 mins) vs PYP (2.7 mins) - strikes me as unusually high. I look at the Telmetics data above and I do not see the superior quality of PYP leads and an argument for pay-per-call, I see a fundamental issue with IYP call tracking and an opportunity to solve the challenge revealed within the data: Why are IYP leads 50% in quality compared to PYP leads?

Wrong numbers are one reason that IYP publishers would see very low average call lengths. However, after so many years in the space, Telmetrics should be well beyond the learning curve of dealing with wrong number calls. It’s also possible that their clients are recycling numbers on their end - or using dynamic number insertion and that is causing wrong number calls. While these actions would be beyond the call measurement provider’s control, the resulting data should raise a red flag for the client and the vendor.

Another likely explanation of the significant difference in the average call length between PYP and IYP calls is relevancy of the IYP listing. Print yellow pages are accurately targeted - nearly all listings are in my neighborhood. Online I often see ads for merchants several cities away.

I have a saying: if a merchant receives 10 calls and the average call length is 15 seconds, I don’t know what the question was, but the answer was most likely “NO.” Multiple calls to a merchant listed in an IYP heading resulting in “no” responses means the merchant isn’t relevant to the consumer search (out of business, mis-categorized, etc.) This scenario would skew average call length.

I do not view accountability and performance pricing as a requirement born out of desperation. The local mobile search industry has an opportunity for innovation and it is not limited to pay-per-call. For example, many merchants want a fixed budget and will be well served with ROI reporting (call tracking.) The mobile local search industry needs to move beyond call tracking or pay-per-call with Voice 1.0 applications and embrace the benefits of today’s innovative Voice 2.0 applications.

Yext demonstrated an example of innovative Voice 2.0 applications at TechCrunch50. The company has identified and is trying to solve the problem of leakage and dirty calls within pay-per-call. Yext Calls uses voice recognition and analytics to examine key words - within a phone call - for relevance and to filter out junk calls or non-sales leads. For example, calls such as “what are your hours of operation?” may not be charged as a lead. Yext wowed the crowd at TechCruch50 and followed-up with an announcement of a $25M venture round. (I previously commented on Yext Local Search: Enormous Opportunity – Complex Solutions.)

Another innovator in mobile local search, and the TechCruch50 winner, is Redbeacon. While not focused on pay per call, or calls at all – they are trying to solve the problem of merchant availability. This is more closely related to pay-per-call than most realize. If the merchant's staff is not available to respond to a call, the consumer is not served (and you typically cannot bill for the call). The merchant who answers the phone is generally more available than the merchant that does not - especially over a series of calls.

FastCall411 also offers an exciting fix for leakage, dirty calls and merchant availability. The goal of TryAnother, our patent-pending parallel dialing application, is to deliver more quality leads to available merchants by capturing real-time connection rate data on each call (paid and organic listings). Merchants are offered the ability to accept (and optionally pay for) a lead only when they are available to provide the service. Merchants want good clean calls.

The next generation of Voice 2.0 applications insure a high level of satisfaction with the quality of your callers (consumers) by including detailed analytics and reporting to identify repeat calls by caller ID and other calling patterns; category management to deliver the best leads to the right merchants; pricing models that optimize value; and finally advanced, real-time call routing applications to deal wrong numbers, vendors, and other unwanted calls. As innovation continues improving phone leads delivered to local merchants, the replacement (virtual) phone number will no longer be an objection to overcome with the merchant, but another useful feature delivered by Yellow Pages publishers to help the merchant manage their lead pipeline.

No doubt ppcall is a big opportunity – only by tracking calls could we learn that IYP calls are half the average call length of PYP calls giving us an awesome opportunity to find out why. I am excited by the innovative, fresh thinking of the new Voice 2.0 applications coming into the market.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Local Search: Enormous Opportunity - Complex Solutions

I enjoyed the Yext presentation at TechCrunch50. The challenge in pitching a local solution is the enormity of the opportunity and complexity of the needed solutions. The panel’s questions demonstrated why pitching local search is so hard. Marc Andreessen didn’t seem to agree that local businesses want phone calls and not clicks. Marc asked about emails – seeming to question why any business would bother answering their phone when they could respond to email (btw Marc, many merchants do not answer the phone and that’s part of the problem). The questions rolled over to categories and again illustrated the unique challenges in local (2000+ categories)

I agree with Yext that leakage and dirty calls are a real problem with ppcall. My company, FastCall411 uses parallel dialing as one potential fix - not only to connect to multiple merchants but more so to capture connection rate data on multiple merchants. Find out who will answer the phone (and wants the lead) and each future call is more efficient. Yext is using analytics to examine key words. This is very clever and hopefully not too complicated (though I'd hate to try to explain it to a local merchant). Merchants want good clean calls and Yext is clearing the way for innovative solutions in this market.

BTW, The awesome use of the word awesome!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Redbeacon - New Entrant in Mobile Local Search

Redbeacon just launched at TC50. Given the breath and depth of the great ocean that is mobile local search, it is understanable that the TechCrunch comments are pretty mixed. Here's my take:

The Redbeacon team is impressive (all x-Google) but the stated strategy "without any phone calls" seems off target given this market. HelpHive in Seattle seemed to start with a similar strategy and deeply hid the merchant's phone number. They've since uncovered the number to appear in the listing. I've said many times that you can't route leads to SMBs without including phone calls. Will Redbeacon prove me wrong? (I am doubtful that Helphive's local number with extension will work either)

Back to Redbeacon, my experience with FastCall411, and prior, confirms that merchants want phone calls. I agree that availability is key in this market and have written on this topic many times. Getting the merchant to answer the call and show up for the appointment are the second and third biggest challenges in mobile local. The listing data is the first challenge. I am routing for Redbeacon and hope they can push the market forward.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Traffic numbers: Yelp vs MerchantCircle

I just noticed that MerchantCircle is reporting 20M unique monthly users. Yelp's CEO Jeremy Stoppelman stated at last week's Local Search Summit that they have 25 million unique visitors per month. Closer than I expected.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Voice-powered Mobile Local Search

Mike Boland (Kelsey Group) has a nice write-up on voice-enable search at SearchEngineWatch. He reviews Vlingo, Tellme, Google and Sensory, Inc.

Voice search could have a bright future in mobile, and even evolve beyond the phone itself. For example, an area known as speech controlled Internet devices (SCIDs) transforms the myriad electronics that surround into their own little search engines.

Sensory Inc. is working on this proposition. It's spent the past 15 years embedded speech recognition chips in about 60 million products -- everything from in-car voice command systems to Bluetooth headsets, to voice controlled toys.


... http://searchenginewatch.com/3634640

Friday, July 31, 2009

Continental Airlines launches Alex the Virtual Expert

Continental Airlines just launched Alex, a Virtual Expert. Type a question, she answers and provides the search results. Its really awesome and a glimpse of what's to come in search. A voice-powered version will follow (mobile, IVR). I also like the use of Virtual Expert rather than Virtual Agent.

Check her out on the Continental web site

The technology is powered by Next IT Corporation. Here's their summary:

Next IT’s Human Emulation Software, ActiveAgent, creates Virtual Experts that are redefining the communication between people and technology. ActiveAgent, accurately understands and interprets natural language questions and delivers exact results across multiple service channels such as the Web, contact center, intranet, mobile devices, and more. For more information on Next IT and its customers, please email info@nextit.com or visit www.NextIT.com.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Bing to Power Yahoo Search - First of Many Deals?

The Yahoo / Microsoft deal was announced this morning. I wonder if we will see more of these deals from msoft? With a Bing-powered back-end, yellow pages publishers such as Idearc and RHD, or newspapers could focus on sales and marketing. The cost of maintaining a competitive, independent local property / IYP is too great, and dooms the publisher to mediocrity and/or losses. Outsourcing the back-end and operations would enable many publishers to remain competitive and reduce costs. These deals would make sense, but is msoft likely to try to integrate more than one partner? I hope we see msoft make this a strategic imperative and aggressively recruit media partners.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

From GigaOM: iPhone’s Voice Control

"Is iPhone’s Voice Control the Sound of Things to Come?"

Yes, and not just mobile devices, voice control (voice search, voice portals) will be prolific. There is a convergence of technology, cost, and usage. Microphones and speakers are cheap, bandwidth is easy and voice applications are up to the task. There will be voice control at retail ("tell me the specs of the new Sony flat screen"); voice portals built into vending machines; at tourist attractions - everywhere that a kiosk with a touch screen is cost prohibitive or otherwise inaccessible.

From GigaOM: "Apparently, Apple believes that speech recognition is the sound of things to come for mobile devices and applications. Apple’s attention is a welcome development, and will undoubtedly accelerate the shift that began with the success of Goog411, Vlingo and other speech-enabled mobile apps. Despite the fact that mobile devices are well-suited for speech recognition — they do, after all, have microphones already built in — no OEM or operator to date has delivered a speech solution that is easy to use, much less promoted the feature to users as a key distinction. Apple is changing that, and other device makers and mobile operators that fail to keep up will be left behind in the competition for users who value simpler, more intuitive UIs."

Friday, July 3, 2009

The Rise of Proactive Customer Care

Great review of voice applications driving customer benefit:

"With the emergence of the proactive customer care market, IVRs are providing additional strategic benefits, as they are making major contributions to revenue generation and are helping to provide an outstanding customer experience".

Presented By: Donna Fluss, DMG Consulting LLC

Monday, June 8, 2009

Improved Customer Service will Drive Mobile Local Search

Over at Screenwerk Greg Sterling just asked “Will Local Market Ultimately Reject PFP/PPC”

Calls are a difficult deliverable for many SMBs. As Greg previously wrote when FastCall411 launched, consumers expect immediate availability when hiring a local merchant.

Problem is merchants don’t always answer their phones or are not available and don’t want to be billed for leads they can not fulfill. In this case not only is the call not billable when the plumber “is under the sink” and not available when the consumer needs them, but the consumer has not been able to make a decision in hiring a plumber.

Until we can better match consumer demand with merchant supply – PPCall pricing will be discounted and margins for calls will be lower than clicks.

We must look beyond call tracking as merely a means to prove ROI. Voice applications can help improve the consumer experience by matching ready to buy consumers dynamically with ready to sell merchants. For PPCall to work, the focus must be on merchants who best serve their consumers, rather than the highest bid for calls.

For example, knowing a consumer is looking for a 2001 Honda Civic (based on the call), TryAnother - our call routing application - offers a redirection to a 2nd seller if the first car is sold, or if the caller wants to keep shopping after the first call. The consumer can also review the interaction with the seller right from within the call. These types of voice applications will help fix PPCall leakage, SMB churn and, in my opinion, will drive mobile local search.

So I respectfully I disagree with Greg’s statement regarding PPCall:

But there’s another (radical) performance scenario in the mix too: YP publishers simply selling calls derived from whatever source (print, online, mobile). This product is being tested right now in certain markets. That makes the traffic sources more of a black box and the publisher manages the delivery of leads or calls from any/all of them. It also means that under certain circumstances “organic” calls can potentially be counted as well (ethical caveats here). This has the advantage of no required education and no analytics to understand, pay attention to or optimize against.


I believe there is significant opportunity for innovation in analyzing the interaction between calling consumers and merchants. As I written here before, I also suspect that Google with the relaunch of Google Voice, and Skype are headed in this direction.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Yellow Pages: How to Increase Leads 1000%

Telmetrics released very interesting results of a *tracking URL* study they conducted from November 2008 to April 2009 with 1200 print Yellow Pages ads. Telmetrics is a long time vendor in the call measurement space. Though several entrants crowded the call tracking market a few years ago - namely VoiceStar, eStara, Ingenio, CallSource, StandardCall and others – Telmetrics has remained independent and reemerged as the leader in the space. I commend the innovation in offering Yellow Page publishers another tool to prove ROI to their local advertisers.

The Telmetrics press release states "Tracking unique URL activity and call measurement reflects a 78 percent increase in leads driven by print Yellow Pages."

I asked Bill Dinan, the new CEO, if leads delivered to the advertiser increased 78% or just the total tracked leads vs tracked calls alone. I assume the leads were previously delivered, just not tracked with a unique URL. The difference is semantic, however. A lead not tracked is basically a lead not delivered in the eyes of the advertiser.

It’s interesting to think about lead quality in this scenario. Is a phone lead 10 or 15 seconds? What constitutes a web lead in a URL tracking study? Do the analytics eliminate referral (search) traffic and only report leads resulting from the print ads? Is a unique web user a lead (impressions)? Or is a web result a lead (email, call, printed coupon)? Without these definitions its hard to make a "call vs web lead" analysis apples to apples.

The Yellow Pages industry needs to fix their leaking bucket, but I am not sure URL tracking is scalable. It’s an interesting offer for a few existing advertisers, and can be used to extrapolate estimates of online leads referred by the print ads. Offering existing call tracking advertisers URL tracking provides deeper reporting to a smaller group of advertisers. Alternatively, and far more effective in my opinion, Yellow Pages publishers, such as AT&T, RHD and Idearc could provide lead reporting to far more advertisers.

If and when the Yellow Pages industry gets serious about saving itself, they will need to prove ROI to many more advertisers. Call tracking usage will have to increase at a multiple of 10X (at a minimum) and either the vendors (such as Telmetrics) or the publishers themselves will need to innovate to insure that quality leads are delivered to merchants and that consumer benefit increases.

Call tracking and voice applications can improve the consumer experience and better match the consumer demand with merchant supply. Publishers will need to embrace voice applications to realize the many benefits of integrating this technology into mobile local search.

If a publisher were increase call tracking usage 10X, they could report that lead delivery increased nearly 1000%.

That’s a headline.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

AdQuant: Google’s Top 100 Search Advertisers

I just reviewed AdQuant’s reporting of Google’s top 100 search advertisers in April 2009 (by daily PPC ad spend):

* AOL represented nearly 5% of April PPC ad spend for Google (up significantly from March)
* Credit / credit repair / refi represented 43 of the top 100 at just under 20% of the PPC top 100 ad spend
* E-commerce represented 22 PPC advertisers and 24% of the top 100 daily PPC spend
* 19 travel-related PPC advertisers accounted for 21% of the top 100
* 18 insurance-related advertisers (14%)
* The remaining 20% were broadly search (Edmunds and GM.com were the only 2 automotive sites listed)

It is interesting that 43 credit / refi advertisers are still spending just under $1 million per day.

Friday, April 24, 2009

InfoUSA verifying local listings. Has this business model lost its legs?

Mike Blumenthal writes a blog on Google Maps and Yahoo Local Search. This morning he blogged on a verification call received from InfoUSA, and commented that they didn’t collect very much data on the brief call (no hours of operation, business function, ect)

I am curious how merchants would feel if InfoUSA used an automated call, but asked more questions? Better or worse than a live a operator? In addition to the data InfoUSA didn’t collect on the call to Mike, its interesting that they don't seem to use the data from their call disposition logs. A disconnected number is most likely out-of-business, but what does a no answer, busy and/or IVR / voice mail tell us?

FastCall411 research indicates that to 87% of users *availability* is an important factor when choosing a local merchant. Answering the phone and responding to a consumer call is a measure of availability. Undoubtedly important data that InfoUSA is either not collecting, or not licensing to their clients.

Last , a company frequently in the mobile local search news, MerchantCircle, has verified a ton a local merchants using a very different approach to InfoUSA (and with a different biz model). The calls are automated, but the merchant has a chance to add as much details to a MerchantCircle page as they wish. I think MerchantCirlce has the better model as I can’t see the data aggregation companies like InfoUSA maintaining their model.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Is Time Running Out for Newspapers and Yellow Pages?

As an early Tivo adopter, I shifted my television habits several years ago. I am now watching the current season of 24 on Hulu and I noticed that Idearc has been running ads for Super Guarantee.

Idearc, now the 2nd largest yellow pages publisher (US), launched Super Guarantee to offer consumers limited assurance against poor service delivered by Idearc advertisers. I assume that Idearc research indicated that consumers are wary of merchants and that the guarantee would help more consumers use their yellow pages – print and online. I applaud the focus on the consumer and think it’s a nice differentiator for Idearc. They’ve also picked up some good press off of the program.

But the program does beg the question: where’s the guarantee for the merchant? Idearc research (and experience) must similarly indicate that merchants want a return on their advertising investment. Also, I wonder if the program hints that merchants offer sub-par service and that consumers need Idearc to step in and police their interactions with advertisers. Sure, merchants want more consumer leads – and would prefer to have a guarantee on their ad spend – but does the program portray merchants negatively? Given this potential, why didn’t Idearc roll out a merchant focused program at the same time? Call it “Super Accountability”? It would balance the consumer guarantee and better serve the merchant.

The traditional media industry has been a buzz over Google CEO, Eric Schmidt’s keynote at the Newspaper Association of American Conference a few weeks ago. Like the yellow pages, the newspaper industry in under heavy attack. Schmidt argued that newspapers need to focus on an advertising-supported revenue models, quoting that Google generates 98% of its revenue from ad sales – that’s 98% of $5.51 billion in the first quarter of 2009. The majority of this revenue is from pay-for-performance text ads.

Idearc has a pay-for-performance program too, called Pay for Calls. Super Accountability could track advertising generated calls to merchants to in order to charge advertisers for demonstrated result. Tracking these calls can also help insure that quality of service (QOS) is met, and can cut off an advertiser if quality of service falls.

Controlling consumers’ phone calls to merchants could even be used to capture consumer reviews at the end of the calls. Redirecting calls from under performing merchants to higher performing advertisers creates a pipeline of new leads without printing new books or expanding the distribution of Superpages.com. All while driving additional benefit to the consumer.

Super Guarantee is a nice consumer benefit, but wont bring in (or save) ad revenue. Accountability will.

Just as Hulu and Tivo are radically changing the business model for ad-supported television broadcasters, newspapers and yellow page publishers need to find new business models. That means looking for opportunity within the threats. Transitioning advertisers to performance-based pricing serves not only advertisers and consumers (as with Super Guarantee), performance-pricing potentially delivers a lifeline to broadcasters under threat from Tivo, Hulu and others. Like Jack Bauer on 24, Idearc and other local media companies need to race against the clock to leverage their sales force to become a sales channel with the unique ability to reach the local merchant with performance-based advertising products. The benefit of this strategy is that newspapers and yellow pages can form partnerships to source leads from many sources including the episode of 24 I just watched.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

How Voice Applications Will Improve Lead Generation

As a follow-up the Kelsey’s Marketplaces 2009 conference, my friend Peter Krasilovsky wrote “online leads for cars are broken.” I agree with Peter that auto shoppers will not complete a request for information form because they’ve been trained that the dealer will not follow-up. (The dealer in turn has been trained that the consumer web lead often has inaccurate and stale information). Supporting this argument, I have reviewed data indicating that voice leads (tracked phone calls) outnumber web leads about 9 to 1.

It’s interesting to compare this weakness in the “web lead” market to recent developments in voice applications. For example, Google’s relaunch GrandCentral (Google Voice), has a popular feature that uses voice recognition to transcribe voice mail to text. Google also leverages voice search in its Android, iPhone and now Blackberry mobile applications (you can say the search term using the mobile phone microphone for input.)

What do these developments have in common? Voice is a natural input and often superior to a text search. Occasionally when we need a specific part / size / brand at a local retailer or we are shopping for a service we call around to see if the part is in stock or if the service provider is available and does the type of work we need. Voice is a natural way to present this information (“Hi, I am looking for a (part) for a (thing) in size (xyz).

With voice recognition and transcription we can convert the input to text and search for the results. For example, we can search local retailers to satisfy the user’s request, and then present the request to the retailer as voice or text. Presenting the search query as a voice message in a phone call would be an efficient and quick way to deliver the lead to the merchant and satisfies the consumer (“press 1 if the thingy is in stock").

Is this where Google, and ergo the industry, is headed with voice input and voice recognition? It’s a compelling use case.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Google Voice - Integrated into Search

For those of us who have been waiting (and wondering) what Google had in store for GrandCentral after the 2007 acquisition, the service has just been rebranded and significantly upgraded to Google Voice. Google Voice – which had been in beta since the acquisition and is still closed to new users - is a *smart number* with voicemail, conferencing, call control, call announce, etc (often called Voice 2.0.) Alerts are sent to SMS or email with voicemail files, notifications and more. Google Voice is also a softphone (aka click to talk), a web or mobile application used to make free domestic outbound calls (similar to Skype and others). The Google Voice softphone optionally connects callers to Goog411 – Google’s directory assistance application.

Google Voice has a very cool, but not unique, call announce feature (AccessLine has had a call announce for several years). If your Google Voice *smart* phone number receives a call from a caller with a blocked caller ID, or a caller that is not in your address book, the caller must record an announcement. The called party (you) can accept or reject the call. You can also listen in on the voice mail (and interrupt to pick-up a call sent to voicemail).

I can see a few directions where Google may be headed with Google Voice. Using Goog411 or Google Voice, searchers can announce their interest when calling merchants in the Google search results (“I need a cab and want to pay by credit card.”) Google can then route this call to the merchant available to accept the call. Integrating Google Voice into the mobile local search results offers users a powerful new option to connect with and communicate with merchants. For example, a consumer searching for a plumber in San Jose may call a business listed in the Google search results (from the web, mobile or Goog411), if that business is not available (busy, no answer, on vacation) – Google Voice can offer the caller a connection to Goog411 without the caller hanging up on the first call. That would be a very convenient way for the caller to find what they are looking for and for Google to route the caller to a ready, willing and able advertiser.

There are also mobile features for Google Voice and I can see interesting applications for Android – the Google-backed mobile OS. I’ll leave that for another post.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Call Tracking Could Save the Yellow Pages

The other day for Search Engine Land Chris Smith wrote “What Could Save the Yellow Pages? 10 ideas.”

His idea #5 is to add tracking phone numbers to every single YP ad, and let advertisers see the results. Naturally, I think this is a great idea.

I take Chris's thought further. By assigning tracking numbers to all print advertisements publishers could answer 8 of the remaining 9 ideas to save the yellow pages and here’s how: (

[Chris's idea: my thought]

1. Stop distributing books to people who no longer use them: Call tracking data would identify heavy usage households as well as non-users. The data would also reveal true service areas based on calling partners. This is great data to up-sell neighboring directories.
2. Reduce environmental impact: Distributing books based on household usage would lead to a lighter environmental impact (smaller, less frequent directories to non / light-users?).
3. Better, more dependable industry usage statistics: The call tracking data would be rock solid, empirical and does not relying on surveys.
4. Improve PR: The call tracking results would lead to improved public relations for the reasons stated above (better advertising results, lighter environmental impact.)
5. **Add tracking phone numbers to every single YP ad, and let advertisers see the results.**
6. Drop the cost of print advertising: The call tracking usage data would lead to performance pricing. Some prices will fall, and others may increase, but will be ROI-based. Consumers will receive a secondary benefit as the call tracking data will identify which business are more responsive to the calling consumer. This data acts as a base for consumer reviews. Tracking all calls will also identify demand in each market and each vertical. Prices will rise as the market for leads becomes competitive.
7. Bundle: Paying per-lead makes the source of the lead less relevant and promotes bundling.
8. Get mobile savvy: Bundling will stimulate Internet, mobile, DA and other distribution as publishers become more savvy identifying new sources of leads.
9. Fix the data: Assigning numbers to all advertisers will identity disconnected numbers, mis-categorized businesses and other indicators of poor service significantly improving the data.