Liveblogging Payam Zamani of Reply.com is talking about how service-based businesses are still struggling online.
Search Engine and Display marketing are imprecise (intent of consumer and location are not precisely known), complicated (significant expertise and infrastructure required) and expensive (poor targeting = wasted $).
Now showing the Reply.com solution of an “Enhanced Click”. We send consumer to a landing page which forces the consumer to define what they want (intent) and their location which makes them a more qualified lead for advertisers. (Not sure how this is different from most local search sites where category & location are defined – perhaps they are more precise about both?)
Claims they are:
Simple: No keywords, text ads, banners to manage.
Targeted: Traffic segmented and distributed based on user-submitted location and intent. Eliminates wasted ad dollars.
Cost-Effective: Little/no expertise required by advertiser. Auction-based pricing.
Apologies to Marchex – missed their presentation but in general they are selling a lot of performance-based pay per call advertising and the demand is huge.
1/3 of revenue comes from local merchants. 2/3 come from national advertisers with local strategies.
Reply.com has a self-service platform, but the problem is no one has ever heard of them so it’s not their biggest source of advertisers (Not to Payam – give me a call :))
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