Phone Numbers in Ads

should be forbidden

[moTi]

phone numbers in ads really stink! no money and unprofessional cheap appeal for the publisher and free sales promotion for the advertiser.

filter them out? two new ones popping up for one banned. don't like that.

whats your opinion, how do you handle them?

[MediaSpree]

I thought that was forbidden in adwords TOS. Maybe they are CPM ads and you are getting paid just to show them? If not contact your friendly adsense representative and complain.

edit:

Well, i looked through the Adwords editorial guidelines and saw nothing about phone numbers. I started a thread in the adwords forum addressing this issue so if you want you can also check out what they have to say.

[europeforvisitors]

This has been discussed several times before. Here's a Cliff's Notes version of what we learned:

1) Phone numbers are allowed; and...

2) Most users would rather click than call, but they like knowing that they could call a real person at a real business--which means that, in some cases, a phone number results in a higher clickthrough rate.

[DamonHD]

Hi,

Yes, EFV is right IMHO, see [webmasterworld.com...]

If all users *did* click rather than call then the ad's CTR would be so low that the ad would rapidly disappear and the publisher would not be hurt, at least no more than by the "buy new and used dead popes" ads I guess!

Rgds

Damon

[incrediBILL]

Don't you just hate it when EFV is right?

If the phone #s lowered the overall CTR then I do believe Google would drop them from the content network, or drastically reduce their impressions, as they weren't making anyone any money including Google.

I can see it now...

"Feeling Blue?
Dr. Kevorkian can help!
1-800-DIE-TDAY
www.dropdeadnow.com"

[moTi]

damon, my english is not so good, but i think you meant : "if all users did call rather than click.."?

also, your post in the adwords forum makes no sense to me. in this case ads are not designed to have people possibly click but to get the conversion BEFORE they click.

if they will call a perhaps expensive phone number then the publisher will get nothing from that. as i said: free sales promotion. and why should the call be expensive at all? it's a contact to your potential customer, that could already be enough.

phone numbers seem to be allowed, otherwise they wouldn't pop up in my ad space. but this doesn't mean, that we can't discuss this IMHO unfair practice?

[DamonHD]

Hi moTI,

Your English is evidently better than mine, you are quite right!

The point to remember is the CTR point. If the ad got no click-through then Google would automatically stop showing it.

So, if it continues to show, it must be paying publishers comparably to other ads, regardless of how many people call the number.

Rgds

Damon