Pay-per-call advertising

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Pay-per-call (PPCall, also called cost-per-call) is an advertising model which allows companies to advertise on TV and pay for each call generated from each TV commercial aired based on a performance model and agreed upon cost per call. The Pay Per Call model allows companies to avoid expensive cash media spends for TV and radio, in favor of only paying for qualified calls.

Enterprises looking to reach certain locations, or local/regional businesses can benefit from Pay Per Call campaigns, because it allows customers to talk with the seller before buying a product or service. Vendors of pay-per-call advertising attribute the growth of the model to the popularity of smartphones^[1] and claim that it reduces the costs of on-line click fraud.^[2]

Pay-per-call advertising is not to be confused with premium-rate telephone numbers.^[3] Pay-per-call is the inverse of a premium telephone number, in that the advertiser who receives the call, not the caller, is charged for the service. Since it is cost per lead advertising, the rates are higher than for toll-free telephone number service. In general, the advertiser is only billed for calls that last at least one minute.

The duration of interactions (since callers spend more time interacting with the business on the phone than looking at their website) and the probability of fraud through calls is significantly reduced are factors that might increase Pay Per Call pricing, but also increases its effectiveness.