Ringing Up the Revenue in Mobile

U.S. mobile ad spending will grow nearly 50 percent to more than $1 billion next year, according to eMarketer, setting the stage for continued growth as marketers ramp up mobile efforts to match consumer demand. Historically I have never been an advocate of pay per call advertising, but mobile may just breath new life into the model. 

One of the companies well positioned to benefit is RingRevenue, which recently annouced record mobile campign growth with thrid quarter call volume up more thn 500 percent. In January 2010, mobile campaigns drove roughly 25 percent of calls on the RingRevenue platform according to the company, but by September, mobile's share grew to more than 50 percent. 

The performance is apparently not too bad either. Calls driven from mobile campaigns (at least for RingRevenue clients) see impressive conversion rates across a wide variety of vertical segments, including insurance with average conversions of 27 percent, financial services at 12 percent, home services at 34 percent, and education at 15 percent.

"With mobile users accessing the web in greater numbers, it makes sense for advertisers to let consumers connect live when they want to," said Jason Spievak, CEO of RingRevenue. "Mobile advertising goes hand-in-hand with pay-per-call, as it allows consumers to do what comes naturally on their mobile device - make a phone call. And with nearly 100 percent of us carrying our mobile phones with us all of the time, pay-per-call campaigns make it easy for consumers to respond to an ad regardless of where they see it-on their mobile, online or offline."