The Google AdWords Blog announced they have released the call metrics, aka phone extensions to all US and Canada advertisers. It has been in beta since 2010 and has resulted in over 5 million calls, averaging six minutes long.
Each time someone calls a phone number it would cost the advertiser $1 US. These are for calls triggered by a searcher seeing your ad on a desktop, notebook or tablet computer. If they call from their mobile searches, the cost is a CPC price.
Will it remain one dollar? No. Google said, "in a future release, we plan to incorporate calls into Ad Rank calculations, which determine an ad's position and cost per click. At that time, you'll be able to influence your ad position by specifying a bid per call greater than $1.00 USD. This will parallel the way that clickthrough rate (CTR) and max CPC bids can influence Ad Rank today."
Here are the core changes announced the other day:
(1) More detailed reporting
(2) New pricing, i.e. $1 per call
(3) Call Extensions replace Phone Extensions
Here is a screen shot of the Call Extensions under the ad screen.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
