Google has changed how much it charges for message leads within Google Local Service Ads. Previously, it was 50% of the corresponding phone lead but now, Google said it is "typically priced lower than the corresponding phone lead price, although that’s not always the case."
This change was spotted by Anthony Higman who posted about it on LinkedIn - the help document now reads, "Message leads are typically priced lower than the corresponding phone lead price, although that’s not always the case."
The older version read, "Message leads are priced at 50% of the corresponding phone lead."
Anthony Higman is not happy about this, he said, "See Initially message leads in LSA were 50% the price of phone call leads. This was super easy to understand and straight forward and provided an incentive to leave on message leads despite the massive technical hurdles with some firms." He calls this black box pricing and it makes it harder for him to manage client budgets.
He wrote:
And so the black box just got black boxier! And it for me at least opens up A LOT more questions about how Google ads is really no longer an auction when LSA is on the page. If Google is now abiding by these factors below like "customers previous engagement with LSA" THEN HOW AND IN WHAT WORLD IS GOOGLE ADS STILL AN AUCTION WHEN this AD TYPE is present?Also just an FYI this is all a ruse to obscure the price of message leads as Google continues to push these and encourage users to send the same lead to muliptle businesses. There is NO WAY TO DETERMINE WHAT THE COST of a message lead is now. Only an average which they will make lower than phone leads, but again its just a ruse. use caution!
Also most people wont dig into the nuances of these bigger changes. Thats we do it for you! Message leads can still be beneficial but with this change and Googles change to encourage the same leads to contact 4 businesses and ZERO transparency on which leads costs what and why, I would for the current time turn message leads off if you have a smaller budget.
Yea, this doesn't seem like a great update for advertisers.
Forum discussion at LinkedIn.
