BIA/Kelsey: Call-Based Ad Market Poised for Explosive Growth, Driven
by Mobile Penetration and Advances in Call Analytics
Experts to discuss mobile’s anticipated impact on call-based
advertising during a panel on mobile monetization at Mobile Local Media
San Francisco, June 27
CHANTILLY, Va. (June 18, 2012) – The call-based advertising
market, which includes all ads that use call-based
lead tracking, is poised for explosive growth, according to a new report
by BIA/Kelsey. Key growth drivers
include the emergence of increasingly sophisticated call analytics
and the unprecedented growth of mobile, which will unleash a dramatic
increase in call-based advertising inventory.
The report, titled “Call-Based Ads: Eliminating the Unknown
From Advertising,” provides historical context, lays the foundation
for why it is poised for major growth and provides market forecasting.
It also highlights data from BIA/Kelsey’s ongoing Local Commerce
Monitor study, in which small-business advertisers consistently report
that a phone call, even more than a personal visit to their store,
is the most valuable type of new business lead.
“The rapid growth in smartphone penetration has put us on the
cusp of a watershed moment in local advertising,” said Matt Booth,
chief strategy officer and program director, Interactive Local Media,
BIA/Kelsey. “Mobile is about to unleash a massive increase in
call-based ad inventory, which will be so vast that many established
companies will scramble to align their advertising portfolios to accept
call-based ad products.”
Indeed, the report points to Google’s recent move to allow bid
separation between online clicks and calls, a step which means paying
more for calls, and a very rare change to Google’s optimization
algorithm. BIA/Kelsey foresees a likely extension of split bidding
to mobile.
According to the report, in 2011 the average U.S.-based business received
10.9 calls per month from desktop search (and all downstream properties
through SEO) and 34.7 calls per month from mobile (including mobile
search). In 2013 the average U.S.-based business will receive 13.8
calls per month as a result of desktop search and 80.9 calls from mobile.
“Our experience in both call analytics and advertising supports
BIA/Kelsey’s predictions about the rapid growth,” said
Peter Christothoulou, president of Marchex. “Mobile is the big
driver and accounted for 83 percent of the 90 million calls we connected
in Q1 2012. Local and national businesses are both getting into this
market. We are already seeing some national brands allocate as much
as 20 percent of their digital advertising budgets to generate calls
and expect this to continue to grow.”
Booth will moderate a panel on June 27 at BIA/Kelsey’s Mobile
Local Media San Francisco conference titled “Monetizing Mobile:
Who’s Making Money and How?” The focus of the discussion
will be mobile monetization, including call-based ads. The panel features
John Busby, vice president, Marchex; Andrew Osis, president, CEO and
cofounder, Poynt; Henry Tam Jr., vice president, self service advertising,
Millennial Media; and Brian Wong, CEO, kiip.
MLM San Francisco boasts a powerful lineup of speakers, including
headliners Mihir Shah, Groupon; Surojit Chatterjee and Brendon Kraham,
Google; Mok Oh, PayPal; Mike Ghaffary, Yelp; Heidi Browning, Pandora;
Stewart Alsop, Alsop Louie Partners; David Hornik, August Capital;
Chris Folmar, SuperMedia; and Joe Weir, Belo Corp. The speakers and
agenda will focus directly on how mobile is at the center of commerce
today.
Event sponsors include goMobi, Gumiyo, MoFuse, PaperG, Telmetrics and xAd.
Association partners include California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA),
Local Search Association (LSA), Location Based Marketing Association (LBMA)
and Wireless Communications Alliance (WCA). Media partners are NetNewsCheck
and TVNewsCheck. Conference details, including speaker and agenda updates,
venue information and online registration are available at www.biakelsey.com/mlmsf.
Availability of the Call-Based Ads Report
The BIA/Kelsey Advisory, “Call-Based Ads: Eliminating the Unknown From
Advertising,” is available exclusively to clients of the firm’s
Interactive Local Media (ILM) advisory service. The 48-page report includes
32 charts and figures and profiles of nine key players in the pay-per-call/call-tracking
arena: CallSource, Felix, Freespee, LogMyCalls (a service of ContactPoint),
Marchex, Mongoose Metrics, RingRevenue, Soleo and Telmetrics. For information
on obtaining access to the report by becoming a client of BIA/Kelsey’s
ILM advisory service, visit http://www.biakelsey.com/ILM, or contact Steve
Passwaiter at (703) 802-2973 or spasswaiter@biakelsey.com.
About BIA/Kelsey
BIA/Kelsey advises companies in the local media space through consulting and
valuation services, research, Continuous Advisory Services and conferences.
Since 1983 BIA/Kelsey has been a resource to the media, mobile advertising,
telecommunications, Yellow Pages and electronic directory markets, as well
as to government agencies, law firms and investment companies looking to understand
trends and revenue drivers. BIA/Kelsey’s annual conferences draw executives
from across industries seeking expert guidance on how companies are finding
innovative ways to grow. Additional information is available at http://www.biakelsey.com,
on the company’s Local
Media Watch blog, Twitter (http://twitter.com/BIAKelsey)
and Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/biakelsey).
For more information contact: Eileen Pacheco
For BIA/Kelsey
(508) 888-7478 eileen@tango-group.com
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