Phone Numbers in Ads

I operate in a niche that seems to have a lot of competitors who post their phone numbers in the ad body and even headline. Is this allowable?

 

If they do, then the ads must have been approved, so yes

 

Yes is allowed, but I don't see advantage in placing a phone number on an ad.

Ads in Search network runs before be revised (up to 5 business days) so don't take this as a rule.

 

But don't you get free advertising by doing this? A user doesn't have to click on your ad.

 

If an user is interested on your business, in most cases he will click on the ad for more information before calling.

Also is very hard to convince someone about your business on a simple ad text - these ad text are completely out of standard and will have poor CTR% and conversion rate.

You need to attract the user to your web page where you have a complete page to convince your customer about your business.

 

Seems like a big advantage. The advertiser can actually make the connection and sale without ever having to pay for the click. And you get nothing in this case.

 

Seems a big advantage but it is not - see post #5.

 

Seems like a big advantage, but when it comes to the quality score, it may be a bit lower for the advertiser. And most advertiser would want a higher ad score. But if that's what everyone is doing in your niche - you should do it too. So therefore you can make that connection without paying $.05-$.25

 

Actually, this can be a huge advantage, but only if you are in the right industry. I had a former client that was a criminal law firm and we started placing their phone number in their PPC ads... calls started flowing in at an astounding rate. PPC costs dropped, CTRs dropped, and therefore QS dropped too. After about 2 months we reverted back to the previous ad to improve QS and added Click to call from Ingenio and SuperPages. We also would throw the phone ad back in the Google mix about every 3rd month.

With many service industries like lawyers, this is probably a viable option since many consumers prefer a face to face meeting or phone call to take place before actual services can occur.

 

I think you don't, imagine - when somebody see a link and is browsing the internet he/she clicks even there is phone number. Maybe 1 of 1000 man won't click.

 

If you have a catchy, "keyword rich" number putting it in the ad copy can work wonders for both a QS and direct contact.

For example you're in the legal market bidding on "lawyer" and your phone is
1-800-ALawyer.