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Marchex VoiceStar call based advertising for AdMob, Ringleader Digital and 4Info

by: Bena Roberts Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

Marchex, Inc. a local online advertising company and leading publisher of local content, today announced that it has extended its local advertising strategy to the mobile market, entering into agreements to provide call-based advertising services to three leading mobile advertising providers: AdMob, Ringleader Digital and 4INFO.

Marchex’s VoiceStar subsidiary will deliver call tracking services to all three companies, enabling them to validate the effectiveness and return on investment of their mobile advertising networks and provide their advertisers with analytics to help them optimize their mobile advertising campaigns.

Stop the press? Analytics?

Yikes – so is this the service behind AdMob’s new analytic services – voice reporting?

The PR says:

Marchex’s call tracking enables mobile advertising providers to: (i) track the calls generated by advertisements on their network, (ii) determine exactly which advertisements delivered the calls, (iii) track and report key information including the duration, time of day and geographic location of callers, and (iv) record the calls. Marchex makes this information available to the mobile advertising provider through its comprehensive reporting interface.

AND

In addition, Marchex will provide pay-per-phone-call services to AdMob, which will enable them to bill advertisers for the phone calls they deliver, which maximizes the value of their advertising

What does this mean?

Aha. So the analytics are available. They might not be a subscription service or additional fee for analytics –but advertisers will be billed for the delivered phone calls. This must be via some pay per call advertising service.
Yes it is as Ari Jacoby President of Marchex’s VoiceStar said, “It is getting easier for consumers to access a number for pizza delivery, car repair or whatever they need on their mobile device. As this occurs, pay-per-phone-call advertising and call tracking will play increasingly important roles in this mobile advertising ecosystem.”

The end?
So free analytics is really a way to charge consumers more money! What a surprise.