A few weeks ago, Google released a mobile feature that allows marketers to add a click-to-call mobile paid search ad to their paid search campaigns. While paid SEO marketing is nothing new to the mobile world, the new feature of click-to-call has made it a much more accessible space to advertise in. This is an ideal setting for local businesses to advertise in, but it is also is great for direct response marketers, especially those marketers looking for leads.

Let’s take a step back and consider that one of the biggest obstacles for marketers when it comes to advertising on the mobile platform is the diverse operating systems used by the various cell phone carriers. Creating several different mobile versions of a website can be difficult and not always a profitable option for some advertisers. While this is still somewhat of a problem, the click-to-call feature has helped the customer skip over the website portion of the chain and get connected right to the company they are looking for. Sure, any local business can benefit from this new feature. The click-to-call feature makes it easier for people who are on the go to get connected with the closest source to what they need. But for a lead generation direct response online search marketing campaign, this is a fantastic bit of news.

Many lead generation campaigns are based on a “cost-per-call metric.” Many times there can be qualifiers within these calls, but the base data set that is analyzed is cost/calls. Now that Google has eliminated a step in the process of getting the phone to ring, a paid search campaign that is optimized for click-to-call advertising can provide many more leads to a direct response campaign. Also, according to Paul Feng, Google group product manager for Mobile Ads, clickthrough rates for these new search ads have seen increases up to 30%.

Google charges the same price for the click-to-call ads as it does its normal paid search ads. All bidding still takes places on an ad group level so a marketer’s current campaign can be optimized for click-to-call advertising in a few simple steps. While the volume may be low at first, this will obviously be an area of growth as smartphones continue to dominate the mobile phone market. Google has made it seamless to include click-to-call advertising in a SEO marketing campaign. Advertisers are well-suited to jump on board now and take advantage of this new space.