So I know this isn’t particularly relevant to Mac’s but I thought I would post it anyway.
I just did a search on Google and got a new type of advert, seems like Google have added call-back advertising to the sponsored ad’s on the right hand side of a google search page.
See the little phone icon?
Clicking that gives a little animation hiding the text advert and replacing it with this:
Finally, click connect and the phone rings.
I bet they get a lot of calls today from people like me who don’t need any kind of insurance but are curious :)
The good news? This is no more obtrusive than a google text advert (well, after the first time you see it obviously) but it’s an interesting development, especially that some JavaScript effects/AJAX are now being used in quite a natural and unobtrusive way. The bad news? I tried it with JavaScript off and it degraded pretty poorly, only giving me the phone number of the company so that I could call them instead. There is no reason it couldn’t have just started with the “enter your phone number” prompt.
Interesting though… At least I thought so, I wonder if they will tie it in with some sort of VoIP in the future? Google Talk maybe?
Technorati Tags: google, advertising, adwords, phone
6 responses so far ↓
Timothy // September 21, 2006 at 11:50 am
What search terms did you use?
dalvin200 // September 21, 2006 at 1:09 pm
didn’t work for me.. i put in “car insurance” and also “autobytel” and just got the regular text links - nothing with a telephone icon..
macnewbie // September 21, 2006 at 1:19 pm
My original search was for “radio” and it still shows that ad there now (for me).
dalvin200 // September 21, 2006 at 1:31 pm
ahh yes - with that search term “radio” it works :)
Stevie D. // September 21, 2006 at 3:39 pm
I wonder if you have to sign up to carry these ads seperately or if they’ll just rotate into the existing AdSense spaces?
-Stevie D.
smallshock // October 17, 2006 at 1:01 am
I wonder if I used my ex’s number if he’d get all the spam calls at his house?
Hmmmm . . .