Often seen as an unsexy cousin to the click, phone calls are becoming a vital aspect of search marketing

As an analyst covering mobile technologies, there’s a phrase I’ve repeated for the past year: “The call is the new click”. Treated for a while within the marketing world as the unsexy cousin of the click, phone calls are finally getting due credit as a form of business lead. Clicks have dominated the advertising world’s spotlight until fairly recently.

In basic terms, we’re talking about the area you may have heard referenced before as “pay-per-call”. Google has long-positioned it as a key component of search marketing and mobile ad networks drive monetisable calls directly from mobile ads and listings.

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