Pay-per-call

Pay-per-call (also called Cost-per-Call) is a Performance-based advertising model and compensation method. Pay-per-Call is similar to online Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising. However, with Pay-per-Call instead of paying a fee per Click, the merchant pays the service provider a fee per Call for connecting the consumer to the advertised number. Pay-per-Call advertising was first introduced in the US around September 2004 and registered as a Trade Mark in 2005. Voice-contact is particularly-suited to local businesses, and to high-value and consultative purchases, where customers wish to talk to vendors before committing to buy. Given the high rate of reported click fraud, Pay-per-call is believed to be a better solution to connect potential customers to advertisers. In recent years, the Pay-per-Call model has been experiencing significant growth and industry adoption, partly attributed to the growing popularity of web-enabled smartphones.

Pay-per-call (PPCall) was originally a billing system generally known as "900" calls (because most pay-per-call services used numbers in the 9xx range), where the phone company bills the caller a fee which is passed on to the owner of the number called. This service used Premium-rate telephone numbers predominantly for billing phone sex services on a pay per minute basis. This well-established practice and related applications are described by the Federal Communications Commission and elsewhere. Pay-per-Call in the performance marketing industry is an inverted variant of Premium Rate telephone numbers. Here, the phone company charges Advertisers to receive calls, instead of billing callers. The pricing model of Pay-per-Call is a Cost Per Action model.