“Out with the old and in with the new”? Not quite, when it comes to what marketers are doing to improve the online conversion rate. More like “Keep up with the old and ADD the new.”

And “the new” is Landing Page Optimization for more PHONE CALL conversions.

We at WiderFunnel are certainly seeing an increase in the number of clients wanting to drive not only more online conversions on the site but more phone calls as well (sometimes the objective is to increase both; other times, it’s only about driving more phone calls to the call centre).

Landing Page Optimization for Phone Call Conversions

The new challenge, then, is how to optimize the conversion rate of phone calls by running conversion optimization experiments. Our first webinar of the year on January 13, “Boosting AdWords Landing Page Phone Call Conversions by 42%” will showcase just that.

In this upcoming webinar, we will show how visionary Saint Jude Retreat House, a private drug and alcohol addiction facility, used conversion optimization to lift customer telephone inquiries by 42% as a result of improving the persuasiveness of its paid search landing page.

You can register here (remember, maximum capacity is 150 – so better register now).

Another “new”: The pay-per-call business model

But marketers are not only increasing their demand for more phone call conversions on their own landing pages. A whole new business model is emerging: the pay-per-call business model (or PPCall).

Pay-per-call is like the cost-per-click (CPC), CPA and CPL marketing model but done with phone calls, not clicks.

According to Telmetrics, the pay-per-call models are poised to experience “explosive growth” in 2010.

Now, while Telmetrics has an incentive to forecast this trend (they provide “innovative call measurement solutions to help advertisers maximize the effectiveness of their marketing programs” as well as “track and analyze consumer response to any direct response broadcast, online or print campaign that features a call-to-action response phone number”), marketers committed to improving the ROI of their marketing investments need to pay attention, especially if they drive local business.

PPCall online ads encourage the user to establish phone contact rather than sending them to a web site – and this is where the real potential lies. And big players are entering the industry.

According to Marketing Vox, vendors are rolling out pay per call ad products. AT&T Interactive has updated its YELLOWPAGES.COM iPhone app called YPmobile (the latest version has new features including Video Profiles and Pay Per Call Ads). Following a pilot program, ShareASale.com opened its ShareASale Pay-Per-Call Center to its network of 2,500 merchants last month. RingRevenue provided the platform for the ShareASale Center. It has also partnered with LinkTrust to offer similar services to merchants and other networks.

So, stay tuned for more growth in the accountable advertising space in 2010 – and you can start by registering for WiderFunnel’s first webinar of the year on January 13, “Boosting AdWords Landing Page Phone Call Conversions by 42%”