AT&T plans to integrate Ingenio’s Pay Per Call solutions into its directory service and local search advertising portfolio, including the YELLOWPAGES.COM Network, AT&T Real Yellow Pages and 1-800-Yellow Pages. Ingenio’s Pay Per Call service is an advertising platform that allows businesses to manage their ad programs and generate valuable phone leads. The platform uses proprietary technology to provision unique published phone numbers to track calls to businesses generated by those ads, and advertisers’ fees are based on the volume of these leads.

Pay Per Call technology will provide another lead generation tool for advertisers to reach customers. Integrating Ingenio’s Pay Per Call technology will enable AT&T to take advantage of a growing trend toward performance-based advertising. The move also demonstrates AT&T’s commitment to providing advertisers with comprehensive solutions – the addition of Ingenio’s Pay Per Call technology will give advertisers the flexibility to purchase leads in a consistent manner across online, mobile or print media whether or not they have a Web site.

“As advertisers add performance-based advertising to their marketing mix, this investment makes sense for our business,” said Ray Wilkins, AT&T group president-Diversified Business. “Ingenio’s technology will allow AT&T to expand our robust service portfolio for print, online and mobile advertisers, and that will further differentiate us from our competitors.”

4,123 adults responded to the survey and 26% replied positively to the concept of search-based mobile marketing. 21% of those surveyed showed a positive response to audio ads, which plays while the customer is waiting for the other caller to answer. While text messages advertising was deemed the least popular, about 20% of customers surveyed categorized this method “at least somewhat acceptable.”

The study was conducted by Harris Interactive and supported Ingenio’s previous data that said the majority of mobile searches are attempting to find local businesses with 411 being the most used form of information retrieval.

With only 30% of the customers surveyed claiming they recall receiving mobile advertising throughout the past year, Ingenio sees this as an indicator of a huge opportunity. The first step will be to revamp informational services. Where 411 charges a fee, Ingenio chief marketing officer Marc Barach believe that will give way to free searches that serve up advertising. “You listen to an ad that is relevant to your query,” he said. “Then you have a choice of following that advertiser path or staying on the phone and getting the listing you asked for.”

Barach continued to say that accurate targeting is what will make search-based mobile advertising a success. To compare it to a web browser, “the tolerance for error is that much smaller on the small screen,” he said.

There is a prediction that if others follow the lead of the iPhone, mobile advertising will become commonplace due to the regularity of mobile phones having better browsing abilities. He believes that fees for plans will go down as soon as the space becomes monetized by advertising.

“That’s really the silver lining to bringing more advertising to mobile [from a consumer point of view],” he said. “It will make the cost come down and ultimately be free,” which would probably make generate 100% customer approval.

When a user sends a search query to JumpTap’s custom branded system through their mobile phone, they are presented with pay-per-call ads along with the search results, letting carriers like Alltel, a JumpTap partner, generate additional revenue if the user calls that particular business from their phone.

Pay-per-call only charges the advertiser for the ad if the user initiates a call. “Mobile search represents the ‘last mile’ for advertisers seeking to reach consumers at the point of decision, and Pay Per Call connects the two when user intent is at its highest,” said JumpTap president Dan Olschwang in a statement. “By tapping into Ingenio’s substantial Pay Per Call advertiser base and technology, we can offer our carrier customers, and ultimately mobile subscribers, compelling content that will drive commerce on mobile platforms.”

Ingenio has been distributing pay-per-call ads since 2004, and the Ingenio network encompasses mobile as well as online directories. JumpTap hopes the partnership will help its carrier clients generate additional revenue and deliver relevant local brands to consumers.

“Pay per call has emerged as a compelling value proposition in the world of paid search advertising,” said Windows Live Search product manager John DeVitis in a statement. “The concept of driving phone calls from the Web and mobile search on a performance basis resonates with advertisers. Services like Ingenio Pay Per Call appeal to entirely new advertiser segments and enhance the consumer search experience. Given Ingenio’s technology and mobile advertising expertise, the company is a natural partner for us.”

Ingenio already considers itself to be the leading pay-per-call ad company, and hopes to emerge as the dominant player in an industry that, according to the Kelsey group, could be worth $3.7 billion in the next four years.

Scientigo’s goal with this revenue-sharing relationship will be to provide consumers searching on FIND.com immediate access to merchants through the phone. According to the release, the integration of these listings represents a step toward the convergence of Internet, voice and wireless services.

FIND.com is latest addition to Ingenio’s pay-per-call advertising network, which includes online and mobile distribution channels including AOL Search, AOL Mobile and InfoSpace.

In a statement, Doyal Bryant, CEO of Scientigo, says, “By expanding telephone directory assistance to include local listings by both product and service, we believe Scientigo can become an essential part of this market. We are very pleased to be partnering with Ingenio to offer consumers and merchants the opportunity to telephonically connect using FIND.com. Moreover, we look forward to building on our relationship with Ingenio as we move into the local search and directory assistance industries.”

Ingenio pay-per-call ads will be available on FIND.com by mid-July.

The companies hope this move will assist in the convergence of voice and wireless and the Internet. Through the deal, Ingenio plans to gather more local leads from Local Matters.

“Ingenio Pay Per Call is a strong addition to our AreaGuides.net platform,” said Jeannette McClennan, chief marketing officer and executive vice president, media division, Local Matters said in a statement. “We think the Pay Per Call service Ingenio offers fits well with our efforts to deliver improved local content and search services to create a better consumer experience while providing additional revenue opportunities for local advertisers.”

But this isn’t Philip’s first go ’round with mobile search and SMS, not by a long shot. According to our talks with the exec, he’s an old hand when it comes to all things mobile. And not only did he bring search to UpSNAP’s roster of features, he took the cost out of dialing 411 by offering the service for free, something the company touts as a first among firsts. As he put it, “My first real taste of mobile marketing came from working with companies like Mobile365 (previously Mobileway), Motricity, and Lycos Europe. With a background in internet search I recognized a need for similar services on mobile devices,” he says. “In a similar fashion to the Yellow pages model whereby merchants pay for the cost of listing their business and providing toll free number in order to attract customers, I felt that a similar model could be deployed on phone devices. As such I founded UpSNAP to deliver free 411 information to consumers and have merchants fund it through a Pay Per Call model.”

It was through a deal UpSNAP inked with San Francisco-based Ingenio earlier this month that has made this Pay Per Call model possible for UpSNAP 411 users.
So why did they decide to use the Pay Per Call service? Here’s what Philip has to say about the decision: “Pay Per Call is an efficient way to connect merchants with consumers. Ingenio brings world-class web-based PPC, while we bring a similar mobile based solution. Our model keeps the service free for consumers, which drives a lot of adoption and usage.”

He continues, “Merchants eager to extend their reach into the growing mobile channel find high value and ROI in the model since they do not pay until a customer calls them. They are also finding that when a customer does call they are usually in the midst of a buying decision and this allows them to speak with the customer at that purchase point,”

As for how UpSNAP’s dual appeal, Philip adds, “Consumers liked the idea because they were able to get 411 info for free as opposed to paying a couple dollars to their carriers. Merchants like it because they only paid for the service after a prospective customer actually called them, and they found that customers who did call were at the buying stage of the purchase process.”

But for this mobile search company, its features don’t stop at dialing for information; UpSNAP has also been building up its roster of audio content providers. “UpSNAP has evolved to not only deliver text-based information to mobile phones like jokes, horoscopes and of course free 411, but also now delivers audio-based entertainment like NASCAR In-Car audio, and ESPN radio,” he tells us. Add to that a gamut of content genres including podcasts, comedy, pickup lines, bible quotes, news, music and calorie counters, among some 150 additional radio channels.

With a free service, however, this regular conference speaker—he most recently made a stage appearance at last month’s San Francisco ad:tech—you have to wonder how he pays the rent. “The most common question I get is: How do you make money? This is really a core part of our value proposition to our partners,” he tells us. “We have a patent pending process that allows us to insert Pay Per Call into text messaging and WAP. This allows us to offer free content, like 411, Jokes, Horoscopes, etc. for free and support it with advertising, very similar to what Google does with Pay Per Click on the web.”
And while their search and SMS offerings have been adding up, UpSNAP’s continuing to work out deals for more and better content. As he tells us, they have plenty of other “interesting conversations in the works”.

No doubt, over the phone.

Accessing UpSNAP’s free 411 service is as easy as text messaging a business or category in a given area code or zip code. The service will then deliver up to four listings at a time, mixing in Ingenio’s pay-per-call sponsors with organic results. Consumers pay nothing aside from their wireless carrier’s cost to send a text message, and advertisers only pay when a lead is generated.

“By partnering with UpSNAP, Ingenio is demonstrating further reach into mobile search and the growing market for free directory assistance services,” said Marc Barach, Chief Marketing Officer, of Ingenio, in a press statement. “We are building a comprehensive distribution network that goes beyond traditional Web channels to deliver our advertisers quality leads from a wide variety of sources.”

The arrangement raises some concern over the fact that sponsored listings are not explicitly differentiated from other results as they are in web-based search engines. The only difference is a ‘Click to Connect’ button which makes the sponsored listings more easily accessible.

In December of last year, Ingenio began to syndicate its listings on a voice-based 411 service operated by Jingle Networks. The company is reportedly in talks with two additional voice-based directory assistance networks.