The really interesting part of Google selling offline ads

So it appears that Google is experimenting with selling offline ads. They have pre-bought full page ads, which are then cut up into smaller units and resold to AdWords customers.

This is already being widely reported on  TechRepublic and, of course, PaidContent, which even has a link to the actual experimental ad in question.

It's an interesting move in itself, but not weird. The real margins in the Ad business is in being a media buyer rather than an ad broker. So Google's potential move into media buying, i.e. pre-buying all the inventory of various media and reselling it for a profit to clients (along with selling advisory services on which media to effectively use in a buy) is not too surprising.

What is very interesting, though, is this quote from an advertiser testing the offline ads with Google:

AHS Systems, a maker of Web-based content management software, paid $4,000 to $5,000 for its ad to appear in PC Magazine for two months, compared with the $3,000 that a typical ad that size would likely cost in the magazine for one month, said AHS Systems President Jeff Witkowski.

 

"It's a lot of exposure for cheap," he said, adding that Google is "doing a ton of tracking on this. They're using their own 1-800 numbers on this, and it forwards to our line." The Internet addresses of the online versions of the ads also redirect traffic through Google servers.

This, my friends, is the groundwork for Pay-Per-Call advertising along the lines of what Ingenio and InsiderPages have launched.

Interesting sidenote: InsiderPages is funded by Idealab, the incubator that started GoTo.com, the inventors of Pay-Per-Click advertising (it was later called Overture, then bought by Yahoo).

So could all the talk about Google's VoIP plans really be all about extending its advertising franchise into pay-per-call, rather than offering plain old consumer minutes, a la everyone else?

UPDATE: Interesting take on Microsoft's acquisition of Teleo. Gary Stein of Jupiter sees it as a possible entry for Microsoft into Pay-Per-Call. Wonder where Yahoo is on this?

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