Bing recently teamed up with fellow Microsoft company, Skype, to launch call extensions across all devices, including cell phones, tablets and desktops. Microsoft blogger, Ambrish Verma, claims this is something “no one else can provide”. If you aren’t familiar with the SEO world, you might ask, what is a call extension? You’ve likely used one before without knowing its actual name. Also referred to as “click to call”, a call extension is a link on a paid ad on search engines like Google, and now Bing, that allows the user to quickly call the business they would like to contact for products or services. This not only makes the users experience better and easier, but it also could improve your conversion rate and click through rate.
Years after Google introduced a similar call extension feature; Bing hinted this summer they were working to implement a Skype-integrated call feature. Now they are ready to launch. The feature will be similar to any pay per click campaign where the business will pay a certain amount per click, or per call, based on the keywords used. Something business owners should be aware of is that Bing will be charging an extra dollar for calls sent to a forwarding number.
Your Bing call extension ads will also show up on Yahoo because of the Microsoft Yahoo search advertising partnership.
After setting up your Bing ads call extension, Bing will provide you with an analytics report that will tell you how many people are clicking the ads or call extensions and how effective your ads are. These analytics reports will include impressions, calls and spend data, and advertisers will get detailed reports for individual calls received from the extensions.
By Mike Fedotowsky