Performance marketing network, Tradedoubler, has deployed Freespee’s technology platform and API (Application Programming Interface) to offer clickable phone numbers and tracking analytics to desktop and mobile display advertisers.

Freespee says that for service businesses such as insurance, education, finance, health, beauty, travel, telecom and other utilities, 70 per cent of consumers want to talk to someone before they buy or to make an appointment (though no source is given for the stat).

Currently, says Freespee potential customers see an ad on their phone – search or display – and click on it, which may take them to a landing page or the company’s mobile website, but eventually they find a phone number and call. The problem is that when that happens, the advertiser has no idea which display ad (where on the web it ran) or which search keyword, generated that call. Using Freespee’s clickable phone numbers in their ads – display or search – the advertiser can see which ad or search keyword drove the call and can connect that information to the call outcome – sale or no sale; appointment or no appointment; etc.

According to figures from Google, mobile users are 6 – 8 per cent more likely to click on ads that contain a phone number. And, even when mobile users click through to a mobile landing page instead of the phone number, Google’s research found that 52 per cent of those people go on to call the advertiser.

Freespee says that when its click-to-call technology is used in ads, consumers spend well over three minutes speaking with the advertisers. On average 60 per cent of these convert into sales. The cloud-based Freespee platform was created in 2009.

The platform is accessed through the Freespee API, used to integrate other business systems, such as content management, mobile apps, web analytics, ad serving, and CRM. Freespee’s analytics application comprises management functions, real-time number provisioning, call tracking and conversion attribution.

“The beauty of Freespee is we don’t have to reinvent the wheel, said Tradedoubler CEO, Rob Wilson. “We can add clickable, trackable phone numbers to our desktop and mobile ad formats with just a couple of lines of code. For a large segment of our advertisers, this is incredibly valuable, because these ads on average convert six times better than a traditional online or mobile display ad.”

Tradedoubler devises and implements performance-marketing campaigns for over 2,000 advertisers through its network of over 140,000 publishers. It also offers an advanced Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) digital marketing platform – Tradedoubler Technology – that provides larger advertisers and digital media agencies with the ability to manage performance-marketing programs in-house.