AT&T's Pay Per Call Advertising Stall

Posted by: Brian Fluhr on Oct 21, 2009  

Tagged in: sem , pay per call , advertising

As cosumers and marketers, we live in a transparent, on demand world. If we want to get a client's Google Adwords campaign up and running immediately, Google gives us the near instant power to do so. If we want to get a client set up on Twitter or Facebook - done...1.2.3.

So, you can imagine how frustrated we are having decided to test out AT&T Interactive's Pay Per Call advertising program.  The concept is simple - it's just like pay per click, but instead, you pay when someone actually picks up the phone and calls you. We are excited about testing this tactic - feeling that this may be a cost effective solution for our clients - however, we are disappointed to find that it can take up to 3 days for our ad to be approved. 

Really, 3 days? I don't get it. I want to proactively give AT&T money in return for advertising results (qualified phone calls) and it takes three days for approval?

AT&T, we are not off to a good start here.

I will keep you posted on the progress and the results.

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 Update:  Oct. 22 - 3:42 PM Pacific Time.

Just checked our AT&T Interactive Pay Per Call account. This is what I see....

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"Pending Acceptance" Status
Reason: New Ad ? Acceptance Review Required 

In order to ensure the quality of our callers' experience, we review every new ad before accepting it to appear within our network, a process which can take up to three business days. The "pending acceptance" status means that your ad hasn't yet been accepted. Once accepted, the status of your ad will be updated.

___________

This is day 3. Ridiculous. It  is just one more reason I am annoyed with AT&T - poor Iphone cellular service is #1. How can one text ad with a phone number take 3 days for approval? Plus, they already took our money to run the ads. Hmmm...maybe the results of or our test will change our minds, but as of right now, I am having a hard time thinking we will recommend this service to our clients - or at least those clients who are looking to get their campaign start quickly!

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AT&T's Pay Per Call Advertising Stall - Not The Case
written by WilliamB, November 20, 2009
I found the opposite true from Brian Fluhr\'s experience. My contact \"Jane\" was beyond helpful and friendly. \"Jane\" also spoke english as her first language which is a considerable plus in being able to explain everything. The account was up and running in very short order. What made my whole experience even better was the two phone calls I received within the first day. Job well done!
AT&T pay per call scam
written by scott, January 11, 2010
I was originally excited by the prospect of only having to pay for new clients that call me, hey one thing we could all use in these times is more clients. What I didn't expect was to be charged for every vendor in town and every unemployed person that called me. The first couple of months AT&T was more than willing to take care of all disputed calls that were from vendors, now no matter who calls I'm charged for it and after 5 months in the program I have received to date one legitimate call, have wasted countless hours on the phone disputing vendor calls and at the same time being charged for every call over 12 seconds no matter who made the call. Now the AT&T sales rep that used to with out a problem remove the 34 second call that cost 15 dollar per call only states that their contract states that anything over 12 seconds is charged. When I signed up it was stated over and over again you will only be charged for new clients that call, well that has been forgotten by them and now I am lucky enough to be charged 15 dollars every time a vendor or someone looking for work calls me. Thank you AT&T I will do my best to tell everyone I can about your wonderful pay per call program.

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