Mobile is playing a pivotal role in local search and advertising performance management, according to Telmetrics. 

Pay per call works incredibly well on mobile due to the medium?s immediacy, driving higher response rates. The dominant mobile ad response is a call. 

"Once consumers have a smart mobile device, their mobile searching expands because the device enables personalized search and becomes an extension of or central to everything they do,? said Bill Dinan, president of call measurement provider Telmetrics, Toronto. ?They can get immediate answers to help make everyday life choices and purchasing decisions while on the go. 

?Mobile marketers who use pay per call will be able to better understand their mobile consumers ? how they are accessing and using the mobile information available and how that translates to calls placed and purchase decisions,? he said.  

Consumers on mobile are ready to make a purchase right away, and advertisers are seeing the valuable link between a call and a purchase. 

Telmetrics expects pay per call to go mainstream with mobile. High mobile adoption rates for both consumers and advertisers mean there is a mutual understanding of the platform and the relevancy of calls. 

?What is most interesting is that pay per call for mobile media is helping revitalize pay per call for traditional media,? Mr. Dinan said. 

?Advertisers today have a better understanding of pay per call ? thanks to mobile ? and the benefit of tracking measurable actions like calls,? he said. 

?As such, these emerging media advertisers are now more open to using traditional media to help generate quality calls.?

Unlike the drawn out learning curve that came with online advertising, this new proficient mobile knowledge base will help drive pay per call programs, according to Telmetrics. 

Telmetrics predicts that mobile will propel pay per action. Advertisers today realize the wealth of data available via mobile and are eager to track and pay for revenue producing actions including calls, map and directions downloads, QR code reads and any definable, concrete action that means a purchase is likely imminent.

Additionally, Telmetrics expects in-app call tracking to grow as well. Consumers will continue to hone their lists of favorite apps and use them as their go-to resources for everyday planning and purchasing more so than mobile browsers. 

As such, advertisers will increasingly track the impact of in-app activity on call volumes and sales. This includes social apps such as Facebook and Yelp.

?Mobile consumers can use apps for almost any mobile activity ? search, email, entertainment, banking and even socializing,? Mr. Dinan said. 

?As developers improve and add more mobile apps, mobile consumers will find apps that are customized to their lifestyle and increasingly use apps over the mobile browser as it is a more direct and user-friendly way to get the information they need,? he said.  

Telmetrics also expects marketers and advertisers to shift to a mobile-first strategy. 

According to the company, the combination of continued low advertising budgets and the tracking capabilities of mobile will mean a market shift of companies implementing a digital strategy that starts with mobile and then extends to other platforms that can supply similar metrics.

?Mobile is the convergence of the phone, the PC and the TV but the difference is that it is always on and always with you,? Mr. Dinan said. ?Mobile is now a part of everyday life and everything within the device revolves around search. Marketers want to tap into this usage, monetize it and examine it to better understand their mobile consumers.

?Make your businesses phone number available within your mobile Web site, ads and listings without a secondary click,? he said. ?If not, mobile consumers will move on to the next business.

?Optimize your mobile Web presence to account for smaller screens and the user?s need for immediate gratification. Offer actionable content, such as a phone number, address, hours of operation and links to map ordirections to help facilitate immediacy for consumers and measurability for marketers.?