Comments on: Pay Per Call Company VoiceStar Acquired by Marchex

By: Complete List of 2007 Web / Technology Acquisitions » The StartUp Blog at PartnerUp

Wed, 21 May 2008 16:08:24 +0000

[...] is one of the pioneers in the pay-per-call and phone-to-web markets. Press Release | TechCrunch | Redeye VC | Screenwerk | [...]

By: dave

dave — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 22:15:34 +0000

Congratulations to Ari on all his hard work and on a nice exit with Marchex. Marchex’s display of commitment to PPCall gives further encouragement other self-funded pay-per-call pioneers such as we at wwww.ZiffLeads.com (launched in 2005) of SPG Solutions.

We have built from scratch a comprehensive and proprietary pay-per-call ad platform and network, a large direct advertiser base, and a substantial multi-media publisher network.

With triple-digit quarterly growth, expected revenue this year of well over 3X that of VoiceStar’s and the turning of a significant profit, our excitement for the PPCall opportunity only continues to grow.

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 03:48:17 +0000

iMarketingGuru, we just launched earlier this week and we aggregate clicks, calls and email responses to advertising campaigns whether online or offline. Check us out at http://www.adsymetrix.com

By: kevin

kevin — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 18:40:34 +0000

we use clickpath (whoscalling) and from what I can tell they are not competitors with voicestar, different products.

does anyone know, with pay per call what determines a $8 call vs a $100+ call?

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 17:28:11 +0000

Never got to the point of integrating js. We noticed the lag on a few of the sites of clients we were told were using VStar. Also, on the Vstar website.
Maybe this was because of reverse proxy.

“a much less sophisticated group than angencies and publishers.” - LOL! I almost spit the caviar and moet de chandon I was eating for lunch all over my screen after I read that!

By: philip

philip — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 16:34:55 +0000

Scott,

We’ve never seen this problem–sounds like you did a poor job integrating the voicestar JS. Voicestar’s metrics are much more granular than whoscalling’s. In fact, Who’scalling doesn’t even have an API, let alone click to call, form to phone or other useful online services!! Who’sCalling serves car dealers–a much less sophisticated group than angencies and publishers.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 15:23:48 +0000

VoiceStar, has a feature that cracks me up. When you go to a website that is using VoiceStar, it takes about 2-3 seconds for the tracking toll free number to replace the original toll free number. The first time I ever saw this, I thought I was hallucinating. We almost implemented this for a massive client of ours. The embarrassment would have been tremendous if we hadn’t noticed the number lag before it was set up for the client.

Also, VoiceStar only shows you the search engine the call came from. If you want keyword level tracking you have to go with the Whos Calling service. VoiceStar kept telling us that we would get keyword level tracking, but then after looking at some of the reports we noticed it was adgroup level tracking.

By: steve

steve — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:34:24 +0000

i would not use who’s calling. WAY over priced. voicestar has everything you need and very responsive customer service. I shopped all the call tracking services and voicestar is hands down the best out there. I have been a customer for over a year now. One very cool feature of their service that helps track offline conversions is what i call “dynamic call tracking” which enables to track conversion from any online campaign. you put a piece of their js on your site and it simply looks at the refering url(ie. ppc campaign url from google) and then it rewrites the websites existing phone number to a unique call tracking number for that campaign.

congrats ari, todd and jon!

By: gogogo27

gogogo27 — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 09:09:54 +0000

for visiting.

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:26:48 +0000

iMarketingGuru check out Who’s Calling http://www.whoscalling.com/

These guys offer extensive reporting tools. Ideally, you should be able to look at a single reporting dashboard that reflects all the data…..

Last year Who’s Calling did a something like $50M in revenue compared to Voicestar who is supposed to do $1.5M in 2007.
Ironically, Who’s Calling was purchased in the range of $50M-$60M (1x revenues). Voicestar is being purchased for 15X revenues. Again, Amen!

By: iMarketingGuru (Search Marketing Wiki)

iMarketingGuru (Search Marketing Wiki) — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:14:28 +0000

Interesting, are there any large platforms for checking the metrics on many campaigns using one interface? I’m looking into the tracking of numerous campaigns in various media and I can’t find any large solutions yet. Anyone have any ideas for other tracking mediums for other services? Also, does this service track the calls based on the campaign and media or does it just track the calls for certain numbers and you would have to mash the data together?

By: Alex

Alex — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 05:08:52 +0000

Without question this is the right idea. However, Marchex could have acquired the same technology for less than $3M.
Today, this technology platform can be put together by using Asterisks (”almost free of charge”). The only group that is probably happy as pigs in mud must be is First Round Capital (http://redeye.firstround.com/). First Round Capital must have seen the writing on the wall and pushed for the sale of the company. Josh Kopelman from First Round says “The fact that a company can exit for $20 million and still be a “win” for both founders and investors…..”. Hey, what happened to the employees?

On the other hand being a Marchex shareholder I would question the price that was paid. That said congratulations to First Round Capital, AMEN!

By: Greg

Greg — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 04:49:00 +0000

Congrats to Ari! A real hardworking and smart entrepreneur. Good to see he’s taken the company to this level.

By: mikeb

mikeb — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 02:06:53 +0000

Never heard of them, don’t really care. Why is this on TC??? Slow news day???

By: Metagg

Metagg — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 01:44:21 +0000

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By: stone

stone — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:48:12 +0000

You’re far too generous in calling Marchex a local advertising company. To be clear, they are a domain parking service masquerading as a real company. THey own a bunch of third rates sites/businesses that they are too embarrassed to list on their own web site.

This is a solid service they bought. I only feel bad for their customers. They’re about to be placed on a ton of fake web sites. Yippie!

By: Andrew Shotland

Andrew Shotland — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:41:15 +0000

As one of Voicestar’s early customers I can tell you that Todd & Ari have created an absolutely top-rate service and Marchex was very smart to bring them into the fold. While there are plenty of other pay per call providers out there now, these guys were fairly early in creating a unique model for publishers and agencies to create their own pay per call businesses.

By: Greg Sterling

Greg Sterling — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 22:25:16 +0000

They provide call tracking and pay per call capabilities to publishers and advertisers. Call tracking offers unique phone numbers that indicate the origin of a call. Pay per call is like pay per click except that the billable event is a phone call rather than a click.

Advertisers bid on calls in the same way they’d bid on clicks. The average call range is $8 to $10 but calls can exceed $100 per call. PPCall is being used in mobile right now too.

By: Maridia

Maridia — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:56:08 +0000

I was wondering the same thing!

By: trade dvds GURU

trade dvds GURU — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:35:11 +0000

???

Does anyone else understand what they do?