Jay Per Click: A Roadmap To Paying For Google’s Direction Clicks

Jun 07, 2011 by Jay Solway

Google recently informed advertisers that they will be making a change to “directions” clicks on Adwords campaigns. Clearly, change is a polite way of saying what they once offered for free will now be billed. If you are reading this blog, what may not be clear is what exactly “direction clicks” are and whether or not you should be paying for them.

What are direction clicks?

As defined by the Google Empire, “Directions” is a feature of location extensions that enables customers to map the quickest route from where they are located to a business they want to visit.

For my visual friends, please click on the screenshot below. The additional line of text displaying the address is the location extension. While this won’t show on all ads, if you take the time to include the address (which in most cases you should) this will still show at no extra charge.

What is changing is that if a user clicks on the blue button for directions the advertiser will be billed as if a user is clicking on the headline to go to the advertiser’s website.

Directions Clicks lead consumers to your business - but at what cost?

Should I pay for Directions clicks?

“Direction” clicks currently represent a minimal percentage of traffic (less than 5%) but will likely play a larger role as mobile search becomes more popular.  Every dollar counts, so in creating the best possible Adwords account, one must ask, am I better off paying for “direction” clicks or spending that money on additional traffic elsewhere?

In most cases, the goal of Adwords accounts is to drive relevant traffic in the hope of increasing sales. With that in mind, a user seeking directions is likely someone that is looking to come to your store with the intent to purchase.

To hope a motivated user will find your phone number or address listed elsewhere online at no charge to you is an unnecessary risk to take.  For example, L2T Media might bank on new clients finding us in searches for “Chicago Digital Agency” or “Digital Marketing Agency Chicago,” but that doesn’t mean a comprehensive PPC campaign shouldn’t be in the cards.

While it was nice that Google was handing out freebies for a few months, this was an inevitable bullet that an advertiser will need to bite.

Over the next few weeks, Google will be adding additional performance metrics for “directions,” so I just may write a hard hitting follow up piece.