Google AdWords is now offering offline signup via phone to create a new account but its not really ground breaking attempt at reaching the offline market...
Google has reached further into Google AdWords reseller territories with their aggressive promotion of phone help for businesses wanting to create a new Google AdWords account. The Google AdWords phone number 877-721-1735 is likely just setup for new accounts at this stage and does not extend to cover AdWords support or trouble shooting. These issues are still referred mostly via email to the Google AdWords forum but often better support can be found with Google AdWords resellers who have higher level access and account managers within Google that are able to troubleshoot issues.
Google AdWords is not 24/7
The other interesting point is that although the internet is 24/7 the AdWords account phone support is only 9am-9pm ET (7am-7pm PDT) and just Monday to Friday. Consider the reach of the new signup phone line covers all of north america with around 330,000,000 consumers, I would expect 24/7 signup support from such a large company such as Google and with more languages than just English. Many of the large Google AdWords resellers are could almost operate 24/7 because of their office locations in US, Europe, India and Australia so why not the Google AdWords team?
Google is not tracking leads
The landing page is also not as advanced as possible as outside these business hours the number is still advertised where it would have made more sense to remove the number and it appears to be using a generic contact number and not a dynamic phone tracking number based on how the visitor found the page or if they are a returning visitor. I would assume that Google would be taking more interest in tracking these metrics understanding how much it places the importance of tracking offline conversions to its advertisers and how much more data about new advertisers behaviour about what leads them to signup for Google AdWords.
For a company who spends time tracking what colour blue gets the best user response, to not test or measure more elements on an extension to a product that produces 97% of their revenue seems to be a slight misjudgment and large oversight. It would not take Google much to setup a time based redirect that uses a different phone number based on if you visit during business hours, or based on your traffic source as they do this for a number of their other products.
Google advise that the new AdWords phone signup offers the following benefits
- Individual one-on-one consultation and help for your first campaign (limits on how long will they spend per call)
- Google will not currently charge for this service (minimum spend levels)
- Individually discuss advertising goals (likely against a template of pre-set questions)
- The support is only offered to english speaking clients (ignoring around 1 in 5 advertisers)
What is the level of AdWords support offered?
Google AdWords Campaigns can be fairly intensive to setup and time consuming but much of this extra support is likely not to be offered by Google on this phone number for new accounts, so you should consider using a Search Agency such as The Lost Agency. In the past Google only offered signups via phone if you used a reseller or were a very large advertiser but this change is likely to worry a number of Google AdWords resellers as they have had almost an exclusive right to these AdWords phone setups.
It seems that they have no provided a new contact number 0844 338 0341