Allstate Insurance is running ads in the Tapjoy mobile ad network that let mobile phone owners call for a quote and earn virtual currency or gain access to premium content.

Tapjoy has announced a partnership with RingRevenue to help advertisers such as Allstate drive mobile phone owners to call while insuring that those who do call are motivated and likely to buy. Consumers earn virtual currency or gain access to premium content through Tapjoy’s Mobile Value Exchange when they make purchases from in-exchange advertisers or conduct qualified phone engagements with participating advertisers.

“By working with larger mobile publishers like Tapjoy, marketers are able to get an offer in front of consumers on their mobile phones, where it is a very natural action for them to place a call,” said Jason Spievak, CEO of RingRevenue, Santa Barbara, CA.

“The challenge is that it is easy to drive high volumes of calls from a mobile ad but the important thing for a company like Allstate is that they are high quality calls,” he said.

Qualified callers
Advertisers in many categories value phone calls because their products or service offerings are complex and require a consultative sale process. These categories include insurance companies, high-end retailers, financial firms and travel companies.

The offer from Allstate is call based and requires the member to receive an insurance quote in order to receive their reward.

To participate in the offer, the member selects the Allstate offer, agrees to the terms of the offer and taps to continue.
The click launches an auto-dialer that begins to connect their call.

Behind the scenes, RingRevenue’s RingPool technology provides a dedicated phone number that links the caller to the action being taken so they can receive their reward.

RingRevenue is able to quickly identify if a caller matches certain characteristics that the marketer is looking for before passing the call through to Allstate’s call center. RingRevenue is also able to present the caller with a series of questions to further qualify them with only those who meet the criteria being passed onto to the Allstate call center.

The goal is to create a seamless experience between an ad that is of interest to the consumer and an advertiser who is willing to reward that consumer for their intent and self-selection.

The Allstate campaign launched through Tapjoy’s network launched in mid-December. The Tapjoy network spans over 9,000 applications and 200 million global consumers on iOS, Android and emerging mobile platforms.

The results have been strong so far and the offer is continuing to be expanded to other publishers.

“For those who do jump through all those hoops, the average length of those calls is over 15 minutes and longer calls are associated with higher conversions for Allstate,” Mr. Spievak said.
“This partnership enables insurance companies like Allstate to work with a much broader group of publishers and bridges the gap between publishers who want to drive volume and marketers who want quality leads,” he said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York