Lawyers will be offered a chance to sign up for pay per call advertising via a new relationship formed between Ingenio, the pay per call company, and LexisNexis, the legal publisher. Advertisers on the newly-created LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell Attorney Match service will be offered a chance to target consumers in a number of ways, including locality, legal category, and callable hours.
Under terms of the deal, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell, which puts out lawyers.com and attorneys.com, may also pick up advertisers from Ingenio’s network of sites, which include search engines, Internet Yellow Pages, mobile search providers, and free directory assistance services. Ingenio is also expected to lend assistance with Web marketing via search engine marketing, etc.
Call rates are expected to mirror Ingenio’s typical $8-10 range, but could reach above $30-40 for more competitive legal specialties. There are over 100 different legal categories. Rates will generally depend on the competitiveness of categories in a local area.
Ingenio CMO Marc Barach says the company is always looking at attacking specific verticals. “We look at query volume, and the complexity of sales channels,” he says. Barach notes that attorney advertising generated $575 million of advertising last year. “They have a huge appetite for buying phone calls. ” But “only $2 million was spent online.”