Charles Stubbs, president of Yellowpages.com, was a surprise guest this morning at ILM:07. Stubbs came to discuss AT&T’s recent acquisition of Ingenio and its implications for Yellowpages.com and AT&T Advertising & Publishing.  

AT&T purchased all Ingenio’s assets, intellectual property and technology. According to Stubbs, ”The acquisition provides us with the opportunity to create a common business and pricing model for all of our products. What we have discovered is that advertisers value a call more than they value a click. This certainly advances us toward a more logical pay-per-call solution.”  

Matt Booth, ILM program director, asked Stubbs if the purchase helps the company’s effort in non-AT&T territory as well as winning back advertisers it has lost in key categories. In response, Stubbs revealed, “this will significantly advance our efforts in both our white space area as well as in our own territory. The purchase is so much more than just call tracking; it provides a customer base, leading technology, valuable intellectual property, expanded distribution and merchant solutions that will help us advance our efforts across all of our media products to win back and grow our existing advertiser base.”  

While the deal is still pending, it is clear a core team is working on how to integrate the asset into the AT&T organization and to get the appropriate metrics in place to maximize the Ingenio model and technology to support and attract advertisers in both the AT&T and white space territories. A significant goal is the simplification of the offering to advertisers no matter what AT&T product they purchase as well as how the sales force demonstrates and proves value.     

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