New Contact Form Extensions Beta from Google – Super Cool

Google is going extension crazy here lately with the release of site links, then location extensions, and now contact form extensions!

I got an email from my Google rep asking if I wanted to participate in a new beta from Google called, ‘contact form extensions’.

The gist of the beta is if you’re running a PPC ad in Google, and you’re in the top position, you can click on a plus sign next to a call to action (the name you give your contact form) and Google will drop down your contact form to be submitted right there in the Google search results.

According to Google, the rules for the contact form extension are as follows:

1. Only the position #1 will be available for the drop down contact form
2. Leads will be priced with your maximum cost-per-click bid during the beta test.
3. Google will be collecting the phone number and name from your contact form
4. You can provide Google with up to 3 custom questions they’ll include in your contact form in addition to basic information like name, address, phone, etc.
5. Google will show ‘some’ or ‘all’ of your custom questions based on a ‘quality algorithm in which they did not mention the details of.
6. Here’s the kicker, at the current moment, they’ll only take phone leads, so you must provide a contact phone number in your form in order for people to call in and ‘hopefully’ become a lead.  In the future they do plan to provide leads through email or live chat.

How it all works:

When someone does a search in Google, and if your PPC ad is in position #1, the user will have the ability to click on the plus sign icon to drop down your contact form. If the user fills out the form by hitting the ‘please give me a call’ button that lead will be submitted to Google.

Once Google receives your lead, they’ll send you an email with the lead ID and information requested by the user.

However, you can’t contact the user yet, you have to call a special Google phone number and provide it with a lead ID, which will then re-route you to your potential customer.

If you get to sign up for the beta, or when it comes out of beta, Google will provide you with a list of questions you can put in your contact form, and Google essentially builds the contact form for you.

Some participation guidelines are of course recommended:

• You must contact your potential lead within 24 business hours.
• Only US based phones numbers are accepted so your campaigns should only be targeting the United States.
• Submission forms should be submitted by January 18^th, 2010. Late submissions are not guaranteed to be active in the first round of the beta.
• You can opt out at any time.
• There may be hiccups since it is a beta.
• Your account manager will give you reporting on your contact form extensions on a monthly basis.
• Provide Google with feedback!

So there it is, I’m super excited to be a part of the beta for some of my accounts. I really, really hope to see some good results from this. Of course I have to put this all in perspective as your ad has to be in the #1 position in Google in order to even show the contact form extension.