Google has made the jump to paper.

No, not Google Book Search. I’m talking about, of all things, newspapers, specifically the Chicago Sun-Times. A story in Crain’s this week (which I found via Gruber) includes this sample image:

I found these ads intriguing. I’d expect Google to want to quantify their effectiveness, and it seems clear that the toll-free numbers are part of that effort. (If you visit RobArraCollection.com, you’ll find two toll-free numbers, neither of which match that 866 one. Ergo, I conclude Google is counting and forwarding the calls.)

But I’m surprised they didn’t do anything to track site visits. After all, when you click an ad on Google.com, you best believe they’re tracking it (though some argue not well enough.) So why didn’t they use a special domain to separate paper readers from regular surfers?

Curious.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 11th, 2006 at 11:15 pm and is filed under Geekery.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.