Ring, Ring. Hi, It's Google

Google Inc., which helped popularize the idea of automated ad sales on the Web, has been quietly turning to an old-fashioned tool—phone calls—to compete in the hot market for local business advertising.

Google's Marissa Mayer says its new local-ad offerings are 'simple and they work.'

The Internet-search giant this year has hired several hundred sales representatives to call U.S. businesses such as spas, restaurants and hotels to promote new advertising initiatives, people familiar with the matter said. The effort includes an office in Tempe, Ariz., with around 100 sales representatives, one of these people said.

Since 20% of searches done on Google are for local information, "a strong Web presence can help neighborhood businesses answer those searches and bring in more customers," said Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of geographic and local services, in a prepared statement. Google's new local ad offerings "are simple and they work, so we've been investing in marketing and sales to support them."

One person who has experienced the results is Debbie Codino, a manager at Bob Brown Tire Center Inc. in Portland, Ore. She said she hangs up daily on callers who say they can help boost the small tire shop's presence on the Web to attract new customers. But when she received a call from a Google salesman last month, she stayed on the line.

Ms. Codino quickly agreed to pay $25 a month to highlight her store and show a 10%-off coupon when people use terms like "Portland tires" in a search on Google. "I was surprised," she said. "This time it was really Google calling so I was motivated to listen."

Google, of Mountain View, Calif., is better known for search algorithms and the engineers who refine them to get better results. The company's $24 billion in revenue last year came almost entirely from AdWords, a self-service system developed 10 years ago to let anyone buy text ads that show up next to search results. More than one million small businesses, from makers of boots to distributors of special shampoo or contact lenses, advertise through Google on AdWords to drive online sales or get people to download catalogs, among other things, according to some analysts.