LOS ANGELES, Feb 27, 2006 – Jambo, a provider of solutions that effectively connect people by phone to businesses represented in Internet search and directory listings, today introduced Pay-Per-Call Collect™ – a complete billing and collection solution that enables businesses to pay for their pay-per-call phone leads through their standard phone bills.  Jambo's billing system makes pay-per-call advertising easily accessible and hassle-free for small businesses, and expands the revenue potential for search engines and lead generators by giving them credit for delivering to merchants qualified consumers via the phone.

For consumers, Pay-Per-Call Collect ensures more relevant search result listings by filtering out companies that don't want their calls – trimming often unwieldy search results to provide consumers with a highly relevant list of responsive merchants.

Merchants listed with a directory or search engine participating in the Jambo Advertising Network (JAN), in product and service categories that primarily get new customers over the phone, will receive phone leads automatically – requiring literally no effort on their part. When a merchant receives a call from a consumer, generated by a Jambo partner listing, he or she can choose at that moment whether or not to accept the charges on a pay-per-call basis. Those charges will appear on the merchant's regular phone bill.

"All other companies use what I call 'the burden model' – the burden is on merchants to take the initiative to create ads, choose keywords and manage the bidding process," said John Melideo, CEO, Jambo. "But most local businesses don't have the resources or the inclination to do that. By tapping into a billing system that they already use – their phone bill – we're removing the need to set up and manage separate advertising campaigns with various publishers. Instead, we're automatically including merchants listed in a JAN partner directory – all they have to do is answer the phone and say yes or no to a qualified lead. It's that simple."

Once a merchant accepts a lead, Jambo automatically follows up on behalf of the search partner that generated the call to sell packages of leads. By tapping into a group of "self-selected" merchants, Jambo is enabling its search partners to proactively sell advertising to companies that already have received actual leads – reversing the traditional passive approach of waiting for merchants to come to them.

Jambo's system keeps track of which companies want the phone leads and which don't – based on the percentage of calls each merchant answers, or doesn't. Using a proprietary methodology, Jambo combines that information with a variety of other relevancy factors – including type of business, geography, service specialties, among others – to identify the merchants most likely to be relevant to a particular consumer.

When a consumer searches within a category, and does not know the name of a specific business, the Jambo ad is presented as an option. The ads are aggregated into key categories, like taxis or spas, and then presented individually apart from specific merchant names and phone numbers. With one consumer phone call, Jambo may place several calls behind the scenes until that consumer is connected with a merchant.

"Local search listings typically rely on geography when, in fact, there are several other factors that influence whether or not a particular merchant meets a consumer's criteria," said Richard Rosen, VP, Business Development, Jambo. "If a consumer searches for a kitchen contractor in LA, he'll have to sort through hundreds of listings. But most of them won't be relevant either because they don't do the kind of work he's looking for or they're not seeking new clients at that moment. Our goal is to connect consumers with relevant businesses that want phone leads. Our refined search results will drive more targeted leads to merchants, who then provide new revenue for Internet publishers."