Anyway, on some of the high traffic pages that normally do well I noticed a few prominent ads with quite compelling text and a phone number. I know there's an argument that searchers are in "click mode" and know that the website is only a click away, but one has to ask the question, is it actually working for advertisers and are more of them starting to do this?

I had a look at few other popular pages on my site and noticed some other advertisers who normally had the usual sales copy have instead started putting up phone numbers. Should we worry about this or am I just being cynical?

I came across a thread on Google Groups discussing this very issue, and in particular was intrigued by this:

We use our phone number in every ad on Adwords. Phone orders usually out number Adwords generated orders but don't tell Google. The conversation always starts with something similar to "I found you online and I have a question." The answers of course are referenced in the website in multiple places but the consumers want to cut through the search and talk to a live person. Take Adwords tech support as an example.

[groups.google.com ]