Click-to-Call mobile marketing is becoming more popular. Instead of paying Google Adwords for a click, you pay them for the calls they generate.
Click-to-call has some major, major advantages.
Both xAd and Google report that over 50% of local mobile searches result in a phone call. This is significant. It shows that a phone call is a natural action after a mobile search. Natural action = less friction.
And, getting more phone calls is a good thing. Why?
Well, analytics and call tracking data we’ve pulled from hundreds of thousands of phone calls show that leads generated from inbound phone calls are 12 to 15 times more likely to convert than leads from web forms. More phone calls = more business. In short: click-to-call mobile marketing will generate business for you.
So, with all that information in mind, our goal is to help you run effective mobile click-to-call campaigns and generate more calls. Here are some tips to help you do that:
1. Formulate a Clear Click-to-Call Strategy
Before you start driving a bunch of calls via mobile click-to-call marketing, you should ensure that you are prepared. Do you have the telephony (IVR, routing) and staffing in place to significantly more phone calls?
If you are a marketing company or lead gen firm you may already bill clients on a CPC or CPL basis. Before you start driving mass amounts of call you should figure out a way to monetize those calls. You can charge your clients significantly more for phone calls than clicks or web leads. Why? Because they are worth more. As we noted above, phone calls are simply better leads than web form fill-outs or clicks.
2. Develop Mobile Bid Strategy
Before you start running mobile click-to-call ads via Google Adwords or a similar platform, it is critical to understand bid strategy.
– You should separate your mobile campaigns within Adwords. Default settings combine your mobile and desktop campaigns. You should separate them. Google says that separating the campaigns can increase CTR by 11.5%.
– You should take advantage of mobile geo-targeting. Mobile users most often search for things/businesses/places around their location. Thus, geo-tartgeting is critical.
– Day-Parting – Desktop off-hours are mobile on-hours.
3. Write Mobile Ad Copy
In addition to including the phone number in the ad, you should also include phrases like ‘Call Now’ or ‘Call Today.’ CTR increases when call-specific language is used in ad copy. At a conference last November, Google presented the case of InterContinental Hotels Group. They began including phrases like ‘Call to Book Now’ or ‘Call us Now’ in click-to-call ads. Their results were an astounding 91% YOY increase in mobile search revenue.
4. Track Call Analytics
Whether you use LogMyCalls or not, we strongly recommend using a local or toll free number from a call tracking provider when you’re running mobile click-to-call campaigns. Don’t simply use your current business number. Using a call tracking number allows you to gather analytics from your click-to-call campaigns. You’ll need much, much more information than just the raw number of calls your ads produce. (You’ll see one reason why below).
5. The More Data the Better (especially with Adwords)
When you run a mobile click-to-call campaign via Google Adwords (or any other pay-per-call provider) they charge you every time a call is initiated. In other words, they charge you each time the phone number is tapped. This is the only data they provide, thus it is the only data on which you have to base CTR, CPA, CPL and conversion rate metrics.
The problem is that number doesn’t tell the whole story.
For testing purposes, we recently started conducting some click-to-call campaigns for some of our call tracking clients. One interesting test was with a Holiday Inn Express in Utah. We used local tracking phone numbers as the call extension number within Google Adwords. Thus our tool, LogMyCalls, was able to extract call analytics from each call.
Holiday Inn Express – Logan, Utah – June 2012
Results
– Spend – $332
– Google charged us for 60 calls generated via click-to-call (Most mobile marketers are stuck with this information and this information only).
– However, in reality only 29 calls (48.3%) were actually completed
– Only 9 were qualified opportunities (15%)
– And 6 ended in a room reservation (10%)
Implications
– If we had relied just on the information Google Adwords provided, our CPL, CPA and CPC would have been inaccurate. This has huge, huge implications for optimization, future spend, and of course assumptions about ad channels. The way we look at it is simple: you have to use some phone number in your click-to-call ads, you might as well use a number that will give you data.
Click-to-Call: Getting Started
The best way to get started with a mobile click-to-call campaign is to run some small tests. You should track call analytics for several weeks before you can draw conclusions about ad copy, keywords or the channel itself. But my advice is simple: get started now. If you don’t, you will be left behind.