November 6, 2014
“When we sample decision makers, 61 percent of SMB advertisers consistently tell us that a telephone call from a prospective customer is the single most important lead they can receive.” (Source: kelsey group)
I know this might seem like it doesn’t make sense, because you might expect in-person visits to be the most valuable. But there are many overlooked factors to a small business that make phone call leads the most valuable.
1) The infrastructure is already there. The business does not have to do anything differently, like manage a new technology, to receive these leads.
2) The training for answering a phone call lead is generally already in place.
3) The telephone is optimal for back and forth discussion about the services/products offered.
A common struggle most PPC advertisers face is tracking these offline conversions and showing the FULL value of their PPC campaigns.
Google AdWords has had a call measurement solution around for a while called call extensions. Call extensions make it easy for people to find your number when searching for your business, as it shows within your ad on the search results page. You can display your business’s telephone number or a google forwarding number. A Google forwarding number is a phone number Google assigns your account that allows you to track and report on the number of phone call leads received due to your ad. For a mobile ad, this shows as a click to call button, making it very easy for your customers to get ahold of you on the go.
An example of a mobile ad - a business's number shown directly within their ad on the search results page displayed as a click to call button
There was one problem with this solution. Until recently, Google forwarding numbers ONLY showed within your ads, and did not dynamically change the phone number on your website. So what happens when somebody clicks through your ad to your website and decides to call after browsing the products and services offered? Your PPC campaigns would not get the credit for that lead (and thus making it difficult to determine the value of running those ads.) However, now Google has introduced a simple way for advertisers to measure on-website calls!
Website call conversion tracking is going to be a game changer for businesses whose primary conversion is phone call leads. All you need to do is add a piece of code provided by Google around the phone number on your webpage. This code allows Google to change the phone number on your site only if you clicked through an ad. You can customize the font, color and size of the phone number to mirror the design of your website. Once the code is implemented, AdWords can track website calls received in response to your ads within the call details report under the dimensions tab.
If someone clicked on a paid ad on the search results page, this number would show as a unique number that, if called, would tell the business that they were found via a paid ad
Are there aspects of call tracking that don't exist that you wish did? Comment in the section below, email us at [email protected], or tweet us @Perfect_Search!