So you leaped pay-per-click advertising, but how do you know if that PPC advertising is effective? Sure, your phone may be ringing more, but which campaign, or more specifically, which keyword or the search term, is driving more people to your site and leading them to call? After that initial push of ads showing up, how do you know which keywords to increase max CPC or which keywords are really working at all? And what if you are running campaigns on more than one search engine? Without phone call tracking, figuring out where your advertising money is working is a guessing game. WITH phone call tracking, you can not only know where your advertising dollars are working but also fine-tune your marketing strategy to make the best use out of your marketing budget.
Nearly 65% of online searches and site visits result in a phone call. With more and more customers doing their online searching and browsing on their smartphone CLICK–TO-CALL option, making a phone call to a company is easier than ever for them. So why aren’t you tracking your inbound phone calls with the same scrutiny as your online engagements and conversions?
Sure, you can ask someone when they call how they found you, but are you going to know anything more than “on the computer?” No. You MIGHT get lucky and get something that resembles “on Google,” but how do you know if they clicked on an ad or an organic search result? And what did they type in for your ad to be displayed if your ad WAS displayed? Let’s be honest, do you really want to waste your time on the phone with your customer trying to figure out HOW they got your number?
Let’s Talk Numbers
Ok, breaking it down. If you are spending $1000/month on your PPC budget, how do you know where to allocate your money if you don’t track where the calls are coming from?
Let’s say you learn the following information through phone call tracking:
Campaign A Cost: $500/month
Phone calls from Campaign A: 7
Cost per call: $71
Campaign B Cost: $500/month
Phone calls from Campaign B: 70
Cost per call: $7
Which would you rather pay? $7 per lead or $71 per lead?
This is an over-simplified example, of course, with many other variables, but hopefully, you can see my point here. You need to know what keywords are pulling in the traffic that is relevant. If you are not utilizing phone call tracking and analytics with your PPC advertising, how will you know which campaigns those 77 calls came from? You may assume, incorrectly, that half came from campaign A and the other half came from campaign B, but we know that isn’t likely to be true.
By utilizing call tracking, you will have the ability to determine how visitors and customers are converting – using their entire click path. You’ll also know which referral sources and campaigns delivered valuable conversions and engagements. Properly installed phone call tracking gives a more complete picture of your advertising effectiveness. It tracks all online conversions, including form submissions, emails, downloads, and transactions. It even tracks social media posts, ad & media placement sources, internet traffic sources, referring websites and domains, organic search queries, content, and affiliate networks.
Ready for phone call tracking? You can’t afford not to be ready.
So, what are you waiting for? Do you think phone call tracking is going to be too confusing to figure out on your own? Just another reason to hire an SEM agency to help with your marketing needs. When you outsource your PPC management to a specialized agency like Full Circle SEM, you won’t have to handle the phone call tracking, analyzing and optimization that are required for success. You’ll have to do some data entry, sure, or rather your staff that answers the phone will, but the hard work of figuring out what is working is handled by someone else. You can spend more time making your customers happy and figuring out what to do with all of that extra money you made from PPC advertising.
