Three Call Tracking Mistakes That Are Harming Your PPC Campaigns
Thought the day of the traditional telephone call was over? Think again. Even though we’re entrenched in a world of handheld devices that can take care of everything for us by way of a click or text, the phone call lives on in more than a few marketing sectors. Believe it or not, phone calls are actually new territory for search marketers – sure, you can report on your average CPA, CTR and CPC, but are you taking note of your cost-per-call conversion and other call metrics? Do you even know if your client’s call conversions are turning into revenue for them?
Inbound Calls Mean Sales
Before we get into the three call tracking mistakes that are more than likely harming your PPC campaigns, let’s take a quick look at how inbound calls mean sales. For marketers working in industries wherein “high consideration” purchases are common, the rise of mobile search has dramatically boosted inbound call volume. For example, calls to insurance companies have increased 111-percent YoY, calls to financial services companies have increased 70-percent YoY and calls to home services companies have increased 91-percent YoY.
Indeed, phone calls are THE most important lead type for some industries. If you represent a modern digital marketing agency attempting to get your clients’ call tracking up to snuff, here are three of the most common call tracking mistakes that could be holding back PPC performance:
1. Ignoring Calls Made From the Landing Page
Failing to track calls made from a client’s website landing page is akin to capturing a click-through rate and forgetting about conversion rate; in other words, you’re only getting half the picture. If you’re serious about driving phone calls from paid search for your clients, you have to track ALL calls.
2. Counting All Calls as Conversions
Today, it’s not enough to count leads or calls – you have to measure QUALITY. In fact, counting all calls – no matter their quality – as conversions will give you (not to mention your clients) a false sense of success. With advanced call tracking solutions, you filter out calls based on conditions such as location, new or repeat callers and actions occurring on the call.
3. Not Assigning a Monetary Value to Call Conversions
You cannot measure ROI for your clients unless you know how much the call conversions are ‘worth’ – assigning a value to your calls lets you calculate ROI and optimize bids. From data collected that determines the average number of calls resulting in sales, you are able to estimate call conversion value in real dollar amounts. This value is then input into your PPC reports to reflect your average CPA in terms of web and call conversions.
Addressing these common mistakes is a great start toward firming up your agency’s PPC analytics.
