Getting potential customers to reach out to your company with a phone call can be a critical step in the sales process. If you’re running call-only ad campaigns or want to boost the number of call conversions you get from your existing PPC campaigns, improving you call rate for your Google AdWords campaigns can be an effective way to persuade your audience to pick up the phone and call your business. Whether you’re already following our best practices for running call-only campaigns, or if you’re just getting started with optimizing your PPC campaigns, these six tips for improving call rate will help take your AdWords campaigns to the next level.
With the shift to mobile it is more critical than ever to optimize for calls. Users don’t like to fill out contact forms on smart phones if they can avoid it. And if you are pushing calls your overall conversion rates will increase. Take a look at some recent results for a personal injury attorney. You will see how calls are driving over 90% of their conversions. Users are presented with the option to fill out a form or call. While the cost per lead will seem high for many people outside of legal advertising these are very good numbers for personal injury advertising.
Table of Contents
1. Think Beyond the Ad and Optimize Your Website for Calls
Improving call rate involves more than just adding a phone number to your PPC ads. Your website and landing pages should also be optimized to prompt customers to call you. Conversion rate experts assert that reducing friction to finding information drives higher conversion rates. If improving your call rate is the priority for your marketing efforts, be sure to make it as easy as possible for customers to find your phone number on your website. On our own website, we follow this practice by placing our phone number at the top of our homepage. This makes it easy for new clients to quickly make contact with the Google AdWords experts at Webrageous.
2. Leverage Click-to-Call Ad Extensions
One of the best ways to garner more call conversions is to focus on mobile PPC. Because many mobile PPC users don’t have to switch devices to make a call, mobile is an ideal channel for improving your conversion rate. In particular, the Click-to-Call Ad Extension makes it dead-simple for smartphone users to call your company with a single click. According to Google, adding a call extension to your mobile ads can increase conversions by 6-8% on average. If you’re running mobile PPC ads but aren’t using this valuable extension, you are likely missing out on potential customers.
3. Match Your CTA to Your Call’s Goal
Your language should echo the action you want your audience to take. Using phrases like “call now” or “speak to an expert” in your ad copy gives a clear message about the action you want your viewers to take. In addition to using language that will trigger the right action, your CTA should express the value of the call to the caller. Call conversions can represent a larger commitment on the lead’s part than other conversion types. They require the individual to commit to speaking with your company directly and immediately, rather than at their own pace. Make sure that your CTAs give some context as to what a prospective customer can expect from the call. Are you offering more general information about your business offerings? Or should prospects call only when they’re ready to make a purchase, or to ask for pricing information? Craft your CTA to make sure that your audience will know what they’re in for when they decide to call. That clarity will help convince them that making the call will be worth their time.
4. Know Your Audience’s Schedule
Digging into your audience’s behaviors is an effective method for improving call rate. Be sure to consider the best time to call from the perspective of your customers. To get a sense of your customers’ preferred times for calling, dive into your CTR and conversion data in Google AdWords. You can also use that information to A/B test what times and days your audience is most responsive.
To ensure that your audience truly converts, you need to have someone available to pick up the phone when a potential customer calls. For example, if you see an influx of calls during your office lunch hour because people are calling in on their lunch hour, consider putting someone on phone-answering duty to intercept any potential customers who call during that time.
5. Focus Ad Spend During Optimal Calling Hours
Boosting your PPC call rate is only one part of the campaign equation. Call conversions are inherently more time-sensitive than other forms of PPC conversion. Once you have a good sense of when your audience is most responsive, focus your bidding strategy on serving ads during the “hottest” times of the day and week for your target audience. Scheduling your call-focused campaigns to bid more (or exclusively) during times that you’ll be able to answer calls is key to running a successful campaign without wasting ad spend. You can use AdWords ad scheduling functionality, also known as dayparting, to focus your bids on the hours that you know you’ll be ready to receive calls.
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6. Get a Good Look at Click-to-Call Metrics
Do you know which ads are getting you the most calls? Which ones are falling flat? Part of refining your call conversion strategy is keeping a close eye on what works and what doesn’t work. Be sure to take a data-driven approach and make sure that you’re tracking the right metrics to gauge the success of your call-based campaigns. Understanding what information is vital to the success of your campaigns can make or break PPC campaigns. This analytical approach is where PPC management firms like Webrageous can truly make an impact on your campaign. Our PPC experts have extensive experience analyzing AdWords metrics and performance.
Taking Your PPC Call Rate to the Next Level with Webrageous
If you’re aiming for a higher call conversion rate and aren’t seeing results on your own, we can help. Webrageous specializes in optimizing PPC campaigns to give our clients the best possible results for their advertising dollar. Contact us today to learn more about how Webrageous can give your call-based PPC campaigns a boost and help you see real returns from your campaigns.
Header photo credit: Flickr, Steven Lilley
