{"id":123903,"date":"2019-04-16T14:37:12","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T14:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/?p=123903"},"modified":"2020-02-13T17:37:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T17:37:50","slug":"optimize-paid-search-phone-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2019\/04\/16\/optimize-paid-search-phone-calls\/","title":{"rendered":"How to optimize paid search ads for phone calls"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been an abundance of hand-wringing articles published that wonder if the era of the phone call is over, not to mention speculation that millennials would give up the option to make a phone call altogether<\/a><\/strong> if it meant unlimited data.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

But actually, the rise of direct dialing through voice assistants and click to call buttons for mobile search means that calls are now totally intertwined with online activity. <\/span><\/p>\n

Calling versus buying online is no longer an either\/or proposition. When it comes to complicated purchases like insurance, healthcare, and mortgages, the need for human help is even more pronounced. Over <\/span>half of consumers<\/span><\/a> prefer to talk to an agent on the phone in these high-stakes situations. <\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, 70% of consumers\u00a0<\/span>have used<\/span><\/a> a click to call button. And\u00a0<\/span>three times<\/span><\/a> as many people prefer speaking with a live human over a tedious web form. And calls aren\u2019t just great for consumers either. A recent study by Invoca found that calls actually convert at ten times the rate of clicks.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, if you\u2019re finding that your business line isn\u2019t ringing quite as often as you\u2019d like it to, here are some surefire ways to optimize your search ads to drive more high-value phone calls. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Content produced in collaboration with <\/span><\/i>Invoca<\/span><\/i><\/a>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Four ways to optimize your paid search ads for more phone calls<\/b><\/h2>\n
    \n
  1. \n

    Let your audience know you\u2019re ready to take their call — and that a real person will answer<\/b><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you\u2019re waiting for the phone to ring, make sure your audiences know that you\u2019re ready to take their call. In the days of landlines, if customers wanted a service, they simply took out the yellow pages and thumbed through the business listings until they found the service they were looking for. These days, your audience is much more likely to find you online, either through search engines or social media. But that doesn\u2019t mean they aren\u2019t looking for a human to answer their questions.<\/span><\/p>\n

    If you\u2019re hoping to drive more calls, make sure your ads are getting that idea across clearly and directly. For example, if your business offers free estimates, make sure that message is prominent in the ad with impossible-to-miss text reading, \u201cFor a free estimate, call now,\u201d with easy access to your number. <\/span><\/p>\n

    And to make sure customers stay on the line, let them know their call will be answered by a human rather than a robot reciting an endless list of options.<\/span><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. \n

      Cater to the more than half of users that will likely be on mobile<\/b><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      If your customer found your landing page<\/a> via search, there\u2019s a majority percent chance they\u2019re on a mobile device. <\/span><\/p>\n

      While mobile accounted for just 27% of organic search engine visits in Q3 of 2013, its share increased to 57% as of Q4 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

      \"Statistic:<\/a><\/p>\n

      That\u2019s great news for businesses looking to boost calls, since mobile users obviously already have their phone in hand. However, forcing users to dig up a pen in order to write down your business number only to put it back into their phone adds an unnecessary extra step that could make some users think twice about calling. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      Instead, make sure mobile landing pages offer a click to call button that lists your number in big, bold text. Usually, the best place for a click to call button is in the header of the page, near your form, but it\u2019s best practice to A\/B test button location and page layouts a few different ways in order to make sure your click to call button can\u2019t be overlooked.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \n
      1. \n

        Use location-specific targeting<\/b><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        Since 2014, local search queries from mobile have skyrocketed in volume as compared to desktop.<\/span><\/p>\n

        \"Statistic:<\/a><\/p>\n

        In 2014, there were 66.5 billion search queries from mobile and 65.6 billion search queries from desktop. <\/span><\/p>\n

        Now in 2019, desktop has decreased slightly to 62.3 billion — while mobile has shot up to 141.9 billion \u2014 nearly a 250% increase in five years.<\/span><\/p>\n

        Mobile search is by nature local, and vice versa. If your customer is searching for businesses hoping to make a call and speak to a representative, chances are, they need some sort of local services. For example, if your car breaks down, you\u2019ll probably search for local auto shops, click a few ads, and make a couple of calls. It would be incredibly frustrating if each of those calls ended up being to a business in another state. <\/span><\/p>\n

        Targeting your audience by region can ensure that you offer customers the most relevant information possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

        If your business only serves customers in Kansas, you definitely don\u2019t want to waste perfectly good ad spend drumming up calls from California. <\/span><\/p>\n

        If you\u2019re using Google Ads, make sure you set the location you want to target. That way, you can then modify your bids to make sure your call-focused ads appear in those regions. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. \n

          Track calls made from ads and landing pages<\/b><\/h3>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Keeping up with where your calls are coming from in the physical world is important, but tracking where they\u2019re coming from on the web is just as critical. Understanding which of your calls are coming from ads as well as which are coming from landing pages is an important part of optimizing paid search<\/a>. Using a call tracking and analytics<\/a> solution alongside Google Ads can help give a more complete picture of your call data.<\/span><\/p>\n

          And the more information you can track, the better. At a minimum, you should make sure your analytics<\/a> solution captures data around the keyword<\/a>, campaign\/ad group, and the landing page that led to the call. But solutions like Invoca also allow you to capture demographic details, previous engagement history, and the call outcome to offer a total picture of not just your audience, but your ad performance.<\/span><\/p>\n

          For more information on how to use paid search<\/a> to drive calls, check out Invoca\u2019s white paper, \u201c11 Paid Search Tactics That Drive Quality Inbound Calls<\/a>.\u201d <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          70% of consumers\u00a0have used a click to call button, and a recent study found that calls convert at ten times the rate of clicks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1092,"featured_media":123906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12,10],"tags":[1391,137,38,129,22285,58],"content_type":[],"class_list":["post-123903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-mobile","category-ppc","tag-local","tag-local-seo","tag-mobile","tag-paid-search","tag-phone-calls","tag-ppc"],"acf":{"tad_independentcommercial":false,"tad_content_format":false},"post_info":{"name":"idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com idris.nagri@blenheimchalcot.com","title":"","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/shutterstock_641718895-1-120x90.jpg","category":"Local","timeago":"7y"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1092"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123903"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=123903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}