Increase telephone conversions using Google Ads call extensions

Category: Call tracking

70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from search results. If your business generates leads or sales over the phone, Google’s call extensions could make paid advertising much more effective for you.

What is a call-only campaign?

This is a mobile optimised campaign that is specifically designed for businesses that rely on phone calls. An AdWords Call extensions display a prominent phone number, URL (for branding purposes), two lines of description text and a call button.

Call extensions are expressly designed to appear in search results on mobile devices that can make phone calls. Instead of a directing searchers to a destination URL and a landing page, the prospect can only call.

This differs from the click-to-call extension that you may be more familiar with. These extensions, when viewed by mobile users, place a ‘Call’ button in the ad that immediately makes a phone call to your business.

When presented with this ad, your prospect usually has two options: to click the ad and visit the landing page on your website, or to click the button and make a call. This almost sends a mixed message to your lead about which action you want them to take. It’s also much more difficult to write effective, targeted ad copy when you’ve got two different CTA’s fighting for attention.

Given the choice, a prospect might decide to visit your site first. Even with a highly optimised landing page, you risk losing 19 out of 20 prospects who click on the link. Using a call-only campaign you capture the lead at the exact time that they’re actively searching and ready to purchase.

Can I track calls in the same way as my other campaigns?

Yes. When you create your call-only ad, you need to select the ‘My own phone number’ option (see image below) so that you can add your own tracking number.

Using a Mediahawk number means you are able to choose the type of number you use (this can be a geographic number or a service number) and capture exactly the same information that you can get from your other tracking numbers, including:

Using the Mediahawk API, you can integrate the call data directly into your own reporting software. You can also listen to calls and score them within the reporting portal as you would do normally.

How much will it cost?

Google call-only campaigns use the same AdWords bidding process as pay-per-click ads, but you bid for calls instead of clicks to your website. Your bid should match the value that you place on a phone call from your ad, and you can control this in the same way as you would a normal PPC campaign budget.

What are the benefits of using a call-only campaign?

If you’re in a service-based business where there is a greater need for a customer to talk to you, you’re likely to see an increase in the number of calls you receive. Using a tracked phone number enables you to monitor the results within your reporting system. Using unique tracked numbers, you can test multiple ads to find out which ad copy performs better, and achieves the best click through rate. The detailed insight that Mediahawk reports provide you with allows you to fine-tune your campaigns to improve results further.

Optimising your call-only campaign

  • Use the description text to encourage prospects to call, e.g.: “Call for a quote today”.
  • Create multiple ads with unique phone numbers and tweak the descriptions to see which variations and keywords generate more calls.
  • Use your call tracking data to determine the precise ROI on your call-only campaigns and stop wasting budget on ads that are performing poorly.

Have you implemented a call-only campaign yet? We’d be very interested to hear your experiences of how they’ve performed.

About the author - Natalia Selby

Marketing Executive at Mediahawk, with 20 years experience in analytics and content management.

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