Everything You Need to Know About Pay-Per-Call Marketing
When it comes to marketing, all businesses want to spend their money as efficiently as possible. Most know the importance of marketing through digital channels, but some are missing out on a significant revenue stream. Pay-per-call marketing platforms allow marketing teams to track and analyze inbound calls, contributing to a data-driven decision-making process and delivering a substantial return on investment. Whether you are considering adding pay per call to your digital marketing tool kit or are wondering about the final points involved, these FAQs can help.
1. What Is Pay Per Call?
Pay-per-call advertising is a type of hybrid digital marketing where a company calls a partner (also known as an affiliate) for advertising calls on the business’s behalf. A pay-per-call model follows the same basic premise as pay per click (PPC) advertising. Here is the process: A company creates a marketing campaign that requires connecting to prospective customers over the phone. Then, the business hires an affiliate to make those calls and track performance.
2. Why Would a Business Choose Pay Per Call?
Pay-per-call models have several benefits, but the main reason that a business works with an affiliate for pay per call is convenience. Advertisers who choose to use pay-per-call campaigns can quickly increase their distribution and call volume across all their channels with minimum effort. When a business outsources its calls, it can focus on other valuable work. A pay-per-call structure also allows businesses to have full visibility over the customer experience, including analytics. A pay-per-call platform enables brands the visibility and control required to test new campaigns, all with little effort and risk.
3. Which Businesses Benefit Most From Pay Per Call?
When it comes to pay-per-call verticals, businesses of all types can benefit from the model. Typically, companies that most often use pay per call are those who focus on lead generation. Examples include health care (including health insurance), law (including tax debt and other debt settlement, personal injury attorneys), finance (including personal loans and bankruptcy), and home services (i.e., home warranties, insurance). Pay per click can also be ideal for retail businesses with average high order amounts.
4. How Do Pay-Per-Call Leads Work?
Pay-per-call lead generation works through a process called “click to call.” In other words, a consumer clicks on a phone number within an ad to create an inbound call. Examples of click-to-call lead generation methods include:
- Mobile searches. These leads predominantly come from a Google search engine results page. But leads can also come from other search engines, such as Yahoo and Bing. Because callers are actively engaged during mobile searches (i.e., in a buying mindset), mobile search campaigns generally have a high conversion rate.
- Mobile displays. A mobile display campaign presents banner ads with call prompts.
- Email marketing. A pay-per-call campaign through email marketing will include the number within the email content. The email deployment should align with the company’s call center hours.
- SMS. Finally, a pay-per-call campaign can include phone numbers that encourage inbound calls. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) can create automated two-way conversations that nurture leads until consumers are ready to make an inbound call.
5. What Services Do Pay-Per-Call Networks Provide?
Pay-per-call campaigns are increasing in popularity, because they tend to have high conversion rates, creating a significant return on investment. Pay-per-call networks are also valuable because they connect advertisers to publishers. As such, pay-per-call networks are essential in lead generation for businesses. Networks also provide useful tools that help companies navigate the process. Businesses should select a pay-per-call network based on verticals they service, support needed, location, and budget.
6. How Do Pay-Per-Call Networks Operate?
Not all pay-per-call programs work the same, but the basic process is this: An advertiser hires a pay-per-call company with the intent of increasing the number of inbound calls. Pay-per-call companies can also double as affiliate publishers because they can distribute more business to the advertiser. With an end goal of drumming up more phone calls for the advertiser, a pay-per-call company will use various techniques to generate leads. After a determination of what is a legitimate call to a business, the publisher collects a fee from the advertiser for each call made to the business.
Because the marketing and revenue are performance-based, pay-per-call networks generally lead to higher quality lead generation compared to other forms of marketing. To create the best results possible, pay-per-call companies usually experiment with different types of ads and channels, resulting in the most profitable avenues for each business.
7. Is Pay Per Call the Same as Robo-Calling?
Pay-per-call marketing differs significantly from robocalls. With robocalls, a telemarketing firm cold-calls prospects from a list using an automated system. A pay-per-call campaign, however, uses customer interaction. In a pay-per-call campaign, a customer clicks a business phone number from an advertisement that can appear through multiple channels (i.e., email, mobile search, banner ads). Once customers click on the ad, they are connected to the business as usual, but the pay-per-call network collects information on each caller for analytic purposes.
8. How Does Pay Per Call Differ From Pay Per Click?
The basic concept behind pay per click (PPC) advertising and pay per call are similar. In both forms of advertising, a publisher will formulate an advertisement with the intent of generating leads. The most significant difference between PPC and pay per call, however, is the campaign’s result. A pay per click advertisement will send the person clicking on the ad to the company’s website; a pay-per-call ad connects the user to the company via an inbound call.
9. How Do Pay-Per-Call Companies Track Phone Calls?
One of the benefits of working with a pay-per-call affiliate is the tracking capability. Fee-per-call networks use one of several methods to track inbound calls. One popular way is to assign a different phone number to each type of advertisement, which allows companies to determine which marketing channels are working most efficiently. Pay-per-call companies can also offer features like call automation, order management, and call distribution to track calls and reduce the workload of the advertiser.
10. How Do Pay-Per-Call Companies Qualify Leads?
A publisher generates leads through online or SMS channels that encourage the ad viewer to call a business phone number. A mobile user has the option of clicking directly on the phone number from the mobile search engine result page or text. Once the pay-per-call network generates the lead, they may qualify it through several means. For example, some publishers screen callers via a voice response system before routing them to a call center. Pay-per-call networks can also analyze metrics such as geographic location of the caller, length of the call, conversion rate, and more.
11. Is Pay Per Call Right for My Business?
Businesses of all types can benefit from pay-per-call. Generally, pay-per-call campaigns work well for companies that focus heavily on lead generation. Pay-per-call affiliates often work with those in healthcare, finance, law, and insurance. These business models tend to individually
benefit from pay-per-call campaigns because of the number of leads they must continually produce. Since pay per call has a high conversion rate compared to other forms of advertising, it can provide a significant return on investment.
12. What Are the Benefits for Pay-Per-Call Publishers?
Publishers or affiliate marketers can also benefit from pay-per-call advertising. By connecting with the right business niche and call affiliate, publishers can create reliable revenue streams while helping businesses connect to prospects. It is cost-efficient and straightforward to get started—just start by comparing offers across networks.
13. How Do I Know That a Pay-Per-Call Company Will Work Well With My Business?
Not all pay-per-call businesses are equal in quality. If you want to know if an affiliate will be a good fit for your business, start by reading pay-per-call reviews. Online reviews are an excellent place to identify red flags, and bill per call companies are no different. Do your research and thoroughly vet potential partners before starting your campaign.
14. How Do I Get Started With Pay-Per-Call Advertising?
If you’re ready to get started, either as a pay-per-call advertiser or a pay-per-call publisher, contact Call Affiliate today. Let us drive leads to your business and increase your revenue streams today. We put advertisers and publishers together through different platforms, so all can benefit. For qualified leads, high conversion rates, and increased revenue across several different verticals, consider pay-per-call campaigns. For answers to additional questions and concerns, please contact us.