If you have checked out our website you can see that we are big proponents of performance based, pay per call advertising. There are many ways to get new business online and we recommend that our clients all have a diversified online marketing strategy. We often work with people who have tried their own pay per click marketing and become frustrated. They come to us with questions and are looking for alternatives to help them get new business online.
Pay per click marketing is a good way to get visitors to your website. Generally speaking you can set up a pay per click campaign to your website pretty quickly and easily. However, managing the expense and tracking the results of a pay per click campaign can be more difficult tasks.
Running an effective pay per click campaign takes time, experience, and some level of technical ability. If not managed effectively, a pay per click campaign can be an expensive proposition, costing both time and money. If a company has a marketing department or dedicated employee, they can save money by managing the pay per click process themselves. On the other hand, there are businesses that simply do not have the time, resources, or interest in monitoring their own online marketing efforts and need a service that can perform their online marketing for them. It’s often these companies that can benefit the most from a pay per call program.
Results of a pay per call program are easy to track and it is less time consuming than running your own pay per click campaign. With most pay per call programs the advertisers main concern is simply answering the phone. Pay per call programs are particularly suited to local businesses and are becoming more and more popular with advertisers, especially as more people are searching on their mobile devices and directly placing calls from them.
We think the pay per call model is more effective for local service companies who need to get their phones ringing and don’t have the time or desire to spend a lot of time managing their online marketing campaigns. Here are some reasons why.
It’s Practical - Getting views on your website is great but simply getting clicks is not enough for service companies. You want customers actually contacting you and reaching out, so it can be advantageous to utilize a pay per call service that is motivated to get you those calls (otherwise they don’t get paid).
It's Performance Based- Regardless if you conduct your own pay per click campaigns or you hire a pay per click agency, you still are paying every time you buy a visitor to your website. So even if you don’t get you a single call you are still paying for those clicks. Conversely, with a pay per call program you are only paying when somebody picks up the phone and calls, no matter how many clicks you have gotten and how much traffic is bought to your web presence. In this very important way, pay per call programs are more “performance based” than just about any other marketing you can do.
It's Less Risky - If not managed correctly pay per click can get out of control and you wind up paying for a lot of clicks that don’t turn into any type of customer contact. If you’re tightly budgeted, a pay per call service may be a better option. You are only paying when a customer calls you so you are taking on less risk of obtaining that potential customer. Sure, a call will cost more than a click, and not every call will turn into a job, but at least you are only paying when something actionable happens and you have a real chance at winning the business.
There's More Accurate ROI Determination - It can be a bit tricky to calculate your ROI from a pay per click program. Did a particular customer find you through Facebook, the Google maps page, your pay per click, or some other avenue? Not every click that you buy turns into a call and not every call that you receive was a result of your pay per click. Tracking your return on investment is typically more straightforward with pay per call programs. You can look at the calls you received specifically from the service and then calculate the revenue earned on those customers that called in via your pay per call program. Because you purchased a phone call lead, you can immediately associate that call to your advertising performance.
Both pay per click and pay per call models can help you grow your business online. For local service providers who don’t have the time and/or desire to manage a pay per click campaign, a pay per call program can be more beneficial. After all, what you are really looking for with your advertising dollars is for your phone to start ringing!