J.P. VanderLinden is Director of Digital at EmberTribe, a growth marketing agency focused on measurable results through paid acquisition and CRO. Learn more at embertribe.com.
You already know that CallRail and Google Ads go together like peanut butter and jelly, like milk and cookies, like macaroni and… you get the idea. But are you taking full advantage of these two platforms to get the best results for your business? In less time than it takes to cook a frozen casserole, you could be driving more calls than your sales team can answer and have a better user experience, all with greater visibility. And the best part? No complicated, expensive enterprise phone systems needed – just Google Ads (formerly AdWords) and CallRail. In this post, we’ll explore how you can transform Ads campaigns using call tracking. The first step in our call-hacking process is to consider how Ads is driving phone calls to your business. Did you know that for the first time in history, the majority of U.S. homes have no landline? And for more than two years Google has reported more mobile searches than desktop. In other words, it’s a safe bet a big percentage of your calls are coming from mobile searchers. To capitalize on this behavior pattern, we’re going to create a call-only campaign targeting mobile users.
I won’t go into all the specifics of how to setup a call-only campaign here, as there are already some great resources covering this. There is one important element you will need to setup – making sure you use a CallRail Click-to-Call Tracking Number. That way, you get the maximum visibility into how many calls you get, length, callback number, location, and more.
The Best Call is One You Answer
Many of our clients have office hours during which their sales team or customer service folks are answering inbound calls. These calls are valuable because often times the hardest part of closing a sale is just getting someone on the phone. But what about the calls that come in after-hours, or on weekends? For the majority of folks we’ve worked with, these calls get routed to voicemail, and by the time you follow-up the prospect has found someone else – or worse, you spend two weeks playing phone tag, during which time the deal goes cold. Sometimes these calls go to a third-party answering service who takes down some information and promises a callback later at which point the aforementioned phone tag begins. Calls that you answer are dramatically more valuable than calls that you don’t, and yet, ads don’t cost any less during your off-hours. Potential prospects you’d like to get in front of are still searching, viewing your ads, and initiating calls. What’s the plan for capitalizing on these searchers without pouring money down the drain chasing calls that are worth pennies on the dollar? Introducing dayparting.
It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere
We’ve found that there are two use cases for our clients – those who have a sales person (or team) who wants to take calls on their call beyond office hours, and those who don’t have a solution in place for handling calls after 5 PM. The good news is, there’s a solution for both. Both of these solutions will involve scheduling, which you can get all the specifics on here.
In-Office / Out-of-Office
If you’ve got a team of inbound reps ready to close deals anytime they’re in the office (but not outside of that), here’s how to capitalize your ad dollars on those times:
- Setup your call-only campaign as instructed above.
- Set your ad schedule to only run this mobile campaign during your core business hours (in fact, give yourself a 15-minute buffer inside this window on either end).
- Setup a second mobile-only campaign using standard ads that direct to the website.
- For this off-hours campaign, disable any call extensions, and set the ad schedule to only run during your out-of-office times.
- Make sure your website is using CallRail Dynamic Number Insertion for the best analytics on calls from the website.
- Set your budgets so that more is allocated to the on-hours campaign.
This setup maximizes ad coverage during your core hours, when you get the most valuable calls, without sacrificing visibility during nights and weekends where someone might still submit a form on the website.
Sales on the Go
Perhaps you’re in a different scenario, where you have a single sales rep or team of reps who know that sales happen at 8 PM just as easily as 8 AM, and you want to send calls to their cell phones during non-peak hours. Don’t worry, there’s a solution for you, too!
- Setup your call-only campaign as instructed above.
- Set your ad schedule to only run this mobile campaign during the hours that your team is willing to take calls and commit to answering them (they do have to sleep, right?).
- Create a CallRail custom call routing option that distributes the calls to the right number at the right time; for example, during office hours ring your sales manager’s office, but direct to her cell outside of that time. Or use a round robin distribution that doles out incoming dials among several members of your sales staff.
- Setup a second mobile-only campaign using standard ads that direct to the website.
- For this off-hours campaign, disable any call extensions, and set the ad schedule to only run during your out-of-office times.
- Make sure your website is using CallRail Dynamic Number Insertion for the best analytics on calls from the website.
- Set your budgets so that more is allocated to the on-hours campaign.
The key to this arrangement is the custom call routing, which is a powerful (but perhaps underutilized) feature of CallRail.
Custom Routing and Dynamic Numbers
It might go without saying, but we’re going to anyway – if you’re not using CallRail Dynamic Number Insertion already, stop immediately and go put that in place. It’s life-changing.Seriously. We’ll wait. Okay, assuming you have that in place (you wouldn’t lie to us, right?), take the next step: explore the options inside of custom call routing. After all, people call you during off hours from more than just paid ads, you should be routing those calls correctly as well.
Why Set Up Custom Call Flows?
This seems like a lot of work. I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle. Look, using CallRail with Google Ads campaigns in this way means:
- more calls when you can actually answer
- better visibility into when calls are happening
- better control over the user experience
Not only that but you’ve also got the added benefit of not paying thousands of dollars for a specialized business phone systems. Kinda seems like a no-brainer, right?