One hesitation we encounter in working with small businesses is in determining their campaign’s end goal, or conversion. Acquiring new site traffic is always beneficial, and awareness-focused campaigns will always have their place in a well-rounded digital media plan, but bottom funnel advertising demands establishing a conversion goal. For some businesses, getting a prospective customer on the phone is a key step in the sales cycle.
Yes, even in 2024, businesses want phone calls. And some only need phone calls. As digital media strategists, our goal is to connect clients with their customers in as frictionless a manner as possible; it is with this in mind that we would like to introduce you to call-only ad campaigns.
What is a Call-Only Ad Campaign?
In a typical digital media ad, the destination—or, place a user is taken to when they click—is usually a business’ website, or maybe their Facebook or LinkedIn page. Call-only ads place a priority on encouraging users to click-to-call the business, getting them on the phone immediately instead of hours or days later like if they had submitted a lead form.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t note early in this article that the term “call-only ad” is a bit of a misnomer (as landing pages are still encouraged), but more on that later.
Not all digital media platforms offer call-only ads. Google began offering the feature several years back on paid search ads, with Bing following suit more recently. Meta also offers call extensions, though there is no longer a “call-only” optimization goal on the platform; advertisers can simply set up their ads to lead to a phone number instead of a landing page.
How Call-Only Ads Work
Ads with call extensions will highlight the phone number in the ad itself; where this number comes from depends on the platform. When setting up Google paid search ads, advertisers are given a Google Voice call-forwarding number, in order to track the duration of phone calls originating from ads. Bing offers similar call forwarding. With Meta, the business’ actual phone number will be used to connect the call.
Things to Keep in Mind
As we alluded to before, the name “call-only” isn’t exactly an accurate description of call-based ads in general—call extensions exist for standard paid search and certain types of Meta ads. However, all three platforms do have a campaign type specifically for advertisers who only or primarily want phone calls.
In the case of these paid search call-only ads, a landing page is not necessary, as the goal is for customers to hit the click-to-call button and contact the business directly.
How to Get Started
In order to create a call-only ad campaign in Google, first be sure to enable call reporting in Account Settings. This will enable you to better determine what keywords and ad combinations are driving qualified calls vs. those leading to spam or hangups. Bing offers similar reporting via their Microsoft Ads forwarding number. With Meta, the destination phone number can be entered instead of a URL in the final step of the ad setup process.
If your business is looking to try a calls-only ad campaign, let Screechy Cat Media get you going! Drop us a line today to get started with one of our small business ad packages.
