I read a great article recently on Search Engine Watch by Noran El-Shinnaway. The article lists 13 metrics that every PPC report should include. These are critical data points if you’re going to make any level of educated decisions about your PPC spend.
The article lists impressions, conversions, average position, and average CPC, among other metrics. The article is great, but I would like to add two metrics to the list. They both have to do with calls.
1) Calls by Ad and Keyword
Calls are important. Callers are better leads than form fills. Callers buy more frequently and they spend more money when they buy than form fill leads
Calls are better than clicks. Marketing experts ranging from Tim Ash to Brian Massey are recognizing this. And data from sources ranging from BIA Kelsey to ContactPoint show it. Calls are better.
So why aren’t you tracking them?
Even if the total leads from your PPC campaigns are 90% form fills and 10% calls, it is likely that that 10% will produce nearly as much revenue as the 90%.
Long story short: if you’re not tracking calls from PPC you are not getting credit for all the leads you’re generating. You have a massive blind spot.
We have thousands of clients that marry individual keywords or ad groups to specific phone numbers using Dynamic Number Insertion. These call tracking numbers appear on the landing page ONLY when a specific ad is the referring ad. This allows marketers to marry precise PPC spend to specific calls.
No PPC campaign is complete without call tracking data via PPC. So, put a call tracking number on your PPC landing pages and start getting the data you need to make good decisions.
2) Call Conversions
LogMyCalls recently released Conversation Analytics. It actually analyzes what happens ON the call. It uses speech recognition technology to analyze the words and phrases on a phone call and then can tell you what happened on the call. Based on the words said on the call it can determine lead quality, sales readiness, and even conversions.
Conversation Analytics can track whether a lead purchased, set an appointment, or was a missed opportunity.
So, imagine with PPC campaigns, not just having clicks and calls, but actually having data about how many callers purchased, or took the next step toward purchasing.
That’s incredible data.
More Metrics. Better Decisions.
Having call data can totally alter your PPC spend. For example, we had a client that was spending a lot of money on PPC. He assumed PPC wasn’t working for him. Then, he started using call tracking. He found that A LOT of people were calling his company after clicking through a PPC ad.
His PPC was working. He just wasn’t gathering the right metrics.
Maybe your situation isn’t as extreme. But, if you aren’t gathering the two call metrics we’ve described above you ARE missing SOMETHING. You don’t have all of the data at your disposal. You are making decisions based on imperfect data.