How to Form a Pay-Per-Call Strategy for Advertisers

Young Woman working on the phone for a pay-per-call strategy

Learning how to form a pay-per-call strategy for advertisers effectively is crucial for businesses looking to generate quality leads and boost revenue. With the right approach, you can create a streamlined system to connect consumers directly with your sales team and drive more conversions.

An Introduction to Pay-Per-Call Marketing 

Pay-per-call marketing refers to a model in which advertisers only pay when a prospect calls a provided tracking number and meets pre-determined requirements. It bridges the gap between digital ads and offline sales conversations.

Unlike traditional digital advertising focused on clicks and impressions, pay-per-call billing ensures advertisers only pay for valuable phone leads that show clear intent to contact the business.

This model provides a direct connection between digital ads and live sales conversations. When a prospect sees a pay-per-call ad, calls the clickable tracking number, and speaks with a sales representative, it closes the loop between advertising exposure and offline conversions.

What Types of Companies Use Pay-Per-Call Advertising? 

Pay-per-call aligns well with service-based businesses that require consultative sales calls before customers make a purchase. The qualified phone leads enable companies to nurture prospects through individualized conversations until they convert into customers.

With pay-per-call advertising, advertisers can expand their audience reach online while only paying for the strong leads that come directly into their sales pipeline. This performance-based approach provides transparency and accountability for advertising spend.

By implementing call-tracking software, optimizing ad creative and landing pages, and monitoring campaign analytics, advertisers can perfect their pay-per-call strategy over time. The model ultimately bridges digital promotion with offline sales conversations to deliver ROI.

Key Players in a Pay-Per-Call Strategy

Pay-per-call is a performance-based advertising model with three primary players:

Advertisers

As an advertiser, you first need to create a unique tracking number and define the criteria for a qualified call, such as:

  • Minimum call duration (e.g., 60 seconds)
  • Call transferred to a sales agent
  • Lead info captured

You’ll only pay the publisher if these requirements are met. The rate per call is mutually agreed upon based on its quality. Defining qualified call criteria upfront ensures you only pay for valuable leads.

Affiliates

Affiliates are publishers who display an advertiser’s tracking number on their own websites, ads, online listings, and other channels in exchange for a commission when a call occurs. They provide additional media placements and audiences for advertisers looking to scale campaigns. Affiliates range from large ad networks to individual website owners.

The most successful affiliates focus on high-quality traffic that matches the advertiser’s target audience. They optimize for prominent ad placements that drive action. Advertisers should vet affiliates thoroughly and only work with those producing results. The right affiliates expand reach and qualified call volume in a pay-per-call strategy.

Publishers

The publishers primarily include platforms like Google Ads or affiliates who drive phone calls by displaying your tracking number on websites, mobile ads, online listings, etc.

Their goal is to connect potential customers to your business by prominently showcasing the call-to-action. The better the visibility, the higher the call volume. Choosing publishers with high-traffic channels expands your reach tremendously.

Learning how to form a pay-per-call strategy includes partnering with reputable, high-traffic publishers that align with your target audience. Conduct thorough research to determine which publishers will help you generate the highest quality calls.

The Importance of Having a Pay-Per-Call Strategy 

Having a defined pay-per-call strategy is essential for several reasons, including:

  • It aligns your goals with the most relevant metrics like call volume, duration, quality, and conversions. Without clear objectives, you may waste ad dollars.
  • It helps you identify the right target audience, platforms, and partnerships to maximize ROI. An optimized pay-per-call strategy can drastically improve lead generation.
  • It enables effective tracking and analysis of call data to refine campaigns and increase profits over time. Frequent evaluation is vital to continuous improvement.

By outlining the vital elements such as research, infrastructure, ad creation, and analytics, you can craft a high-performing pay-per-call strategy tailored to your business. With that said, having a clear roadmap before you begin is essential for executing a successful campaign.

Conduct Research and Information-Gathering

Now that you know what pay-per-call is, you can learn how to form a pay-per-call strategy that will work for your company or brand. The first step in building an effective strategy with pay-per-call is to conduct thorough research. Thorough research and information gathering lay the groundwork for building a successful approach. You need to understand your target audience, their intent and motivations, competitor tactics, and your own internal capabilities.

Understand Your Target Audience

Analyze your existing customer base and target audience. Look at parameters like demographics, pain points, and preferred communication channels. This will help shape your outreach strategy.

For example, if your customers are middle-aged homeowners who still rely on phone calls for service inquiries, paying per call would be ideal to connect with them. Gaining customer insights is critical to effective targeting.

Study Competitor Approaches

Research how your biggest competitors are utilizing pay-per-call campaigns. Look at their ad formats, platforms, tracking numbers, call flows, and quality standards.

This will give you an idea of their best practices and help you identify opportunities for differentiation. Avoid copying them outright, though. Evaluating competitors enables you to gain an edge.

Evaluate the Technical Infrastructure

Pay-per-call requires specific tools and systems, such as call tracking software, IVR technology, CRM integration, and a professional call center. It is important to research options to determine the right solutions for seamless execution.

Having the infrastructure and processes mapped out will ensure you can efficiently handle the influx of leads. The right technology stack enables smooth operations.

Setting Up the Infrastructure for Your Pay-Per-Call Campaign as an Advertiser

With your pay-per-call research and planning finished, the next critical step is implementing the proper technical infrastructure, processes, and resources to execute campaigns successfully.

This backend setup is crucial for managing phone leads seamlessly, tracking data accurately, routing calls effectively, optimizing over time, and ultimately driving ROI. 

Some critical infrastructure elements include the following:

Choose Call Tracking Software 

Invest in call tracking and analytics tools that offer real-time visibility into call data and recordings for faster optimization. Select solutions that integrate easily with your other marketing and sales systems.

Robust call-tracking software provides the data needed to refine campaigns. However, before choosing a call tracking service, it is best to evaluate options to choose the one that will fit the needs of your business.

Define Call Quality Standards 

Determine upfront what parameters constitute a qualified call to avoid subjectivity issues later. Typical requirements include minimum duration, unique caller, lead details captured, etc. Outline this in publisher contracts.

Clearly defined standards ensure you only pay for valuable calls while publishers understand expectations.

Part of understanding how to form a pay-per-call strategy is clearly outlining the criteria for a qualified call upfront. This ensures you only pay for valuable leads that advance prospects further down the sales funnel.

Creating Effective Advertisements for Your Pay-Per-Call Campaign 

Compelling ads is crucial to driving a high volume of qualified calls that convert. Here are some ways to create the ideal advertising campaign for an impactful pay-per-call strategy with guaranteed results: 

Craft Click-Worthy Call-to-Actions

Catchy phrases like “Call now and save 10%!” and prominently displayed phone numbers motivate viewers to call your business. Test different CTAs to determine what converts best.

Experiment with different attention-grabbing phrases to determine which CTAs perform best.

Use Relevant Keywords 

Target keywords that attract your ideal customers at different stages of the buyer’s journey, from early research to close-to-purchase. This enhances visibility and call quality. Optimizing for buyer keywords improves lead relevancy and conversions.

A/B Test Ad Variants

Run A/B split tests on aspects like ad copy, keywords, landing pages, offers, etc. to gain insights into the optimal combination for your audience. Iteratively improve performance. Frequent testing reveals the highest-converting elements for your campaigns.

How to Monitor and Analyze Your Campaign 

Meticulous tracking and analysis of call data is vital for gauging campaign effectiveness and ROI.

Track Call Quality KPIs

Go beyond vanity metrics like call volume. Analyze qualified conversion rates and KPIs such as call duration, cost per call, first response time, call abandonment rate, sales conversions, and more to determine actual ROI. This highlights opportunities for improvement. Looking beyond volume reveals deeper performance insights to refine campaigns.

A critical component of learning how to form a pay-per-call strategy is tracking metrics beyond call volume to gauge actual campaign effectiveness. To do so, carefully monitor call quality KPIs to identify areas for optimization.

Understand Customer Behavior

Call recordings and customer surveys are a goldmine for understanding your audience’s needs and behaviors. Thoroughly evaluate these resources to pinpoint exactly where prospects struggle or drop off in the call journey.

Listen to honest conversations to identify critical pain points prospects mention that you can address in scripting and call flow. See if specific agents have a better rapport. Look for what objections arise most frequently and brainstorm ways to overcome them.

The qualitative insights uncovered from directly analyzing your customers provide actionable input for optimizing pay-per-call campaigns. You can refine everything from landing page messaging to agent training. Customer insights bring your strategy to life by putting their voice at the forefront.

Continuously Optimize Campaigns

Use insights from call analysis to test new ideas frequently, be they price points, lead magnets, call center training, or ad formats. Pay-per-call success depends on relentless optimization and innovation.

Consistently act on insights to keep improving lead quality and conversions over time. An essential element of comprehending how to form a pay-per-call strategy is continuously optimizing campaigns based on data and testing new ideas. Regularly refine your approach to boost conversions.

Partner With an Established Pay-Per-Call Agency for Better Results

 

Understanding how to form a pay-per-call strategy as an advertiser is just the first step. Forming and managing an effective pay-per-call strategy requires expertise. For businesses needing guidance, partnering with an experienced pay-per-call agency like Aragon Advertising is an excellent option.

Aragon Advertising is a performance-based digital marketing agency specializing in pay-per-call campaigns. They handle all aspects of the strategy, from research and planning to execution, optimization, and reporting.

Some key benefits of working with Aragon include:

  • Access to an in-house call center with trained agents who convert leads
  • Proprietary call tracking software to monitor campaign KPIs
  • Expertise in testing and optimizing ads to boost conversions
  • Custom reporting to showcase the ROI of ad campaigns

By leveraging Aragon’s pay-per-call expertise, you can quickly scale your leads and revenue without building extensive in-house capabilities. Their dedicated analysts help identify new opportunities to improve performance month-over-month.

If you’re looking for an experienced pay-per-call partner to maximize your advertising ROI, consider Aragon Advertising. Their data-driven approach and optimization capabilities deliver consistent returns for clients.

Key Takeaways on How to Form a Pay-Per-Call Strategy as an Advertiser 

In summary, a results-driven pay-per-call strategy requires in-depth planning across research, setup, advertising, and analytics. Defining objective success metrics, allotting sufficient resources, and constantly optimizing based on data are critical to long-term profitability. With the right approach, businesses can effectively leverage pay-per-call to engage and convert high-intent consumers.

Taking a data-driven approach is critical for executing and optimizing an effective pay-per-call strategy.

Ready to get your pay-per-call traffic going?

FAQ on How to Form a Pay-Per-Call-Strategy

Why is it essential to have a defined pay-per-call strategy?

A solid strategy aligns your goals with key call quality metrics, helps target the right audiences and placements, and enables effective optimization based on data and testing.

What research should be done when forming a pay-per-call strategy?

Conduct audience research, study competitor approaches, evaluate your technical capabilities, analyze past campaign performance, and determine your budget.

What tools and systems are needed to execute pay-per-call campaigns?

You need call tracking software, IVR technology, CRM integration, and a professional call center.

How can businesses create effective call-driven advertisements?

Develop compelling CTAs, optimize for relevant buyer keywords, continuously A/B test different ad variations, and create customized landing pages.

What metrics should be tracked for pay-per-call campaigns?

Go beyond call volume and monitor quality KPIs like duration, transfers, drop-off rates, recordings, and sales conversions to optimize performance.