Why Mobile Marketers Need to Know that My iPhone ALSO Makes Calls

I love using my iPhone for business (answering e-mail), research (checking the weather) and comic relief (pondering the relevance of certain Facebook updates).   I suspect you do too. 

 

But the next time I use my iPhone to:
 

-          find a tow truck (please let this never happen),

-          figure out where to go for Mother’s Day brunch when I forgot to make a reservation and we’ve been turned away from our favorite place (please never let this happen again)

-          or frantically find a toy store when iZilla Toys doesn’t have the specific toy I need for a birthday party (rare, but it happens).

… you’d better believe I’m using one of its most impressive features: it’s ability to function as a telephone.

 

I suppose my point is that I use my smartphone for all types of things that make my life easier and more enjoyable, but when I use it to call a business it’s because I am about to make a purchase decision. 

 

Marketers are always looking to reach consumers when they’re ready to buy.  If you are beginning to advertise on mobile search, directories, or display and consider phone calls a valuable lead source, I recommend that you use call analytics. Call analytics empowers you with the data and insights to better understand which sources of mobile traffic are driving phone calls to your business, so you can quickly optimize your media and maximize your advertising spend.

 

Here are some of the reasons why call analytics can provide actionable intelligence across your mobile ad campaigns:

 

1.       Some of your mobile campaigns will drive phone calls and some won’t (this goes for keywords, too).  As I attempted to describe above, sometimes we’re in research mode (probably prefer to browse for information) and sometimes we’re in purchase mode (probably prefer to call a business for information). 

2.       If you’re buying click-to-call ads in search or mobile display, you need to know how many of these phone calls were legit.  Your ad purveyor may report that you had 25 phone calls, but how many of those lasted 0:30 or longer?  How many were repeat calls or misdialed numbers? (Have you ever called someone by mistake on your mobile phone?)

3.       You need to make quick decisions on high-spend mobile campaigns: With Call Analytics, you have access to data such as number of calls, call duration, and Caller ID as soon as a call completes.  This data allows you to make immediate decisions about increasing or decreasing spend to improve campaign effectiveness.

4.       You would prefer to follow-up with leads quickly: With access to call recordings, you can quickly follow-up with customers that report a problem or are eager to purchase.

5.       You would like to have a data set to compare to what your call center provides you: If you have a call center, and you’re relying on periodic reports on campaign effectiveness, call analytics is a good way to help verify the accuracy of this data..

If you think Call Analytics is right for your mobile campaign, or you’d like to share a story on the calamity you avoided by using your smartphone for, well, calling… give me a shout at johnb(at)marchex(dot)com or see what we have to offer at Marchex Call Analytics.