Mobile advertising is for real — and a huge opportunity for local. While smartphone adoption is growing exponentially — even without an iPhone 5 yet — 70% of the mobile market today is still on a feature phone, which means mobile marketing strategies must be multi-modal.

Secondary Action Rates In Mobile Browser Vs. In-App Ads

In looking at usage of local search apps on smartphones vs. feature phone users’ local searches via a mobile browser, xAd found that engagement, and by extension attribution, can’t be measured solely by a click.

They go as far as saying that it’s a mistake to determine mobile performance on an initial click as there is so much activity beyond that point in what they call the SAR (Secondary Action Rate).

Often times in mobile — and I would argue in almost all media channels — what happens post-click is most important.

The general trend is that in-app local mobile ads have a higher CTR and lower secondary action call rate, while mobile browser-based ads have a lower CTR and higher second-action call rate.

In looking at three distinct categories — Dentists, Hotels and Pharmacies — the CTR averages 5% for a mobile browser and 9% for mobile apps. While the SAR averages 44% for mobile browsers and 85% for apps, calls make up 51% of mobile browser-based SAR and 28% of app-based SAR.

Mobile browsing is cumbersome as only 20% of businesses have a mobile landing page or mobile site, so detailed business information can be harder to find or follow. This, in part, drives mobile consumers to make calls for more info.

Also, making a call once you’ve identified a business is sometimes just a more direct way to get the information needed to make a purchase decision. This reinforces the need to track secondary action calls.

Treat Browser / App Strategy Holistically

All in all, this data is a reminder to look comprehensively at your available ad performance metrics — including all possible interactions, e.g., clicks, calls, email, driving directions and QR codes — and have a strategy for managing them.

Easy to manage dashboards that enable valuable comparisons and evaluations that don’t overcomplicate are key to understanding and managing attribution.

With 7% to 10% of all web traffic now coming from a mobile phone and, according to our internal data, more than 50% of all calls placed to local search ads coming from mobile phones, you can’t think of a mobile strategy just in terms of app or browser.

Mobile must be addressed holistically to best reach the diverse mix of feature phone and smartphone users spread across multiple operating systems and numerous devices.

Similarly, not all apps are created equal. Mobile local search app engagement is higher than engagement with mobile local sites and app performance ties back direct to products with immediate, nearby and actionable content. Make sure the apps you enable have these direct connections.

Lastly, look for a mobile ad solution that enables you to place ads across multiple applications with one buy and offers pay for performance options. Today some providers are going beyond even clicks and calls and allowing advertisers to pay for drives.

While SMX East is targeted to search marketers and DMS is targeted to publishers reaching SMBs, there were common themes as SMBs are embracing mobile at a breakneck pace.

Mobile marketing is no longer a nice to have – it is essential. And attribution is key to furthering the model.

In local search, calls remain a key currency for SMBs and calls are the “it” mobile metric. While pay-per-performance in traditional media helped provide visibility into how ads were performing, pay per performance in mobile is more about monetization. And SMBs are willing to pay because they are getting results.

As consumers themselves, SMBs have a greater understanding of mobile. However, they are still demanding tangible performance results, including calls, clicks, QR codes, maps and directions, coupon redemptions and more. These are all actions that demonstrate the consumer has moved further along in the purchase cycle.

Here are four things you should know about getting the most out of mobile attribution for SMBs:

Keep It Simple For SMBs

SMBs want measureable results and assurance that they can attribute leads to the correct media and campaign.

While publishers and agencies analyze a ton of performance data points internally to help optimize media programs, SMBs really just want bottom line metrics that go beyond clicks alone.

One plus is that SMBs have a greater baseline understanding of mobile than they did with the early days of Internet advertising, so there is a shorter learning curve to decipher the difference between of click-to-call events vs. rich demographic information of mobile callers.

Dashboards for SMBs should include cross channel insights, as to how media programs feed off each other, but these numbers should be easily understood.

Rise Of QR Codes

QR codes are growing at rapid fire, and are a valuable new way to measure consumer actions. Whether on a storefront or in a magazine, the two dimensional and now iconic 1X1 inch squares meld mobile attribution with other media tracking and are the next wave in performance based measurement.

With Google pushing QR codes as well as consumer brands such as eBay, Office Depot, Bed Bath & Beyond and others utilizing the tool, local search advertisers and SMBs also have a greater familiarity with it.

The growth in mobile has enabled a universal interest and understanding of what you can do with QR codes. The formerly futuristic notion of using your phone to scan items for more information is here today.

Mobile Consumer Experience Enhancements

We have seen extended call lengths in mobile that can be attributed to two primary factors.

First, mobile consumers translate into stronger leads as they are typically further along in the purchase cycle and therefore investing more time when reaching out to a business. But there is also a case to be made for improving the mobile consumer experience — there is very limited space for content so it must be fully optimized.

One thing Microsoft is doing with Bing to improve local business listings and the mobile experience is adding Facebook ‘likes’ to their search results.

The Facebook thumbs-up icon is easily understood and takes up little space. Plus, consumers can see what SMBs their friends already like and support, thereby increasing the value of the result because someone you know is endorsing it. (Note to SMBs: Don’t forget about social.)

Non-Traditional Categories Get In On Mobile

Sure, restaurants, stores and a whole host of usual suspect categories will utilize mobile local, but what about the SMB categories for which mobile opportunities may make local search more relevant?

Think gas stations, parking lots and car drop-offs, for example.

These are small businesses that consumers may not research in advance but need on the go. When stuck in traffic or on a road trip, looking up the closest gas station with the highest rated restroom facilities or fresh coffee is highly relevant. I expect we’ll see more mobile performance measurement in categories that otherwise wouldn’t be engaged in local search media channels.

Mobile marketing offers a wealth of opportunities for SMBs, but understanding and using the latest mobile offerings as well as employing sound attribution models is necessary for optimizing existing ad programs and truly monetizing leads.

Stock image from iStockphoto, used under license

While dashboards originated largely with clicks (and most dashboards are click based) there are many other post-click actions and data points that indicate consumer engagement and are helpful to monitor and evaluate for a complete picture of media performance.

Dashboards are meant to inform the user of key trends and response patterns through aggregate data, so it is important to include metrics that cross media channels. This includes calls, QR Code swipes and store visits, among others. As media channels are converging – and aren’t working in isolation– it is crucial to track cross channel performance.

Consumer response spans different media/campaigns and different response channels. Each response may spur a different activity or additional response.  As the search experience has changed, different metrics measuring different devices are now interrelated. Dashboards can help understand the flow of consumer behavior.

Dashboards are not one size fits all. Each agency and/or media publisher should build a dashboard that reflects its own unique goals and priorities and provides simplified dashboard views for their clients. Successful dashboards effectively communicate agency and publisher results.

While one may be very interested in using the info for greater consumer targeting, another may be focused on increasing resulting foot traffic, or tracking a consumer’s various touch points before culminating in a purchase. Given this, it is important to consider which metrics matter to you and your team and how to integrate them.

Here a few tips to consider in developing an agency or media publisher dashboard that demonstrates user-based or audience specific key performance insights across channels:

1. Don’t forget about attribution. Whenever possible give credit for purchases, inquiries and searches to the appropriate media.
2. Include your media spend for an accurate reflection and comparison of ROI.
3. Roll up the metrics into different summarized views. For example, compare performance by campaign, media type, geography, distribution partner and brand. Slice and dice the data so your dashboard can better inform your media decisions and serve as a tool to optimize and refine the program to drive higher response, performance and ROI.
4. Make sure there are options for different user-level or role-based views, e.g., executive vs. operations vs. account/campaign management. Each role would want a different presentation of the dashboard metrics tailored for their particular needs.
5. Think outside the box. Your ad partners may provide separate canned dashboards, but take the time to work with them to hone in on the most important elements for supporting your goals and develop an integrated view that is meaningful for your specific organization and goals.
6. Ensure that your ad partners have robust APIs that allow you to manipulate the data so you can view it in a format that works for your organization.
7. Track cross media metrics like calls. Call data such as demographic profiles, location, peak calling times, call durations, and keywords spoken offer valuable insights that are not available with many other performance metrics.
8. Obviously, there are many cross-media insights to be gleaned and the big picture is important, but each channel also has its own unique value proposition that should be showcased meaningfully in the dashboard.

Whatever your media mix – some combination of digital, mobile, traditional and social – a strong dashboard will help you see how your efforts are performing individually and collectively and how changes to any of the moving parts affects the overall results.

Standalone data points don’t tell a compelling story – the insights are in the aggregate views. Your dashboard should be a continuous business intelligence and customer intelligence platform that helps shape your future media efforts.

The solution is DNI (dynamic number insertion) technology which enables a business’ phone number appearing throughout a website to be dynamically replaced with a call tracking number indicating how the consumer arrived there. When a business receives a call from the number on the website, it can then be tracked back to the appropriate source.

DNI is critical to attribution as it helps calls bridge the online-offline gap and assures publishers and agencies are getting credit for offline inquiries driven by online sources, not to mention providing advertisers more complete visibility into their leads.

For one local search publisher, using DNI revealed that nearly 35% of Web users who were referred to the advertiser’s website through SEM strategies ­made a phone call. Without DNI in place, the advertiser may have seen the increase in calls but wouldn’t be able to link them to the SEM campaign.

In addition, the calls would have been incorrectly attributed to another source. DNI revealed key intelligence to the publisher regarding the distribution partners – who was actually delivering leads – and helped discover additional monetization opportunities for their pay per call programs.

Primary Approaches To DNI: Reverse Proxy & JavaScript

If you are not familiar with DNI, there are two primary methods: Reverse Proxy and JavaScript. As Reverse Proxy options are readily available from SEM or other third-party resellers and require little advertiser effort, it is very effective for SMBs and local advertisers that do not have sophisticated internal technology resources available to make modifications to their existing websites.

Reverse Proxy uses a cached or real time copy of an advertiser’s website to display the appropriate call tracking number based on the keyword or search engine distribution partner.

For example, a consumer who searches for a home inspector could arrive at the same home inspector website via multiple search engines – either a Google search or a Bing search. As the Reverse Proxy method utilizes copies of the website, the webpages delivered by Google and Bing would look exactly the same, except each would display a unique call tracking number.

The publisher could hone in on how each distribution partner performed via the number of resulting calls from the website visits and gain attribution for those phone leads. The same principle could be applied to keywords or combinations of keywords and search engine distribution partners.

With JavaScript, which is ideal for national advertisers as it requires some coding expertise, a snippet of JavaScript code is inserted into an advertiser’s website and links to a call tracking provider’s servers.

When a search result routes a user to the advertiser’s website, the JavaScript takes the keyword parameters used to perform the search and processes them against the predefined referring search engine and keyword triggers. The result is a series of call tracking phone number substitutions populated throughout the advertiser’s website.

Other Developments In DNI Offerings

As the use of DNI has increased, newer variations of DNI setups have surfaced – including Session-based and Sampling methods – as publishers and agencies with complex national campaigns could have thousands of search engine/keyword combinations that can be onerous to track and manage. Not all of these variations align with measurement and attribution best practices, so buyer beware.

Session-based DNI involves cycling through a set of call tracking numbers based on the user’s session, so, as an example, if using a set of 10 call tracking numbers, the 11^th user would be presented with  the same number as the first when referred to the website from a tracked SEM campaign. The method uses date and time stamping to associate Web sessions to phone calls to track calls back to referring search engines and keywords.

One challenge, however, is that session-based DNI can result in data integrity issues without a 1-to-1 relationship of variable-to-phone number and can therefore skew results. As a site with high traffic periods can cycle through a set of numbers quickly, date and time stamping alone may cause calls to be attributed to the wrong search or source.

Consider a pizza delivery service on a Friday evening and how many searchers and resulting callers could overlap. Someone utilizing a phone number from a search conducted at 5:45 pm may not call until 5:56 pm, while a search at 5:48 pm may result in a call at 5:50 pm and alter the results. Similarly, a search for “pizzeria” may serve up the same call tracking number as a search for “family restaurant”.

Session-based DNI also may include pooling or sharing a set of call tracking numbers across a similar group of advertisers. While this may seem like an economical way to generate vertical market insights, say for a group of plumbers, data integrity challenges arise as overlapping data can skew performance results across different accounts.

A best practice to leverage cost-efficient DNI for large campaigns is Sampling. You don’t have to measure campaigns to the Nth degree to receive valuable insights. With Sampling, advertisers, publishers and/or agencies can achieve high quality and accurate results because there is a 1-1 tracking ratio.

Instead of simultaneously tracking all your keywords, distribution partners or combinations of the two, start by tracking the top 50 most profitable keywords to generate some relevant insights and then optimize the program for those top-priority keywords before evaluating the next grouping of keywords.

Similarly, local search publishers can do Sampling within categories of advertisers. Some providers are also offering pay-for-performance DNI options, which may be attractive for cost-effectively managing enterprise-level programs.

DNI is continuing to close the online-offline attribution gap and is a key part of any digital advertiser’s or provider’s toolkit. Not only does it ensure the proper channel receives credit for phone leads but it is also helpful in optimizing advertising programs to leverage the highest performing keywords, partners, media channels and combos.

Mobile attribution is key to helping validate the channel and monetizing the high quality leads it delivers.

Mobile Searchers Need It Today

Consider the mobile searcher profile. Leads that come from a mobile search program are not only more likely to buy, but will often times convert to a customer within hours.

According to Google’s stats, shared at a recent Mobile Marketing Association forum and reported on SEL by Greg Sterling earlier this month:

• 58% of mobile users are on the mobile web at least once a day
• 90% of mobile users search/lookup local information
• 87% of local mobile searchers take action from their search

Mobile search is locally focused and all about instant gratification as searchers are typically looking for something that they need the same day.

Consider your own habits: on a weekend day trip, you might make plans on the way there, searching for a place to stop for lunch and calling about a kids menu and reservations, calling about the hours of a special exhibit for a local museum or calling a couple hotels to find out about availability when you decide to stay the night.

Calls Are Top Mobile Performance Metric

Smartphones are transforming the search landscape, and calls are the de facto performance metric as the device’s primary use is for voice service. Our internal data reveals that more than half of all calls driven by local search ads are made from mobile phones – this is nearly double the number from a year ago.

Consumers calling from their mobile phones stay on the phone with businesses longer (more than three minutes per call) and longer call durations indicate a greater propensity to buy/convert. While mobile calls may be longer because there is less robust information available on mobile websites and apps, mobile consumers are closer to the point of purchase.

Mobile Leads Command Higher Monetization Value

The recent BIA/Kelsey’s mobile outlook forecasts that mobile ad spending will grow to $2.8 billion in 2015 with locally-targeted ads comprising 70 percent of that value. As the mobile growth rate is skyrocketing, I expect the 2015 figure will explode.

Mobile leads are truly ready to buy, so mobile ad networks and other mobile ad providers can command a higher price for mobile calls in a pay for performance-based model. And, while clicks are still a standard mobile metric, measuring calls reveals greater consumer insights and is a way to truly evaluate the monetization potential of newer mobile properties—including appropriate verticals, pricing of calls, and optimization opportunities.

The lead quality from mobile callers is so strong that mobile ad providers can price calls (in a pay for performance model) at almost twice the amount of SEM-driven calls. While the price differential in most cases is warranted, mobile programs priced too high could discourage advertisers. So it is crucial to evaluate caller data and compare with other media to help appropriately price calls.

Mobile Requires Unique Approach

Like any media, mobile has its own unique profile. So best practices from online search or other channels shouldn’t be transferred without testing first.

As an example, mobile searchers are more likely to have a location qualifier so the keywords used to search should be different as well. Knowing how mobile callers arrived at an advertiser, listing or phone number and optimizing for more of those callers is key.

Without a doubt, mobile monetization depends on appropriate attribution. This includes tracking calls and providing drill down analysis of call response data – from total call volumes to caller demographics to call durations.

Whether you are an advertiser or advertising provider, if you don’t have a mobile program, you are leaving money on the table. Harness the power of instant gratification by measuring and monetizing your mobile efforts.

When combined with pre-call analytics and real-time call data, companies can evaluate the full lifecycle of a caller and determine which ads, campaigns, conversation topics and keywords are ultimately resulting in sales.

Are Ad Programs Driving Lead Conversions?

Using call measurement tools to record and analyze consumer conversations is a scalable and efficient way to track overall lead quality and determine whether callers are actually planning to make a transaction, such as booking an appointment or placing an order over the phone.

Viewing this conversation data in aggregate helps prove your advertising programs’ value with tangible conversion rates.

The data also reveals which media types, distribution partners, markets, categories, locations and demographic segments are driving quality lead generation.

By instantly transcribing consumers’ calls to businesses and tracking the phrases and words most commonly spoken, speech-to-text technology can help identify a caller’s intent and the quality of the lead. It also enables a business to match call dialogue to paid keywords to measure the effectiveness and value of keyword campaigns and online/offline lead sources.

If a certain term keeps coming up in calls but isn’t present in ad copy, the company can immediately optimize the ad copy with additional relevant terms. Or, if the company notices callers increasingly describing their business with different terms, they can begin using these keywords in ad copy to maximize content for better traction.

Determine & Track Key Terms Indicating Purchase Plans

To yield the most impactful results from post-call conversation analytics, companies should identify a unique set of key buying or action terms – words that indicate the consumer intends to make a transaction – so these words and phrases can be proactively monitored for conversion tracking.

Relevant “buying” words and converting phrases vary by type of business, examples:

• “schedule oil change” for an auto repair business
• “book cut and color” for a hair salon
• “get estimate” for a landscaper

Additionally, companies should ensure their call measurement tools are employing dual channel audio to differentiate between words spoken by the consumer or advertiser. This is imperative to both capturing keywords spoken by the consumer as well as maintaining conversion rate accuracy.

For example, a consumer using the words “make an appointment” indicates their intent to transact, versus an advertiser who might state the same words as a question to gauge a caller’s interest in an appointment.

Glean Key Caller Intelligence for Sales & Marketing Optimization

Another benefit is the ability to collect and share market research with a company’s sales and marketing departments regarding which topics and trends are generating customer response. Sales teams can then use this data for proof of performance in showing that a certain percentage of calls resulted in booked appointments or requests for estimates.

Marketing teams can categorize or score calls based on varying dispositions, e.g., new/existing customer, specific service request, etc., so they can measure the volume of calls within each category and proactively engage in more targeted follow-up.

As an example, a chain of veterinary clinics was able to use post-call analytics to identify a trend of callers inquiring about booking appointments for flea vs. heartworm issues on a seasonal basis. They also determined that “husband” came up frequently and therefore determined that most callers were married females. The company immediately took action and modified its online ad copy to reflect these seasonal buying trends with a female slant in mind.

Support & Measure Sales Execution

By using call measurement tools to record and analyze call conversations, companies can gather insights for optimal sales execution on leads, as well as identify whether competitors’ names came up. Additionally, they can collect operational insights on how well individual locations or franchises are nurturing inbound leads through to conversion.

National advertising accounts are especially interested in this issue as corporate marketing departments often spend on campaigns designed to drive leads to specific geographic areas or locations. Thus, it is helpful to know whether the corresponding agents or franchises are mentioning the relevant promotions to make the most of every lead.

With all pieces of the call measurement puzzle in place—pre-call insights, real-time call data and post-call conversation analytics—companies can tap into a comprehensive blueprint of valuable customer response data that reveals whether their ad programs are delivering quality leads that ultimately convert.

Equally as important, it offers a wealth of real-time data on how to improve ad programs and SEM campaigns for the greatest returns, as well as which topics about the company are resounding strongest with buyers.

In my prior article, I focused on the value of pre-call analytics in determining which ads or SEM campaigns drove consumer calls, as well as identifying specific pre-call consumer behavior and engagement points.

Now we’re moving into the second piece of the call measurement puzzle—capturing real-time insights from consumer calls.

This step allows companies to get a behind-the-scenes look at their inbound consumer calls, including caller demographics, how calls are being handled and which media channels or even which keywords are driving the most quality leads.

Real-time call information is an invaluable component of the call lifecycle, providing a source of rich data on who is responding to which ad campaigns over time and how the business is (or isn’t) leveraging the leads. Companies can immediately apply this knowledge to optimize their online campaigns and customer service for more quality leads.

Caller Demographics & Call Duration Reveal Ad Effectiveness

Call measurement tools track the total number of calls that resulted from a company’s advertising and marketing campaigns, including a breakdown of call counts and unique leads by ad, distribution partner, media type, market or product.

Coupled with capturing the callers’ phone numbers, companies can retrieve valuable demographic data about the lead—including name, address, income level and gender—as call measurement tools automatically mine this data when a call comes into a business.

This information allows companies to view their ad program’s total geographic reach as well as confirm whether incoming leads match up to their target demographic profile.

Companies can also use call measurement to determine whether callers are responding better to a specific medium, e.g., SEM vs. Internet Yellow Pages, enabling them to immediately apply this actionable feedback for fine-tuning campaigns and creative copy. The aggregate data helps companies get to know their leads better by tracking specific trends across certain markets or locations.

Additionally, call duration—the length of calls—is a key indicator for evaluating whether an advertiser’s inbound calls reflect quality leads. By viewing call durations across multiple ad medium types, locations and demographic segments, companies can assess where quality leads are originating.

Companies should determine the ideal length of a call for their business before beginning benchmarking, as it will vary based on the advertiser’s industry and services/products offered.

For example, if an attorney’s office is seeing calls completed in less than 45 seconds, the callers are likely not moving to the next step. On the other hand, 45 seconds may be an appropriate length for quality lead calls to a bicycle shop where hours of operation or pricing can be relayed quickly.

At the end of the day, companies with full visibility into total inbound call counts and call durations can immediately apply the intelligence to modify ad campaigns, creative concepts and copy for maximized effectiveness and more quality leads within target demographic segments or markets.

Are You Maximizing Lead Potential During Phone Calls?

It’s great if your latest ad campaigns are targeting the right demographic and geographic segments, but what value do they deliver if the calls they drive are missed or mishandled?

Using call measurement tools, a company can track the number of unique leads that came into a business during a given period—including unanswered calls and the heaviest time of day for inbound calls—for a comprehensive look into ad ROI.

A large consumer truck rental company was shocked to learn that 20 percent of leads generated from a national advertising campaign resulted in missed calls to local franchises, translating to significant missed revenue opportunities. They were able to zero in on infringing locations, as well as determine peak-calling days and times, to correct the problem across the board.

When calls are answered, it is helpful to know whether the lead received quality customer service and the chances for a post-call purchase. Tracking duration of calls can be utilized for this purpose as well—if a business is receiving a multitude of shorter-than-normal calls, there may be a customer service quality issue.

Call measurement data can help determine whether better training is needed if consumers aren’t receiving the level of service or complete information they need during initial phone calls.

On the whole, with complete information about what occurred during every inbound call, companies can measure which categories, keywords, ads and franchise locations were highest performing in generating leads.

This data empowers marketers to improve their online and offline advertising campaigns, as well as optimize their bidding engines or distribution partners, to drive more quality targeted leads.

Stock image from iStockphoto, used under license.

courtesy of Shutterstock.com

When a business receives a call from a potential new customer, a slew of questions immediately pop up:   How did they find us? Which search engine or ad drove the call? Did they visit our website first? Did they make a purchase as a result of the call?

A business that can quickly answer these questions and extract relevant call details and caller demographic information is equipped to measure the effectiveness of their online and offline advertising programs and immediately funnel the feedback into its current campaigns to help drive future quality leads.

The key to gathering this important data is capturing full detail regarding the customer’s research and behaviors that occurred before the call, what was discussed or discovered about the customer during the call, and what happened after the call ended. By proactively monitoring this full call lifecycle, companies will have a complete picture of how their advertising programs are (or aren’t) driving phone leads.

In this article and future pieces, I would like to address each phase —pre-call metrics, real-time call data, and post-call analytics—and how companies can bridge the online-offline information gap, starting with pre-call intelligence based on search behavior and website data.

Where Did The Lead Begin?

Identifying the origin of a call may seem straightforward, but drawing a line from a particular online ad or search campaign to a resulting call is often elusive.

The reason? Consumers frequently engage in multiple forms of research before making contact with a business—many of which include specific online behaviors that culminate with a phone call to the business. In fact, 83% of people who search online for a product or service ultimately contact a business offline.

By capturing consumer engagement points prior to a call—using call measurement tools—companies can tie their online and offline activities back to the original media source for a comprehensive view of where online leads are truly generated.

Putting The Pieces Together: What Happened Before The Call?

Placing call tracking numbers within ad or search campaigns provides an anchor for companies to track all relevant consumer behavior that results. For example, results may show that a phone lead was driven from the company’s website, but it is helpful to know what drove that website visit in the first place, e.g., paid search keyword, banner ad, SEM campaign.

Call tracking numbers associated with the original media source will dynamically populate throughout a company’s website (including landing pages) once the user clicks on the website link in the ad or search result, revealing the true lead source once a call is placed.

The company can take this data a step further to track which pages of their website were visited prior to a call being placed. This exercise provides key intelligence on data such as whether the person looked at product inventory, found driving directions, clicked on coupons, or filled out a form before contacting the business.

Additionally, if the website visit stemmed from a search engine results page, the data can be used to determine which keyword searches drove the site visit. These types of insights can help a company optimize its website, ads, search keywords, vertical markets—even ad copy and creative concepts—based on areas that are getting the best traction.

Proper Attribution Is Key For Sound Ad Strategy

Proper lead attribution is paramount for anyone trying to optimize their ad strategy and performance, but it is especially critical for advertising resellers and publishers who use multiple distribution partners to service both large franchises and small businesses.

These media sellers can use call tracking to help determine which distribution partners are delivering strong results.

For example, if a publisher contracts with 10 distribution partners to generate advertiser traffic for the Florist category and implements call tracking with dynamic number insertion (so the web site auto-populates with call tracking numbers), then the publisher can see when various ads are served up on different sites and determine which calls to advertisers were driven by these ads.

Phone # in Ad Should be Dynamically Inserted on Landing Page as well

This visibility presents a significant cost savings opportunity to weed out low-performing distributors. It also gives publishers with their own online properties a sense of how well they are driving offline leads. This feedback enables them to improve their own properties for better performance before resorting to external lead purchases to be resold to customers.

Pre-Call Routing For Targeted Service

Particularly beneficial for large national advertisers is the ability to automatically route calls to a particular geographic business location based on the caller’s area code. This pre-call step allows advertisers to use call measurement while giving consumers personalized service that is proactively handled by their closest location.

For example, if a consumer searches Google for auto repair services, finds a national brand and calls the number listed in the paid search ad (call tracking number), he or she will be automatically routed to their local franchise location.

For large companies, this step is also helpful in determining which national or regional SEM campaigns drove calls in a particular market.

Whether advertisers or advertising sellers are looking for simplified metrics or need to drill down into specific areas for analysis, call tracking technologies can provide both in a way that paints a clear picture of advertising performance and correctly attributes lead sources.

Gaining an accurate and complete view of how a company’s online and offline advertising activities are driving leads provides a vital foundation for ensuring every aspect of its advertising program is optimized—enabling them to rise above the competition and drive the most quality leads possible.

However, with new tools that engage SMBs in monitoring their advertising performance, I expect SEM agency churn will likely subside in 2011 and retention levels will normalize.

The Churn Challenge For Small Businesses

Part of the SEM churn challenge is that SMBs typically wear multiple hats and rarely have someone dedicated to marketing or advertising. SEMs provide metrics-based reports but they don’t elicit much attention or engagement, and even the SMBs who do look at reports either don’t review them often enough, don’t understand how to interpret the data or don’t know which changes to make in their programs to effectively address the issues.

Essentially, SEM firms need to better leverage performance metrics in a way that speaks to SMB pain points. Thankfully, new tools are making that easier. Phone calls are a currency that SMBs understand and recent developments enabling SEMs to offer actual caller dialogue through automated transcriptions has even increased the value of a call to an advertiser.

With tools to evaluate the keywords spoken, as well as caller sentiment and purchase intent, the local search industry has an opportunity to leverage this data for more comprehensive consumer data and program insights.

SEMs that are looking at new ways to integrate call and click metrics with social media and reputation management tracking tools will finally realize a tipping point on churn.

The Future Is In An Integrated Reporting Platform

With an integrated reporting platform – including calls, clicks, social, reputation and more – SMBs can see a collective and comprehensive view of customer and market intelligence and gauge advertising performance. This data can then be used to optimize their overall marketing program and drive operational efficiencies.

While the reporting platform of choice will continue to evolve, reporting on consumer dialogue and sentiment of actual calls in an integrated format will remain mainstays for SMBs and SEMs.

This will make it easier for SMBs to engage in the program and provides a more holistic view for search marketers to better counsel advertisers on program changes and program growth-with the potential for value-add revenue opportunities.

For example, consider the following scenarios:

• Call chatter and online dialogue requesting discounts rise, so the SEM recommends that its SMB advertiser engage with a deals company to promote a special deal. They move forward and announce it through social media channels and see inquiries rise.
• Online reviews and caller sentiment reveal negative customer experiences, so the merchant trains its customer service professionals on new procedures and situational best practices.
• Consumer call transcriptions are evaluated for keywords and a relevant, new keyword term makes the top 5-10 words spoken. The SEM adjusts the keywords and the merchant modifies the ad creative to leverage new consumer interests.

Engaging SMBs: Make it Easy

At the end of the day, the keys to engaging SMBs are to show value and make it easy. Don’t bog them down with too much data but build a business case for a new initiative with numbers that speak for themselves.

Search marketers must make recommendations for optimizing search budgets and give SMBs enough data and performance metrics to enable them to make smart business decisions.

With new tools that demonstrate concrete SEM value, SEMs can use insightful customer intelligence to help connect with SMBs for the long term.

SMBs will value the SEM agency that helps them maximize their search advertising dollars, and the SEMs that do so will help make alarming churn statistics a thing of the past.

Adding to the interest, in March, Google announced an option for national advertisers to take advantage of click-to-call through phone extensions regardless of the mobile user’s location—a physical address within the AdWords listing is no longer required. This is a huge opportunity for marketers, especially national advertisers that are experimenting with mobile advertising and remain focused on transparent, performance-based solutions.

Borrell Associates says location-based mobile spending will top $4 billion in 2015, and Google reports that already more than one-third of mobile searches have local intent. Our internal data tells a similar story with more than one-third of all calls to local search ads being made from mobile phones. With Google click-to-call, national advertisers can tap into those mobile-browsing consumers and direct mobile calls to call centers and field offices.

Validating the offline-online and mobile connection

While search monetization for Google has always been about clicks and measuring online activity, the click-to-call move validates the complementary relationship between online search and offline consumer purchasing behavior. Research from comScore and TMP Directional Marketing shows that more than 83 percent of consumers search online and then contact a business offline, often in the form of a phone call, proving that online drives offline, and clicks and calls go hand in hand. Add mobile to this equation and Google recognizes a revenue opportunity in tracking the connection between mobile searching and the resulting calls. With click-to-call, Google can more effectively prove mobile advertising value.

The nuances of click-to-call and pay-per-call

While Google’s click-to-call offering could be confused with pay per call, Google’s offering is still click-based. Click-to-call doesn’t automatically translate to pay-per-call. With Google’s model, calls are tracked and charged as clicks. It is a complementary model on the mobile device but advertisers will still pay per click. In fact, Google is leaving money on the table with this approach as publishers, agencies and online providers usually price calls separately and higher than clicks. However, the move reinforces the need to track consumer online-offline searching and buying patterns.

So why has Google adopted click-based pricing for calls, when industry experience demonstrates calls can be monetized at higher levels than clicks? It is most likely a way to keep the mobile model simple for advertisers that are familiar with paying for clicks while still developing a revenue stream that accounts for the mobile/offline connection. Advertisers already comfortable with Google’s pay-per-click program will find that mobile click-to-call is a natural extension.

Calls: What’s the big deal?

What is so fascinating about calls, especially for search marketers? For over a decade now, advertisers have been accustomed to purchasing online advertising in the form of clicks. Clicks demonstrate visibility and interest, but calls have a direct correlation to offline sales activity. Advertisers and businesses rely on calls to keep the doors open and the lights on; they are a highly valued consumer reaction for advertisers of any size.

A phone call means an opportunity to sell. The mobile search connection—with a phone in hand—actually levels the playing field for the online directory based publishers that compete with pure-play search engines like Google as they already have call-based performance models in place.

What is missing from the click-to-call offering is true call response data, from caller demographics to call duration to dropped calls and more. This type of marketing intelligence is key for advertisers already using call-based metrics. Another challenge that remains to be seen is what this model will do to click prices. Will national advertisers flock to the Google click-to-call model in droves and effectively out price many local advertisers? Will Google use the click pricing temporarily while it builds critical mass? Time will tell. The bottom line is Google’s move reinforces advertisers desire to track online-offline searching and consumer buying patterns across mobile, online and traditional advertising mediums.