Pay Per Call campaigns have rapidly gained in popularity in recent years, as both advertisers and affiliates alike have come to recognize just how incredibly valuable they can be. Advertisers are willing to pay more for conversions, because someone who calls into a phone number is a much warmer lead than someone who clicks on a casual Internet banner. Affiliates are taking advantage of these higher payouts by offering better leads, both in terms of quality and quantity.

Perhaps you’ve already enjoyed some success with Pay Per Call campaigns as an affiliate. You’re already cash-positive, having worked on optimizing ad creatives, keyword bidding strategies, user targeting, and other factors, but perhaps your efforts have not been as profitable or as scalable as you had hoped. There’s always room for more, and that room can be found in the margins.

Having dealt with thousands of in-house and client ad campaigns, Aragon Advertising has not only perfected the art of creating successful pay per call campaigns, but we’ve also been providing useful tools, research, and recommendations to brand advertisers and clients as well. Instead of holding this valuable information for ourselves, we are always looking to support the industry as a whole.

If you’re ready to make more money as a Pay Per Call affiliate, you might consider one or more of the following strategies.

1. SMS Messages

Even though the Internet may be a 24/7 operation, not all call centers operate around the clock, every day of the week. At the same time, you don’t want to lose that potential lead and conversion. If you provide users with the option to receive an SMS when they call out of hours, or if they don’t qualify for the primary offer, you create another channel for communication. The text message can then provide them with more information about when to call back or, even better, include a link to a landing page where they can submit an online form. This can further tie into SMS marketing opportunities as well.

2. Call Tracking

The devil is in the details. As an affiliate marketer, you know all too well how essential metrics and data can be. Pay Per Call marketing is no exception. The more analytics you have at your disposal, the better equipped you are to optimize your campaigns further and eke out an even better return on investment. To this end, you might choose to leverage call tracking platforms like Invoca or Callrail that support posting back data to Google by adgroup or keyword level. Reveal which campaigns and keywords are driving your conversions.

3. Targeted IVRs

Interactive voice response (IVR) technology can humanize the interaction callers have before they connect to an actual call agent. To personalize the experience even further, consider experimenting with local accents or languages, or even different genders for your IVR voice. This regionalization and targeting can encourage the right callers to proceed through the system further than they might have otherwise.

Tangentially, the shorter your IVR funnel can be, the better your chances will be that the caller will get through to a human representative to complete the conversion. Keep that interaction short while maintaining the quality of the experience for the caller and the quality of the lead for the advertiser.

4. Voice Response

If someone is responding to a Pay Per Call ad, chances are they actually want to speak to another human being using their voice. As convenient as standard key presses may be, they might color the experience the caller has with the IVR. Consider testing an IVR wherein the caller is tasked with responding with a “yes” or “no” voice response to be connected, rather than through a keypress. Your conversions may increase as a result.

5. Optimized Caller Destinations

The riches are in the niches. Running a blanket campaign that targets too broad of an audience for too broad of a service is probably not going to yield the best results. Instead, optimize your campaigns around keywords, targeting, and ad copy such that the caller is directed precisely to the destination that they want. Instead of a general “debt” campaign, be much more specific about debt amounts from $5k to $10k in Missouri, for example. This much better represents caller intent, which in turn leads to better performance for the advertiser.

6. Keypress Split-Tests

Despite the points made regarding voice responses, keypresses still have their place, of course. Just as you would split-test any number of other factors in your campaign, like headline text, the same is true for the IVR. Consider testing different key presses required from the caller to be transferred to the destination. Place it earlier or later in the list, split-testing and analyzing the results to optimize your campaign further.

7. Better Toll-Free Number

While many numbers are toll-free, visual recognition by the general population fall behind. More people will recognize an 888 number as toll-free than an 855 or an 866 number. As a result, utilizing an 888 number could yield improved performance.

8. No Double IVR

Sometimes your network or Advertiser will not remove their IVR. This is incredibly common, as both networks and advertisers have the responsibility to ensure the consumer expressed consent before speaking to a call center agent. This can be tricky, as your highly customized IVR is now hurting conversion rate when callers have to go through the process a second time.

Instead, work with your network or Advertiser to create an integrated IVR solution that let’s you have your customization, them their consumer consent, and consistency all the way through.

9. Bing It

Google call-only ads have rapidly increased in popularity, and Google AdWords continues to be the industry standard. However, you shouldn’t forget about Bing Ads. With lower competition on keywords, you’ll be able to take advantage of lower CPCs for potentially very lucrative keywords that may not otherwise be as viable on Google. Bing Ads have a call-only ad unit too. Consider adding it to your mix.

To learn more about Pay Per Call and other effective ways to make money and increase lead quality and volume, contact Aragon Advertising and discover how we can help grow your brand or business to that next level.