We have all seen them, phone numbers in paid ads like Google Adwords or Yahoo Sponsored Ads, but what are they doing for you?
Giving a perspective customer your phone number right?
Hmmm maybe, but they are also costing you in a big way!
A phone number has no relevance to the keyword phrases you are bidding on for your ad and can decrease your click-through-rate (CTR) and quality score. This will in turn drive up your cost-per-click (CPC) and pushes your ad further down in the results and possibly out of sight from what your potential customer. Not what you were hoping for!
With paid search ads, you really want people to click your ad and go to your website so try leaving your phone number out of the ad. You should find your CTR and quality score increase therefore giving you a lower CPC.
Now that Google or Yahoo are rewarding you with lower CPCs due to a better performing ads, you will be receiving more clicks = more traffic for the same budget, now you have the opportunity to convert all this new traffic from window shopper to lifelong customer!
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Would having your phone number on the 2nd or 3rd line in an ad really make that much difference to your what you pay for a click?
Hi Steve,
It is surprising the difference it can make. I know it does sound a little ridiculous and maybe even a little pedantic to most business owners, but the Google Adwords algorithm is based highly on relevance of keyword phrase, ad text and landing page text.
If you consider an Australian phone number is 12 charaters (including area code) with spaces, you have almost wasted half of the allowed characters per line (25 top line, 35 2nd & 3rd lines). That is valuable real estate that you could place information that is more valuable to the searcher.
I would highly recommend split testing it if you are already using phone numbers in your ad text and keep an eye on your click through rate and cost per click, fingers crossed the click through rate goes up and cost per click comes down!
Brad
Hi Brad, Have to say thank you re your advice on removing the phone number. Within a few days we noticed our CTR jumped up but mainly our Quality Score and CPC dropped, some almost in half! We also tracked the number of inquiries we were receiving via phone and they actually increased as well.
Great news Steve! You’re on your way to becoming a PPC Ninja!! hahaha
Make sure you keep testing!
Cheers
Brad