17 replies to this topic

[SEMMatt]

What are thoughts about putting phone numbers on PPC landing page in addition to fill out a form. I have a colleague who thinks this is a good idea.

[RobIsCool]

Great idea. Some customers may have questions that aren't answered on the landing page (contextually), so having your phone number there will allow them to call you up before bailing. Definitely a good idea.

What are thoughts about putting phone numbers on PPC landing page in addition to fill out a form. I have a colleague who thinks this is a good idea.

[mking]

It may also help build trust with the user. If you're asking for their information, it doesn't hurt to provide some information about yourself as well.

[nethy]

If a contact is your goal then yes, of course.

Consider also a click to call button. Easier to track, and may increase the # of calls.

[THE BERG]

On the websites that I have phone numbers for, I have the number big and high on all pages. In this day and age, finding a company with an actual person to call is a novelty. If you get sales from the phone, why not have it clear and available?

[piskie]

I look at it from the converse.
Is there any reason why any particular page should not carry both Phone No and a Link to a Contact Form

[SEMMatt]

If a contact is your goal then yes, of course.

Consider also a click to call button. Easier to track, and may increase the # of calls.

Great Advice,

Thank you.

Matt

[donp]

For my clients that have a broad area (state or national) base of customers, I have them purchase a new 800 number that appears on the website only. The number is very easy to set up and rings thru to the regular lines, costs very little more, especially if they have existing 800 numbers, and with my ability to see their bill online, I get to track the incoming calls and use them (along with form returns) as conversions. Sweeet!

A lot of clients are amazed at these actual baseline conversion figures - they had no idea of what kind of "action" they were really getting from their site, and as my services start kicking in, the numbers go up and the fees they are paying me seem like a great investment to them. A great tool!

Plaster that phone number and contact info on every page, usually in the same place, header, footer, wherever. Make sure the company that provides the number has online bills where you can see them whenever you need to with a simple user/pass.

PS
If my client uses phone menus - I tell them to just get a gun and shoot themselves. I've had customers take terrible hits from doing this. Have yet to get one that gave me a positive experience.

[torka]

If you're using it for PPC, you can even have a different 800 number on each page, or for each campaign or however you want to divvy it up for tracking.

800 numbers are cheap. Have them ring through to your main number, and use the 800 number as a tracking device. My company does this with direct mail pieces as well. That way we can easily track which exact mailer generated the phone call.

--Torka

[RiYo]

Torka,

You say that 800 numbers are cheap in the States, what amounts are we talking amount.

In Europe 800-like numbers are not that cheap that you could have 1 number per page.

Richard

If you're using it for PPC, you can even have a different 800 number on each page, or for each campaign or however you want to divvy it up for tracking.

800 numbers are cheap. Have them ring through to your main number, and use the 800 number as a tracking device. My company does this with direct mail pieces as well. That way we can easily track which exact mailer generated the phone call.

--Torka

[torka]

We get them through our telephone vendor for $3 a month, base charges.

We pay per minute (something less than $.03 per minute, if memory serves), but we'd do that whether they called the main 800 number or one of our "mailer specific" numbers. For an additional $36 a year for each number, it's worth it to us to be able to track the mailer that generated the lead.

We're a pretty good sized business (85 employees, around $3K a month in toll-free charges overall), so we're dealing with corporate/enterprise type vendors. There are online vendors (Kall8 is one I'm familiar with, there are loads of others) catering to smaller businesses/entrepreneurs. Their rates are a bit higher than what we've negotiated with our vendors, but are still very reasonable, IMHO.

--Torka

[nethy]

Yes the issue is easier in the US with more companies (such as the ones you probably work with Torka) with trackable, recordable, multipliable numbers.

This stuff is just coming to australia (& europe I think) now. Both because of monopolist providers and privacy issues & fraud issues (trying to pass yourself as several organisations or offices).

[bluent]

If you're using it for PPC, you can even have a different 800 number on each page, or for each campaign or however you want to divvy it up for tracking.

800 numbers are cheap. Have them ring through to your main number, and use the 800 number as a tracking device. My company does this with direct mail pieces as well. That way we can easily track which exact mailer generated the phone call.

--Torka

I agree with you Torka.

[oneofthe3lions]

Very clever I must say Torka.

With my personal preference being to recieve emails as oppose to phone calls (as much because of the timezone differences etc) then I always pushed for them (the visitors) to fill in a form.

I was doing a little testing tho lately and we definatly get a better conversion rate with the fone being a more obvious choice for the client (if we take these leads as coming from one page then we can still track them in a broad sense.) I didnt think people liked to talk much nowadays but seems they do.

For this 'tracking' reason, nice to have a contact page only with the number but if you can utilise something like mentioned above then that sounds ideal.

[Randy]

Small fries like myself I tend to be a bit more circumspect with our toll free number. While I'd love to have it on every page and possibly even use it as a tech support feature, I'm too stingy to hire staff to manage it.

On the other hand, there are those that absoluetely feel a lot more confident calling to place even straight forward orders than doing it online. Like Oot3l's I don't publish it everywhere, since when you call it you get yours truly. It is however on all of my order form pages, just in case someone runs into a problem or would rather place an order via phone.

The only downside to this, aside from getting calls at weird hours of the night no matter if I put the Business Hours right there next to the phone number, are times like this last week when I've been sick. To the point I've managed to totally lose my voice. Needless to say I've not be doing much chatting for the last week plus.