How to Use Facebook Click to Call Ads

When it comes to converting leads to sales, phone calls are the “king of inquiries.” If someone is making an effort to call your business, then they are more likely to convert to a sale than someone, for example, who fills in a form on your website. Despite living in an age of communication with keyboards, phone calls are not going anywhere.

Facebook now allows you to add a “Call Now” button or Call to Action (CTA) button at the bottom of your adverts in an attempt to drive more phone calls to your business. These ads can be especially effective for high-value products or services, including cars, houses, caravans, lawyers, etc. – as these often require research and discussion before a prospect is willing to convert to a customer or client. It is also a great way to reach people who are not actively searching for you on Google and other search engines.

We often use the “Learn More” or “Send Message” CTAs on our ads, but it is wise for most businesses to test the effectiveness of “Call Now” in terms of the click rate, engagement, and cost per conversion. When a user clicks the “Call Now” CTA, a dial pad will usually appear on their device, prefilled with your business phone number. If your business is more of a side-hustle or you want to run your ads 24/7, consider using a phone answering service.

How to Create Click to Call Ads?

To create a click to call ad, you will need to navigate to your Ads Manager and click to +Create a new campaign. Campaigns are typically set up with conversions or engagement as the primary objective. 

For click to call ads, up until August 2020, you needed to select “Reach” in the “What’s your marketing objective” section. However, this should now have updated so that you can choose any objective and still get the option to create a click to call ad. With this in mind, you will generally want to select “Traffic,” “Conversions,” or “Engagement.”

Give your campaign a name, perhaps – “Call Test Campaign,” and hit “continue.” Now at the Ad Set level, select your Facebook page, and select your targeting options. If you don’t have any data from your CRM or customer lists to use, choose your location, be as specific as possible, and below the location targeting, add as many interests and demographic details as possible until the targeting represents your target audience.

Under “Budget & Schedule,” select your daily budget. Perhaps look to start with a low amount, around $3, and look to increase it once you are happy that your ad and your targeting are working well.

Make sure you are happy with all the settings for your Ad Set and click “Continue” to go to the Ad settings. Make sure to select your Facebook page and upload any images or videos to use as the media for your ad.

Scroll down to “Text & Links” and click “Add a website URL.” Add your business URL, and then you should see the option to add a “Call to Action.” Click where it says “No Button” and scroll down, and you should see the option to add a “Call Now” button and add your phone number in the box below.

Call Ad Tracking

Whether you work for yourself, an agency, or as part of an inhouse marketing team, you will want to track the effectiveness of your click to call ads on every channel.

What can be confusing with Facebook click to call ads is that the number of people who clicked the CTA doesn’t necessarily equal the number of people that called your business. They still have to click at least once more to make a call. Inbound tracking providers such as Ruler Analytics can help you track how many calls have been made and how many resulted in a sale or conversion.

How to Get the Most out of Click to Call Ads

It’s one thing knowing how to set up click to call ads and track them, but it’s a different kettle of fish when optimizing them and generating a favorable return on ad spend.

Split Test

As with virtually everything in digital marketing, you should look to split test your ads. Change one thing or one variable of your ad, be it the CTA or the media, and then compare the results. Remember that you will need quite a few impressions, clicks, and conversions to garner enough data for the tests to be statistically significant. Keep refining your ads by including what works best and discarded what doesn’t work.

Target Different Times

All forms of advertising will tend to perform differently, depending on the time of the day. This is especially true of click to call ads. Test different times of the day and see which performs best. Lunch breaks and early evening might be an excellent place to start.

Use Different Media

Try different images, different videos, and other ad formats. Keep testing and refining. Start by checking out competitor ads. This YouTube video has some handy tips on making the most of the Facebook Ad Library.

Use Different Audiences

The ability to target people by interest, location, and demographic details, is what makes Facebook Ads so powerful. Research lookalike audiences and remarketing audiences too. As ever, split test your campaigns, using the same ads, with different audiences to understand which perform the best and then try to work out why.

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