Is PayPerCall ranking the same as Pay Per Click ranking?

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  • PPC/SEM
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Hi, all,

I am not sure how to describe my question in the title. But basically my question is for a given keyword, for example, plumber. It seems very competitive and average cpc is $12. So with similar quality score, if I want to out rank competitors and get into top spots in a regular pay per click ad, most likely my bid has to be higher than $12, right?

Is this the same for Pay per call which only targets on mobile device? (I am trying to understand if there is any ranking difference between regular text ad and pay per call only ads).
For example on PC, I see top 3 ads and let's assume their bids are:
A1 $13
A2 $12
A3. $11

On phone search for the same keyword, it shows the same order for those A1, A2 and A3 with regular ad format, not call only ad.

With my per-per-call mobile only ad, if I want to get into top 3 (again assume everything else like quality score, landing page etc all are the same. ), I still need to bid over $12?
What is confusing me is, when I set up the ad in Adwords for Per-Per-Call only ad, in traffic estimator, for the same keyword, it shows estimated ppc is only around $2 which is very different from $12. If I increase my bid, the estimated clicks goes down, instead of going up.

So if I want to get my ad into those top 3 on phone devices, should I follow the regular ad's ppc or the estimated ppc value as a base target?

Thanks.
Kevin.
#click #pay #paypercall #ranking
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  • Profile picture of the author squeaks
    Hey Kevin,

    Not sure I 100% understand the question, but are you talking about call only ads?

    In general the requirements to rank in the first few positions for the call only ad and the text ad are the same, however there are some drawbacks with call only ads.

    You will get a lot less volume with call only ads, and since people are less likely to click on a phone number your click through rate will be lower, so your quality score will most likely be lower. This will mean you probably have to pay more for a click than a normal search ad unless you target keywords where people are looking for a phone number.

    But to answer your question, yes you should follow the regular estimated keyword bid to be on the front page (in your example $12). I wouldn't really take much notice of the estimated bid in the traffic estimator.

    Hope this helps.
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  • Profile picture of the author NickLenihan
    IMO you can't exactly rely on the estimated CPC for call-only ads. In my experience, the CPC is more than what's estimated more often than not.

    Call only ads aren't eligible for as many impressions as expanded text ads.
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  • Forget about what type of campaign it is. That's irrelevant. Things work pretty much the same whether it's a search, call or display campaign. It is likely segmented by device and other things too. But the principle is the same: to get above a competitor, you need to outrank them which means whoever has the highest product of QS and bid.


    In your hypothetical, you are assuming the same QS for all. So yes, to outrank A1 more often than not, you would need to bid over $13. Problem is, you don't know the QS of competitors, just assuming they are the same which is never the case (QS is not just the whole number you see in your account, it has many decimals) and you are assuming what each is bidding which you also don't know. Advertisers won't likely have a neatly descending bid strategy the way you show. It could in fact be $11, $13, $12.


    You can infer a couple of things: one, that there are competitors with QS of 9-10 and that some of them will bid what the keyword tool suggests or even more. That gives you an idea of their adrank and what you need to bid since you know your QS, at least the integer portion.


    Don't pay too much attention to the keyword or traffic estimator tools. I never use the latter and rarely the former. They are estimates only and can be wildly off. Plus, nothing is static. Best is to adjust your campaign based on actual data you are experiencing.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ethan Root
    no its diffierent. Pay per click is rate of deduction per click. and pay per call is a call of extension for deduction of rate per call.
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