PPC & Different Website Phone #'s

by 20 replies
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I'm doing PPC for a local business and I'm trying to figure out how the best way to track it is.

The call to action is to call them. So I need a different phone number to show for visitors who come from PPC ads.

Has anyone solved this problem? Is there a wordpress plugin to address this?
#search engine optimization #phone #ppc #website
  • I think Google also give you trackable #s in Adwords, I know they do for GoogleTV.........
  • I have to clarify: I have no problem getting a phone number, but how do change the phone number on my website based on what link the visitor came from? (So I can be sure PPC visitors have a different phone number)
  • ? are you talking about in your campaign settings / ad extensions / phone number or a phone number in the text ad it self ? if in the text ad you will need to manually edit it there, if the first option just sect your campaign settings to edit under ad extensions ?

    if different it may be a google business listing that may need changing ?
    • [2] replies
    • Sounds like you want either Dynamic Number Insertion provided by a company or you could create a php script that does that I believe. I am not a programmer but I think those are the only two solutions.
      • [1] reply
    • I'm talking about my on my actual website. I guess more generally what I'm looking for is a way to change the phone number that appears on the website based on what link someone came to my site through.

      I'm imagining creating a URL similar to the way Google URL builder does.

      So for PPC I could create a certain link and if someone comes to my site via that link, then they are shown a certain phone number...

      I've never done PPC for a company that is looking to drive calls before. I've only worked with online actions. So this is a new field for me. Someone must have sorted this out already, I've just gotta find the solution.
  • Two options I can think of:

    1. Simple approach is to create a separate landing page for your PPC and put a unique number on that page. You will know the call came from PPC but not the KW that caused the call. Since it's local, chances are that that won't matter too much.

    2. As one other person mentioned there are dynamic phone number insertion tools...take a look at these guys for instance...Pricing & Sign-Up | Ifbyphone

    Cheers,
    Frank
  • Here's a good article about how to use a script for dynamic keyword insertion.

    I guess now I'm trying to figure out if there is a wordpress plugin that will do this.
    • [1] reply
    • Thinking about this more last night, I realized it's even more complicated than I'd been thinking.

      To truly track your local business PPC campaigns, you need to be able to

      1. Display a particular phone number when a particular URL sends a visitor to your site
      2. Display that phone number on all pages of your site, not just the landing page
      3. Display that same phone number even after a prospect has closed their browser and come back to your site days or weeks later (this means cookies, I think)
      This is starting to sound complex. Maybe there's an existing solution out there?
  • You're over-thinking this. It's actually very simple.

    First, you need to have simple code on your page that simply reads a parameter that is passed from Adwords. If this parameter is set to a certain value, you display one phone number. If not, or it doesn't exist, you display another number. I'm no PHP programmer but this should be a very simple one-line code. If this was Visual Basic or similar code, it would look something like:

    IF phone_parameter = "Adwords"
    print "123-456-7890"
    ELSE
    print "123-456-1234"
    ENDIF

    Then, all you have to do is pass that parameter from Adwords. Again, simple. In the destination URL, simply add:

    ?phone_parameter=Adwords

    so the full destination URL would be something like:

    http://www.mywebsite.com/landing-pag...ameter=Adwords
    • [1] reply
    • I see what you're saying. But there's at least one problem with that, and maybe two.

      First, return visitors are not show the special phone number. Sales from return calls may not be insignificant either. In my national campaigns, I have seen as high as 40% of sales coming on a return visit rather than initial.

      Second, I'm not sure if your method would continue to show the special phone number as a visitor navigates around the site. I suppose you could just continue passing the parameter around the site.

      I'm not a coder either, but I could see something like this working:

      1. At time of adwords click, put specific cookie on visitor's computer based on parameters of the url they came from.
      2. When loading a page, check for cookie and display whatever phone number cookie tells you to. If there is no cookie, display default.
      Maybe I'll take a stab at writing it. Probably would take way longer than I think it would.

      I'm also still holding out for an existing solution. It's gotta be out there!
  • With a cookie, you solve the problem of returning visitors. It also solves the problem of always showing the same number throughout the site.
    • [1] reply
    • That is the easiest way. With two or more phone numbers there is no perfect way. Changing the HTML and all the other information is just tough.

      Between cookies and two websites that will be the best way. Trust me. I have 5 adwords campaigns that are all redirected to different landing pages or websites.
      • [1] reply
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