How to do a Phone-Only Ad on Facebook

These days, many businesses want to have as little direct contact with customers as possible. Through a lot of digital marketing techniques and marketing automation, companies are now trying to create an automated customer experience and let the machines do the selling for them. This isn’t a bad thing because it allows you to keep staffing numbers and overheads low, and for many businesses, it’s an extremely effective tool.

But what about companies where staff play a key role in the process of selling, and even upselling? There’s still a lot of great reasons why you want customers coming through to you by phone, and that’s where Facebooks phone-only (or click-to-call) ads come into play.

What are Facebook Phone-Only Ads?

Unlike many Facebook ads which might direct a user to a companies Facebook page or website, phone-only ads work differently. Instead of internal or external page links, these ads feature a ‘Call Now’ button. When the user clicks the button, it takes them directly to their phone’s dialling pad or initiates the call automatically (depending on phone type).

They also populate in people’s feeds a little differently. While many ads are targeted by factors such as interests, previously visited pages, phone-only ads are more geographical in nature. If a user is in a certain geographical location, they may start seeing phone-only ads appear for local businesses or attractions. As such, these ad types are often referred to as ‘local awareness ads’.

What Types of Businesses Use Facebook Phone Ads?

These ads work best for local businesses who rely on local foot-traffic to generate their sales. Prime examples would be tourist attractions, restaurants and retail stores. The fact is, many people still want to pick up the phone and speak to a human for their information, and that’s where Facebook click to call ads are particularly beneficial. 

Other businesses who may benefit from Facebook phone only ads are those who employ a skilled sales team who do most of their work by phone. For example, if you’ve got experienced, highly trained salespeople on the phones, you don’t want to leave all the selling to an automated web program. You want your customers speaking to your people so that they can do what they do best – sell, sell, and even upsell. 

How to Create your Facebook Phone-Only Ads

This quick guide shows you step by step how to create your Facebook phone only ad.

1. Go to your Facebook Ads Manager dashboard, and create a New Campaign.

1. Select ‘Reach’ as your marketing objective.

1. Choose the option to show your ad to the largest audience for your budget, and give your campaign a relevant name.

1. In the ‘Audience’ section, you can choose what works best for you. This is where you set your target location mainly, but also your age and gender targets if you have them.

1. Scroll down to Placements. This is where your ad will appear. Don’t choose the recommended option of ‘automatic placements here’. Click ‘Edit Placements’, and it will allow you to change to ‘Mobile Devices Only’.

1. Next is your budget and schedule. If you’re comfortable, check the advanced options here, as you can schedule particular prime times of day, but this means setting a total campaign budget rather than a daily one. Otherwise, set your daily budget accordingly.

1. Next step is to create your ad. You can use text, images – basically you’ve got creative control here!

1. The last step is your Call To Action. Select ‘Call Now’ from the drop-down menu (and make sure you check your phone number is recorded correctly!).

As you can see, the process is quite easy, however like any type of digital marketing, we recommend seeking some expert help. While anybody can create a single ad, it’s often important to run several concurrent ads, even different types of ads. Like anything, you’ll achieve better results and gain valuable information by using a whole strategy rather than a single ad.

Tracking Your Facebook Phone Ad Success

This can be tricky, because Facebook will give you great information about how many times your ‘Call Now’ button is pressed, but then it’s out of their hands. Facebook can’t tell whether the customer actually dials your number from their keypad, so you’ll need another way to monitor the success.

One solution would be to train all staff who answer the phone to religiously ask how the customer heard about you. This of course also requires staff to manually record this information, so in terms of human error, it’s certainly not an exact science.

For proper analytical data you’ll need some kind of call tracking system to determine where your calls are coming from. There are tools out there such as Invoca, CallRail, Ruler Analytics or TelMetrics (just to name a few) that are purpose built for this kind of thing. Such tools can track calls coming not only from Facebook, but other sources too. They can even detect if a sale was made from that call, and if you have a really strong marketing setup you could even stop ads appearing for that customer, potentially improving their overall experience.

Need Help with Phone-Only Facebook Ads?

Want to put your Facebook ad management in the hands of experts? We build our reputation on creating Facebook ads that convert. So, if you’re looking to drive more phone enquiries through to your sales staff, we can come up with a solution that works. Contact us here to see how we can help with Facebook lead generation today.