The following is a guest blog by Kelly Wrather, Senior Manager, Content Marketing, Kenshoo.
Do you consider Big Data to be just another buzzword? A few years ago, a majority of marketers were probably in that camp, nodding their heads that Big Data was just another flashy word without much substance. Well, the tides seem to be changing. A survey of European marketing professionals revealed that 91% agreed that failure to dedicate resources towards leveraging Big Data will put their organizations at a competitive disadvantage. As data continues a fast and furious flow into organizations, marketers across the globe are realizing that Big Data has a big impact on their digital programs and decision making.
Big Data can be a daunting subject, so where should marketers begin? The best course of action would be start small and prove the value of data-driven analytics across one aspect of your program. For marketers engaged in local search, integrating call data into your paid search program is a good place to start.
The penetration of smartphones has made mobile an integral part of the local search plan. Recent research from comScore, Neustar and 15 miles, shows that local mobile searchers are further down the funnel than when using PC/laptops: 38% of mobile phone and 36% of tablet local business searchers report being either in the middle or at the end of the funnel versus just 14% when on the PC/laptop. (Click to enlarge image below.)
And the post-search activity on these devices also shows a strong correlation to positive engagement, such as visiting a business or making a phone call. Local mobile searchers have high purchase intent and are ready to take action often times, that means a phone call. In fact, 66% of businesses consider calls a good or excellent source of leads, yet most companies do not take extra steps to ensure phone calls get the attention and care needed to convert them into revenue.
A wealth of data can be extracted from phone calls, so marketers must leverage this data to ensure they keep the phones ringing and that their programs are getting credited all the way from click to call to conversion.
Want to learn more? Join Kenshoo and DialogTech, along with a representative from Sq1 Agency, for a webinar discussing how to use Big Data, particularly data obtained via calls, to optimize PPC and create better converting campaigns. Register here.
About the Author
Kelly Wrather is the Senior Manager of Content Marketing at Kenshoo, a global software company that engineers cloud-based digital marketing solutions and predictive media optimization technology.