Getting Started with Pay Per Call Breaking Down Common Call Flows

Ringba

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Gain a complete understanding of the most common inbound call flows and how pay per call campaigns are managed on the back-end.

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Lesson Transcript

Hey Pay Per Callers, in this lesson we're going to be Breaking Down Common Call Flows.

Understanding Call Flows

Now understanding common call flows is critical to the success of your business, so that you can optimize your call flows for the highest return on investment. Now the key difference between Pay Per Call and any other type of affiliate or CPA marketing is the human element. Someone has to actually be available to take a customers call as soon as possible to achieve the highest conversion rate.

The longer a customer waits on hold, the higher the probability that they're going to hang up the phone, and when they hang up, you do not make any money. While it is possible to call a customer back, or follow up with other methods like SMS, the likelihood that a customers intent or desire to have the conversation drops substantially. Your chances of getting the customer back on the phone with the same conversion rate as the inbound call ... Their original call, is essentially zero.

Now you may get them back on the phone, maybe they even buy, but again the same level of intent, and the same conversion rate, essentially zero. This is why it's so important to make sure your calls get answered in the shortest amount of time and why you must absolutely have your own call tracking software.

Now most affiliates choose to use tracking numbers from networks or other buyers to promote their campaigns, without their own tracking. Okay? And I'll be real with you, this does reduce their cost. It also leaves them completely at the mercy of a single partners ability to make sure that the calls get answered and provides them with no optimization information, no ability to do quality assurance, no ability to make sure they're being paid for every call and a complete lack of oversight over what their partners are doing. And that is not a good situation, you do not want to be in that situation, otherwise you will have no idea how much money you could potentially be losing, when you finally get a successful campaign. Okay?

Even if you generate a quality call, if that call doesn't get answered, you're most likely not getting paid for it. And I say most likely, but in reality you're just simply not getting paid for it. And based on the partners technology platform, you may never even know if you're dropping calls, because they don't want you to know. Or maybe your network uses an antiquated old large company to do their Pay Per Call Network tracking, and that company doesn't give you any visibility into what's going on. And so you have no idea if you're losing money.

So if you do not have your own call tracking platform, you cannot optimize, you have no quality assurance oversight, you have no guarantee of payment. You can't dispute anything, you can't say here's the reporting, here's the call log, here's the record, give me my money. You have nothing, okay? You can't oversee the network and keep them honest, you can't oversee your buyers and keep them honest. You have no idea how many calls were actually answered, you have no idea if you're dropping calls, or the buyer is dropping calls. You have no guarantee those calls get sold. You have no recourse if the networks tracking platform goes down. You have no recourse if another publisher or affiliate slams them with calls so yours don't get answered. And you have no payment for duplicate calls, because they're simply no where else for those calls to go.

And so, if you're looking to get into this space and after that, you still believe you don't need call tracking, well I encourage you to continue with Pay Per Call. Sooner or later you'll figure it out, but it is absolutely worth the investment. In fact if you're an affiliate in the Pay Per Call space and you're using a call tracking platform like ours, or ours, it should cost you less money then it saves you. It's actually a profit center, okay? And that's why call tracking is so important.

This is why it is critical to your success to use some kind of call tracking platform. And I'm going to repeat this a lot in the program, it's in fact repeated a lot in here, because I know a lot of affiliates in the space that don't do it! And that's absolutely crazy to me, as someone's that's made millions of dollars in Pay Per Call that currently powers hundreds of millions of dollars in Pay Per Call. You would think people would take my advice. But sometimes they don't.

So truly I don't care if you want to use someone else's platform. If after you go through this program, you don't believe that we care about your business and Ringba isn't going to take care of you, if I haven't sold you on why you should use Ringba, I highly encourage you to go use our competitors platforms. Because otherwise you're flying blind, and that's just a stupid decision, okay?

So much of this program will focus on how to properly manage your call flow, based on Ringba's technology. Alright? So we designed it from the ground up to specifically maximize the yield of affiliates, call buyers, networks, and other people that operate in the Pay Per Call space. And as a disclaimer, if you choose to use someone else's technology? That's fine. But you will most likely not be able to accomplish everything we teach you in this course, because Ringba is by far the most sophisticated platform, on the planet, for Pay Per Call. So you can use someone else's, but you can't do everything that you can do with Ringba.

And so when I thought about this more, I realized that I needed to go get other peoples opinions. And so I also host a show called The Pay Per Caller Show, where I have other experts in this space come on the show and we talk about all things Pay Per Call related. And so what I would like to do here is read to you what Todd Stearn, the CEO of Aragon Advertising, one of the biggest and best Pay Per Call Networks in this space had to say. And before I read this I want to preface that what he had to say, was not self serving, okay? If you use your own call tracking platform for Pay Per Call? The network is at a disadvantage, because if they don't take care of you, you can immediately route your calls elsewhere, and you don't have to do any work. So for him to say this, it means he truly believes what I just told you too. And that's why we always recommend affiliates use their own call tracking platform like Ringba.

They need to be in control of their own call routing. You really do! You can't put all of your eggs in one basket, one network. And I'm the network and I'm telling you that it's really important to have diversity. Things happen that are outside of our control. They're outside of your control as the affiliate. And if you have multiple networks right to take calls at a moment, you're going to pretty much ensure your campaigns longevity. And every affiliate knows what it's like to have to pause a campaign for no budget, and get it started again in a couple days, or a couple of weeks.

The opportunity might have been missed. It might be difficult to get back up. And you might not be able to get it up at all after it stops. Maybe new competitors work in, whatever. And so what Todd's saying here, is you need to have multiple outlets for your calls and then you need to use technology to control that call flow. And by saying this, it doesn't do his business any good. It means people have options and when they have options, he doesn't have exclusivity over his partners. But still the honest answer, even from him, is you have to have your own call tracking. So please guys, take our advice, whether it's Ringba or not, and use your own call tracking platform.

Managing Call Flows

Now for those of you who aren't familiar, we are a call tracking, attribution routing and management platform that was specifically designed for Pay Per Callers, regardless of where they sit in the value chain. All of our engineers are ad tech industry veterans, who've built some of the most advanced technology in this space, and our goal is to completely change how people buy and sell their calls, and we are absolutely doing that.

And so we have a simple question we ask before we make any decision. Does this help our clients grow their business? And if the answer is yes, we do it. And if the answer is no, we don't. And so we're 100% focused on the performance marketing space. We're the fastest growing platform in the performance marketing space and we're changing the way business gets done in this space. And so if there's anything we can ever do for you as a performance marketer, please do not hesitate to hit us up, or even feel free to reach out to me personally. We're very happy to help you in any way we can.

And so who should use Ringba? Affiliates and publishers. Pay Per Call, affiliates and publishers should absolutely use it, to keep their networks and buyers honest. Affiliate networks that are looking to get into the Pay Per Call space, should come leverage our expertise. We have 10 years experience plus, in Pay Per Call and in the affiliate space, we know exactly what we're doing.

Agencies of all different types can use our software to track their calls for their clients. Big brands can use our software to track all of their inbound programs, all their marketing, all their campaigns. Brokers can use our system to create all sorts of brokered relationships to make a lot of money in this space. Even small businesses that receive calls, like someone that owns one or two dentists office, should be using our technology to track all their marketing campaigns. Some of our biggest clients are multi national call center operations that handle hundreds of thousands or millions of calls a month, and do all sorts of sales in hundreds of different verticals. And of course Pay Per Call Networks use our technology to power their entire business.

So all of this is focused on the performance space, regardless of whether you use Ringba, you absolutely need call tracking. And so if you're going to work with us, we've set it up so it's super easy for you, we don't do contracts, no set up fees, no minimums, we don't gate keep features or anything to design to maximize the amount of money clients pay us, rather we are working to maximize the amount of money that our clients can make. And that's the long term greedy outlook. We know if we can help you build your business and provide you with amazing technology and tools to do it, you will.

And we've seen a ton of people come onto our platform and build call businesses from zero to seven and eight figures a year. So I'm not worried about a set up fee. I'm not worried about negotiating minimums and all sorts of nonsense with you like most of my competitors are. What I'm worried about is how I can help your business grow, and if we can do that, you'll never leave, so we don't need the contracts anyways. That's how we've done it from the beginning, that's how we're always going to do it.

And so we're the only call tracking company in this space that provides one on one support to all of our clients over chat, Slack, Skype, phone, and email. We only hire people from performance based marketing and ad tech. So every single one of our employees, whether they're support, or engineering, or sales, all have an ad tech backgrounds, alright? And whatever it takes to make you successful, we're going to do it. And if we can't, we're not going to try and force you to stay with us, okay? That's what my competitors do and it's really lame! If I can't help your business grow? You should be able to go find someone who can, because clearly we didn't do something correctly and I'm okay with that, because nobody's perfect, all right? But we're here for you.

So the simple benefits are: an amazing community. Ringba's responsible and manages the worlds largest Pay Per Call community, we're hundreds of millions of dollars of calls get traded all the time. And so if you want to be involved in that community, we give amazing benefits to our clients. We offer that one on one support, so you get a dedicated account rep that actually knows the Pay Per Call space, knows all the players, and can help you in any way you need.

We'll beat anyone's price that's easy, why not? Just give someone a better price. If someone gives you a quote, bring it to us, you want to switch over? We'll beat it! It's not a problem. And then we'll give you business development support. We're on paypercallnetworks.com we own affiliatesnetworks.com, we drive tens of thousands of leads to all sorts of Pay Per Call companies every single month, whether they're our clients or not. So that we can help the community grow.

So our team can get you introduced to whatever buyers you need, whatever networks you need, other partners, we maintain these connections and we keep them open for our clients and that's why we see tremendous growth on our platform, both for our business and our clients. And simply put, we don't do contracts, commitments, minimums, support fees, set up fees. None of the bullshit. If you want that? Go see my competitors.

Direct Buyer Call Flow

Now, if you're working with a direct buyer, you've got your call tracking all set up, this is how the most simple call flow works. A consumer is going to see an advertisement, they're going to call your tracking number, it's going to get routed to a buyer. They're going to answer the phone, and if the criteria is met, the affiliate or the publisher gets a commission, okay?

This is what this actually looks like in a flow? The publisher gets their tracking number from Ringba, they create a mobile ad, maybe they do that on Google, or maybe it's not a mobile ad even, they put it on a bill board, a bus bench, whatever type of advertising medium they choose, they put the tracking number on it. Now when an interested consumer sees that number, and wants the product or service, they're going to pick up the phone. Ringba's going to track that for you, and it's going to route it to one of your buyers, based on whatever criteria is set in there and we're going to dive into the criteria in a later lesson, and how to do advance call flows, but what we're going to do right now is break down what common ones look like.

And then if the buyer likes the call, it meets all the criteria, they issue a pay out, we track that, and you get paid. And so this about the most simple call flow you're going to get, and you'll notice that there's tracking in here. So without tracking, the whole thing falls over.

IVR Input Qualification Flow

Next one, this is an IVR, input qualification. So number one the consumer sees an advertisement. On the advertisement is the affiliates call tracking number. Alright? They're going to pick up their phone, they're going to call that phone number, because they're interested in the product or service, okay? They're then presented with an IVR, which is the Interactive Voice Response. And they're given a couple of choices. Press one, press two, press three, alright? And based on the caller or users response, whatever they enter into the IVR, it determines whether the call is qualified or not. So if it's a debt call, and we're asking if the caller has more then $10,000 in unsecured credit card debt, if they have that they press one. If they don't they press two. So if they press one, it's qualified, if they don't, they press two, and it's not qualified, okay?

So if the call is qualified, it's forwarded to a buyer and then the affiliate gets credit or commission for that call. Now here's what that flow looks like, again it's very similar, there's only one difference to it. So the publisher starts by getting their tracking number from their tracking platform, they put an ad on the internet, or somewhere else with that tracking number on it. The consumer picks up the phone, they dial that number, all of their information, and all the meta data is stored in the tracking platform. The tracking platform issues the IVR, maybe it's text to speech, maybe it's a prerecorded IVR, who knows. The consumer makes an input, and if the call is qualified it goes to the buyer. If the call has a different qualification, maybe there's a different buyer that buys when user press two, or three or whatever. But for simplicity sake, the call is qualified and it's routed to the buyer. Buyer verifies the calls qualified, okay? Meets all the criteria of their campaign, and then bam! Pay out is issued to the publisher, and the whole things tracked on your platform, okay?

Warm Transfer Call Flow

Here's what a warm transfer looks like, alright? This one's a little bit different, but this is a really great business as well. And so a consumer is going to see an advertisement, alright? That advertisement has the tracking number on it, so they pick up the phone, they call the affiliates tracking number, alright? And then the first call center answers the phone. Alright? This is the qualifying call center. Now it's possible that there's a conversion event right here for that inbound call? Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. It just depends on the campaign. But the agent that answers that call, is going to ask a list of questions to try and qualify that caller to see if they're a good fit for the campaign.

First of all they're going to ask, maybe what their name is, and what they're calling about, and then maybe if it's for car insurance, they're going to ask if the person owns a car. Because if they don't own a car, they're not purchasing one right then, there's really no need to call an insurance line. So they're going to qualify that person to see if it's a good fit. Now if the customer is qualified, and that's an if, they transfer the call to a second call center that answers and is introduced to the caller. So they're going to say, "Okay, great, you qualify for this special deal, let me get you transferred over to Geico." Or whoever it is, alright? Doesn't matter, whoever answers it second, they're introduced and a call hand off is made. Now once the call hand off is made, if the customer meets requirements there's again a possible conversion event.

Typically in a warm transfer, the conversion event is on the transfer. And so once the call is transferred to the second call center, that's when the conversion event happens, and since it's a human to human hand off there's not much other criteria that typically goes with that. Because someone has already spoken to the caller and made sure that the call is legitimate. And so after it's transferred the affiliate would usually receive their credit then, okay? And then maybe the first call center that answered the phone also gets paid at that point in time. Because obviously they need to make money too. So maybe the affiliate gets $10 in commission, and the qualifying call center gets $10 in commission, but both of those events happen after the transfer.

Now here's what that looks like. Essentially you have a publisher, they get their tracking number, and they put it on an advertisement somewhere. The consumer who's interested in the product or service initiates that phone call, it's tracked and routed by the call tracking platform and then a buyer, the first one, or the qualifying call center, whatever you want to call it, answers the phone, qualifies the customer with a bunch of questions, and then transfers the call off to the final buyer. The second buyer who takes it, and then issues a pay out, back to the original publisher, and sometimes to the first call center depending on how that campaign is set up. Okay?

Warm Transfer via Network Call Flow

Now these also sometimes happens through a network and so lots of people can have their hand in these calls and it's important to realize again that, just because you're working with a network or doing a warm transfer, does not mean there aren't other brokers in the process, alright?

And so a warm transfer via a network typically looks like this. A consumer sees the advertisement, calls the affiliates tracking number, alright? And now the network is going to credit the affiliate if that call meets the requirements. So the affiliates going to get paid based on their inbound call. Now what's happening here is the network most likely has a deal with the other call centers to convert them into qualified transfers. So they're the ones that are making the majority of the money here, and the affiliates are getting a very small piece of the action. And so the network again then transfers the call or routes the call through the call tracking platform to one of their buyers, which is going to be this qualifying call center, alright?

Now it's possible that there's a conversion event at this juncture and the network receives a commission or this call center just simply qualifies the caller, and if the customer is qualified after asking them to transfer questions, their transferred to the actual final buyer of the call, okay? And so the network might get paid from the final buyer of the call, a substantial amount compared to what the affiliate gets paid. And do keep in mind that the affiliate may get paid sometimes when then calls don't qualify, depending on how it's set up. Or the network may get multiple payout events, again depending on how the campaigns set up. But in this scenario you can assume that the party making the most amount of money, outside of the buyer of the call, is going to be the network, not the affiliate.

And so this is what this looks like. The network is going to get a bunch of buyers and set up the back end call centers, they're going to figure out who's going to qualify the campaign and then transfer it to their buyers. And their going to wrap that whole thing up and call it an offer, alright? And so as a publisher you're going to go on the network and you're going to see the offer, you're going to apply and get approved to that offer, you're going to get your tracking number, you're going to plug it into Ringba so that you have control. And then you're going to put your Ringba number on that mobile ad or whatever advertisement that you're going to do, alright?

And then a consumer sees it, they're interested, they dial the number, it routes through your call tracking platform and then the network takes a hold of it, and gets it to their first buyer, alright? Or their qualifying call center. The questions are asked to qualify that call, you were paid already. And then if that call transfers to the actual final buyer, the pay out is issued to the network and that pay out is going to be substantially more. Maybe 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000% more in some cases then what the affiliates getting paid.

And so an interesting way to look at this, is if you have you own call tracking platform, you can actually listen to the call recordings and you should, so that you can see what's actually happening on all these phone calls and then figure out how to grow your business and create new opportunities for yourself.

Now if you don't have your own call tracking platform, guess what you don't get? You don't get the recordings, so you can't listen to what's going on, and you can't figure out how to expand your business, because you were too cheap to get yourself some call tracking, which essentially at the end of the day is a profit center. So again hopefully you understand now why it's important to have oversight over these networks and anyone you're working with, so that you can figure out better ways to make money and create more opportunities for yourself.

Multiple Brokers Call Flow

Alright and so in this call flow, it goes through multiple brokers, alright? Now remember that I consider a broker anyone that's not the final buyer of the call. So Pay Per Call Networks is a broker, someone that's just slinging calls and hustling connections is also a broker. You never really know how many people sit in the middle of these call flows unless you're actually working with the call center that buys the calls.

In this call flow a consumer is going to see the advertisement, they're going to call the affiliates tracking number, a network or some other type of broker is going to credit the affiliate with a commission if the call meets the requirements. Now the network sells the call to another network, so broker to broker action here, or another broker just someone slinging calls, we have no idea, and network two accepts the call and credits the original originating network with some type of commission. And network two sells the call to either a final buyer or believe it or not maybe even another broker, or warm transfer center, there's someone else in the value chain.

And so there can be like one, two, three, four, five brokers in these call flows. So when you start working with networks, okay? You have to be careful about this, they may be paying you $6 a phone call, and by the time the final buyer pays for that phone call, they may have paid $45 or $55 or $100, for that phone call. So that's why you need to understand what's going on in your call flow, so that you can figure out better ways to get closer to the buyers, create new opportunities for yourself, so you can grow your business, alright?

So this is what this actually looks like in a diagram, network one is wrapping up the offer, whatever that offer may be, maybe just brokering it from the other one. Doing absolutely no work maybe, maybe they're not even providing any value, they're just brokering the offer. You as the publisher grab that offer, you get your tracking number from your tracking platform, you throw it on an advertisement somewhere, a consumer sees it, they call the inbound number, okay? We track everything for you, and network two, okay, gets the call, finally transfers it to the call center and then the pay out flows back to network one and eventually to you. And you get your small fraction of the actual revenue that happens in this scenario when working with multiple brokers.


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