For any call-reliant businesses, click-to-call social media ads can become a great source of high-intent inbound calls if set up wisely: well-crafted, well-targeted, and well-timed. From click-to-call Facebook ads to advertising on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, you have at least half a dozen social media platforms with global coverage to drive callers to your call center or an external advertiser.

But it’s one thing to drive inbound calls and another thing to drive them effectively so you can profit from your pay-per-call advertising campaigns. You do not just need phone calls – you need purchase-ready customers who are easy to convert and retain. And there’s a way to make it happen.

Read on to learn everything you need to know about click-to-call ads on social media and how to turn them into a steady source of profit for your business.

Why You Need Click-To-Call Ads To Drive Phone Calls

The gist of any click-to-call ads is the same: generate the most high-intent customers you can realistically get in the market and then – using the insights you get while these customers interact with your marketing materials, IVR, and live operator – nurture and convert them into paying clients. 

Whether you choose pay-per-call YouTube advertising, X ads, or TikTok ads, this principle holds true.

And it’s no wonder so many businesses rely on phone calls. Not only do phone calls enable personal connection, but they also convert much better than any other marketing contacts. In fact, a well-thought-out click-to-call campaign can convert up to 50% of callers versus only 2% for clicks. You can’t ignore it – phone call campaigns are very efficient if targeted smartly.

Pay-Per-Call Ads Vs. Click-To-Call Ads – What’s The Difference?

Before digging into the crux of click-to-call social advertising campaigns, let’s shed light on how click-to-call ads relate to pay-per-call ads:

• Click-to-call ads allow users to make a phone call directly from the ad with a single click, whereas pay-per-call ads mean that the advertiser pays for qualified phone calls generated via these ads. In other words, “click-to-call” describes how the call is made from the ad, while “pay-per-call” describes a revenue model behind the ad.

So click-to-call ads are, in fact, also pay-per-call ads if they operate on a pay-per-call model, while pay-per-call ads are also click-to-call ads if they employ a click-to-call button. For the purpose of this article, let’s assume click-to-call ads and pay-per-call ads are the same.

How To Set Up Facebook Click-to-Call Ads

Facebook might be the best platform for running click-to-call ads because of its huge user base and customisation options. Within Facebook click-to-call ad campaigns, you can choose multiple targeting parameters, like location, audience, and time zone, so your ads show to the right consumers at the right time.

So here’s a step-by-step guide to creating Facebook click-to-call ads:

Launch Facebook ads manager and click “Create” to create a new ads campaign.

Here’s what you’ll see after:

For a click-to-call advertising campaign, choose lead generation (you can also choose traffic if you want to customise the appearance of the click-to-call dialer beyond the standard “Call Now”). Now you can name your campaign (or you can do it in the following step).

Click “Continue:”

Aside from specifying the name of your campaign, you should also specify the ad category if your ads are related to credit, employment, housing & social issues, elections, or politics. However, you might skip this step for most click-to-call campaigns.

Now, the “Campaign Budget Optimisation” toggle is extremely important. If you want to target your ads to a specific audience and show them at a specific time – highly recommended to maximise your cost-effectiveness – then toggle the switch on and select “Lifetime Budget” in the “Campaign Budget” section.

Now click “Show More Options:”

Choose “Run ads on a schedule” to be able to customise the display time for your ads (remember, you can also do such granular scheduling if the “Campaign Budget Optimisation” switch is on and you’ve chosen “Lifetime Budget” in the “Campaign Budget” dropdown list).

• Important: Scheduling your click-to-call ads is paramount, regardless of the social media advertising platform you’re using. When generating phone calls, you have to make sure the live operator on your end is ready to process the call. This is why it makes sense to limit ad display time to your working hours or – if you’re on a budget – to the most profitable business hours.

The only exception is if a specific type of call you generate doesn’t require human assistance and can be handled by your IVR or conversational AI system. In this case, you might be able to stay effective while displaying click-to-call ads around the clock.

Proceed to the next step:

“Instant Forms” are the default option for the “Lead Method,” but you have to switch to “Calls” for your phone call advertising campaign. Then specify the “Facebook Page” where you want to display your ads and set a display schedule (since you’ve chosen “Lifetime Budget” in the previous step, setting the start and the end date of your campaigns is crucial).

Down the page, you can select a specific time to display your click-to-call ads:

Whether it’s best to align the ad display by the viewer’s time zone or your time zone depends on the type of campaign. If your call centre doesn’t work around the clock, choose the second option; if you can process calls 24/7, then you can use the viewer’s time zone to optimise the display for your customers (for example, you might not want your customers to see your ads on the weekend if it’s proven to be less profitable).

You can even choose one specific hour to display your ads if you have a limited budget. When it comes to click-to-call advertising strategies, the world’s your oyster – use your experience and call analytics to find the best schedule.

In “Create New Audience,” you can set up the locations, ages, and genders to see your ads and choose custom demographics, interests, and behaviours. Such targeting diversity allows you to display ads to high-intent consumers likely to dial up a call and make a purchase with your business.

Next, you can choose to either place your ads automatically or manually (if you’re not an expert with a Facebook click-to-call advertisement, select “Automatic Placements” so the system tries to make it the most cost-effective for you):

Now add the text and headline for your click-to-call ad:

Note: The only available call-to-action for the call button within this type of campaign is “Call Now,” so adding a headline that repeats it might be unreasonable. In other words, instead of duplicating what your call button says, you might want also to include the name of your company, the gist of the campaign, or other important information.

Enter your phone number and click “Publish:”

Et voila! You’ve just created your click-to-call ad campaign and now see the performance dashboard, including your bid strategy, budget, attribution, results, and more parameters.

The most important metric is likely to be “Results” because it shows the number of customers who’ve clicked on the “Call Now” button on your click-to-call ad. At the same time, this number doesn’t necessarily correspond to the actual number of inbound calls made to your business – for example, some users might click the “Call Now” but then hang up before the call connects.

Facebook Vs. Instagram Vs. LinkedIn Vs. TikTok Click-to-Call Ads

Not all platforms are as good as Facebook when setting up click-to-call ads. For example, LinkedIn doesn’t have the “Call Now” button, so you have to direct users to your landing page or lead generation form to trigger phone calls. On the same note, TikTok’s native “Call Now” button is limited in some regions and often requires a landing page or creative workarounds.

Here’s how Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok Click-to-Call Ads Stand Against Each Other:

As for pay-per-call YouTube advertising, it’s a bit different from other social networks because of its heavy video focus and plenty of customisation options. From discovery ads to bumper ads to TrueView in-stream ads, you can choose from several ad types and embed your call tracking numbers into the ad natively so it’s perceived well by viewers.

How To Run Click-To-Call Ads On YouTube

First things first: Unfortunately, YouTube doesn’t offer a direct “click-to-call” ad format, so you’ll have to drive calls indirectly by sending users to your landing page first while using a trackable phone number to collect actionable marketing information.

So here’s how to set up a pay-per-call ad campaign on YouTube:

Step 1. Log in to Your Google Ads Account and Choose Your Campaign Objective

YouTube ads are managed through Google Ads, so you have to log in to your Google Ads account or create a new one. Then you can start setting up a YouTube video ad campaign by clicking “New Campaign” and choosing “Video” as your campaign type.

Step 2. Select Your Targeting Options

There’s almost no limit to the depth of targeting with YouTube pay-per-call ads. For some industries, you can go as deep as Google Ads allows you to, configuring your targeting at an atomic level; for other sectors, you might ignore some settings.

You can choose the bidding strategy, the type and amount of budget, target locations & languages, priority setting for ad display, as well as the types of content where you want your ads to display. In “Sitelink extensions,” you can add the links to your landing page or where you want to direct ad viewers.

On top of that, you can set up a specific ad schedule and demographics to maximise your cost-efficiency. For example, if you’re selling products for young mothers, you might want to choose the following demographics: Gender – Female; Age – 18-24 and 25–34; Parental Status – Parent. For premium products, you can also set up Household Income – Top 10% and Top 11–20%.

Step 3. Create Your Video Ad

Once you’ve done the targeting part, you can create your video ads. More often than not, the ideal configuration is a short video of around 15 to 30 seconds for skippable in-stream ads or 6 seconds for non-skippable bumper ads that include a CTA and a trackable phone number.

Voila, you’ve just set up your pay-per-call ads on YouTube.

What Else Do You Need To Run Successful Click-To-Call Campaigns?

Regardless of how essential click-to-call campaigns are for your business, you’re likely running other campaigns as well – email, social media, SEO, etc. But what if you synergise all marketing campaigns rather than leaving them isolated?

There are quite a few click-to-call software suites that can do that. Imagine having free data flows between campaigns, tracking customer journeys across channels, and having it all in a single dashboard. This is what advanced performance marketing software ecosystems are known for.