No, that’s not a type-o. A new report from Marchex has found that click-to-call commerce is generating more than $1 Trillion annually, and that is in the US only. With the entire GDP of the United States sitting somewhere around $18 trillion, this is a truly remarkable number and one that many people will find hard to believe.
Once you really start to think about it, however, it starts to make more sense. How many times throughout the day do people find themselves on a company website and then tap their phone number to make the call. This is a very common occurrence for millions of people throughout the country. Many of the calls generate fairly small sales right away, such as ordering a sandwich delivery for lunch. Others are made for big ticket items, or an appointment related to them.
For example, auto dealerships receive many calls each day that originate from a mobile phone visiting their website.
As performance marketers we are all very familiar with using ad based click to call marketing. This type of marketing alone accounts for approximately $4 billion per year in ad spend. While this is a large amount of money, and an amount that is growing rapidly, it is very small compared to the total amount generated from all click to call commerce combined.
According to the report, the total amount will continue to grow reaching about $1.94 Trillion by 2019.
In addition to these amazing numbers, the report also found that about 1 in 5 of the calls made through click to call platforms are abandoned due to issues with the customer service. This could be long hold times, complicated call trees, unprofessional employees or any number of other things.
Given the huge numbers that are being worked with, one in five translates to billions of dollars lost each year.
Whether you’re promoting an offline store or you sell an online only product, giving your customers the ability to click to call you is absolutely essential in today’s world. What is almost as important is making sure you give your customers an exceptional experience from the moment they tap your number
You can see the full report HERE.
