Facebook Adds ‘Call Now’ Button to Local Ads

Last week, Facebook released the ability to add a “call now” call to action button to mobile newsfeed ads. Business advertisers can add the ‘call now’ button during the ad creation process, and when mobile users tap the button, their phone initiates a call to the business. We’ve long known the power of a phone call, and Facebook is the latest marketing platform to emphasize its importance.

Facebook’s enhanced mobile newsfeed ads are a part of their local awareness objective, which was launched in October 2014. According to Facebook, these ads reach “more people in your area per dollar spent than with any other kind of advertising, including newspaper or direct mail”.

Ads are targeted to a chosen geographical radius around your business. For example, you can choose to show ads to Facebook users within 1 mile of your business.

A prospective customer within 1 mile initiating a real-time conversation with your business? That sounds like a conversion waiting to happen. But how can we know Facebook is delivering quality phone calls? Enter CallRail’s Facebook call tracking.

CallRail offers tracking numbers that allow you to measure and record phone calls from Facebook local awareness ads. Not only will you know how many phone calls you receive, you can optionally use call recording to verify each phone call is a quality prospect and that your team handled the interaction well.

Visit the Facebook for Business page to learn more about their new local awareness objective.