A new study by Marchex has found that 60 percent of calls to businesses result in product or service discussions. The study was aimed to assess the outcome of calls received and the effectiveness of using calls to generate leads through the use of digital call advertising.

The study noted that most of the other calls generated by digital advertising are not answered by the business, suggesting that one of the best things that businesses can do to improve their bottom line is to do a better job of answering the phone.

In the study, Marchex found that 60 percent of all calls from digital advertising are product and service discussions, and 80 percent of calls longer than one minute are product and service discussions. A simple Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system is effective at qualifying calls.

Marchex study noted that instant, one-click calling capabilities of mobile phones and desktop VoIP services have started to significantly change the digital advertising landscape.

The company in its study pointed out that advertisers who may have been initially uncertain about mobile advertising should now incorporate click-to-call, bid per call and Pay For Call advertising into their existing digital advertising campaigns or risk losing significant lead traffic.

Back in November, Marchex had introduced the Marchex Institute, a newly formed research group that provides customers and the digital advertising industry with original insight, analysis and data on the growing digital call advertising market. 

In one of its initial studies, the Marchex Institute discovered that more than 15 million, or five percent of the approximately 300 million mobile phones in use today in North America, have made a phone call to a business advertiser utilizing Marchex’s Digital Call Advertising platform.

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