In part 1 , I discussed how you can combat affiliate call fraud by working with publishers you trust, knowing your audience, defining what a successful call outcome looks like, and testing small with new campaigns. Once you have all that in place, you can start using pay-per-call platforms and inbound call intelligence solutions to route and track calls to help weed out some fraudsters.
5. Set up your call treatment
Odds are you want your call center and sales reps focusing on the calls that are likely to convert. Don’t let fraudulent calls be a drain on your bottom line between time lost by the rep and the wasted ad spend. The best way to save time and money is to filter callers using advanced rules based routing combined with interactive voice response (IVR). One example of this would be to automagically route callers out of your service range to a voicemail, or to route repeat callers directly to the customer support line rather than the sales line.
The IVR then helps guide the caller to the appropriate channel for the best customer experience with a series of automated keypresses. An effective IVR is clear and easy to follow with action items at the end of the prompt. For example – To speak with a live agent, press 1 or For customer support, press 2. Setting up a brief and easy to follow series of key presses not only improves the call experience, it also is effective for weeding out low quality or fraudulent calls.
6. Customize your payout structure
The way you structure publisher payouts has a big effect on the quality of your traffic. To improve the quality, offer a payout structure that rewards publishers for quality rather than quantity. For example, you can offer a smaller commission for inbound calls that meet the minimum call criteria, then offer additional commissions for very specific things that happen during or after the call. This all comes back to the relationship you want to build with your publishers. If you reward publishers they will likely provide quality traffic. At the end of the day, it should be a win/win situation for all. For sophisticated marketers, you can sync sales / CRM data with your calls to better understand your true value and ROI.
7. Analyze call recordings
Looking at call reporting and call durations don’t always tell the story. There’s no way around it, you need to physically listen to call recordings, or you have to leverage a voice analytics platform. Listening for specific keywords and phrases specifically at the beginning or the end of the call will give you a great proxy of intent. When you identify fraud calls, you want to link it back to specific marketing tactic and publisher.
These tips are important for advertisers to keep in mind for protecting themselves against affiliate call fraud. A call intelligence solution will help give advertisers the tools they need to successfully combat fraud.
If you’re interested in learning more from the pros on the frontlines, make sure to attend the Affiliate Call Fraud panel on March 3 at LeadsCon. Click here to register for LeadsCon Las Vegas 2015.
