• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, August 5, 2015

While consumers use their smartphones to do many things, they still use them to call a business when they see an ad that interests them.

And when they click to call from an ad, up to one in four becomes an active customer, based on a new study.

When a consumer is searching at a desktop, they typically are in research mode. Click-co-call matters because when a consumer moves to mobile, they’re in purchase mode.

The Marchex click-co-call commerce report comprised an analysis of aggregated and anonymized data from 24 million consumer-to-business mobile phone calls to customers of the Marchex call analytics marketplace.

The report notes that although e-commerce is a major force in consumer spending, it accounts for just 7% of retail spending and less than 2% of total consumer expenditures.

Consumers are likely to click to call a wide range of product and service providers. Here’s what they are likely to click to call for:

• 72% -- Professional
• 66% -- Home
• 60% -- Car
• 58% -- Bank account
• 58% -- Hotel
• 46% -- Home goods

The reason click to call matters is that there can be significant money involved.

The average conversion rate to a sale, appointment or reservation from a mobile ad ranges from 5% to 25%, with conversion rates on mobile phones on average four times higher than on desktops.

When tabulating phone calls that result in an over-the-phone sale, appointment, reservation or in-store sale, the total comes out to $1 trillion in consumer spending, according to Marchex.

That number is projected to double to $2 trillion by 2019 as the majority of mobile business lookups move to mobile phones.

The range of success, of course, heavily hinges on who answers the call that came from that click.