Data released on Monday shows how different digital marketing channels today can drive calls directly to businesses, retailers, brands or contact centers and then convert them into buyers.
Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered voice and SMS agents engage callers twenty-four hours each day, so when a caller cannot reach a person at a brand, an AI agent can qualify their intent, answer
questions, schedule a callback, or book an appointment via text.
These routes to purchase create leads, according to data released Monday from Invoca, a company that helps to convert inbound
leads.
Rather than taking a short cut on the path to purchase, AI-driven summaries prompt consumers to scroll further, consider more options,
and validate choices before converting or calling a business.
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However, consumers' mistrust in what they see in search results has also prompted them to pick up the phone to call the brand,
retailer or business before they make a purchase.
This is the first year that Invoca
had enough data to measure calls driven by generative AI search.
The lead rate from ChatGPT-referred calls to companies and brands is a point of focus, with 49% of answered calls from
ChatGPT considered leads -- roughly 10 percentage points above the all-channel average and 6 points higher than the next-best-performing channel, Google Business Profiles, at 43%, according to
Invoca.
Calls coming from ChatGPT are more likely to be qualified leads, data from the study shows. Someone who uses an AI assistant to research a product or service and then picks up
the phone to call the retailer or brand is "fairly deep in their buying journey," the company says in the study.
This percentage may seem promising, based on the data, although the total
volume of calls attributable to generative AI is still very low, with no measurable volume from large language models (LLMs) other than ChatGPT.
For now, the bulk of phone leads and
conversions identified in the study come from proven, high-volume channels such as paid search and Google Business Profiles.
The data in the study from anonymized AI insights span more than 70
million phone calls and 600 million minutes of conversation. It reveals that across all industries, 38% of calls answered by a person are leads, and 42% of those leads convert on the
call.
The biggest change observed since consumers began using chatbots to answer questions is that certain channels like OpenAI ChatGPT perform better at driving top-of-funnel leads
versus bottom-of-funnel conversions.
The data shows that ChatGPT answered calls that were leads about 49% of the time, and converted those leads about 40% of the time, followed closely by
Google Business Profiles at 43% and 42%, respectively, versus paid search at 39% and 43%, respectively.
The study found that paid search drove the highest volume of calls, leads, and
conversions of any paid channel, with similar results in Google Business Profiles for multi-location businesses on the organic side, and that channel efficiency matters, as well as scale.
Google Ads remains the most important digital advertising channel for driving phone-based conversions. Even small improvements to phone lead and conversion rates from search ads seem to have a
significant impact on business results, according to the data.
Across the automotive sector, answered calls that were leads were successful about 54% of the time, while those that
converted had a success rate of 45%.