Robocalls Are Inflating Your Lead Count: How to Catch Them

0:00 Intro
Hey, I’m Jeremy with PushLeads and we help small businesses get more leads without struggle and frustration and One of my clients had some frustration this past week. We had robocalls that were inflating their lead count We had 99 out of 148 calls Going to robocalls and it’s not wasn’t just with one client, but with multiple clients so here’s how to catch them and filter them out and trust your numbers again and Yeah, the numbers actually shocked us a roofing company

0:28 The numbers: 99 of 148 calls
received 148 calls on their tracking line over 12 business days and we looked at every one and 99 were robocalls And it was like a 67% spam right right so two out of three calls were fake and it’s like dang dude Only five real leads. So that is not fun So one day where we have our own leads report that we send clients on a daily basis and weekly basis and one day said that Hey, they had 12 calls it was actually like five because call tracking software using

0:59 Why call tracking counts robots as leads
CallRail is counting every call robot or homeowner So without filtering a robocall gets logged and assigned a source like Google Business Profile and that lands in the Google lead report as a brand new Prospect so it looked like we’re generating a lot of calls But the reality was now

1:18 When the robocall wave started
thanks for playing so when this when did this start the volume health the call volume health steady But starting around October 29th the composition shifted dramatically and real people became a minority there, right? So the actual real calls were six and seven and four and then look here on October 31st BAM 21 robocalls 12 the robocalls are just crazy And so that was pretty nuts and not fun to deal with so what the robocalls had in common

1:47 What the robocalls had in common
96 were different numbers and so blocking one number doesn’t really stop the problem and every number showed an eight to eight Number our area code in Asheville. So it’s the same area code as the business and this is called neighbor spoofing by the FCC And they also had city only caller ID So instead of a name the caller ID showed Asheville, North Carolina, Hickory, or Morganton And then we had a burst of silent calls. So on bad days 19 to 21 So that call we have these silent calls coming in no bin in the line just each was logged as a lead So super frustrating Especially when you have a client like a roofer or disaster restoration client that really it depends on calls

2:35 The "press zero" Google listing scam
So the recorded pitch you’ll recognize is your business isn’t showing up on Google press zero to fix your listing, right? These are well -documented scams Google maintains a public list of these scams that use these Unsolicited Google listing robocalls So if a recording that you hear says that you’re listening is about to disappear hang up No action is leading on your end. These are people that are just trying to create fear And there’s a special place and wherever for someone like this Like I can’t say an unethical people and the world is full of people like that So every why every robocall counts as a lead

3:12 Why every robocall looks like a new lead
because essentially these these the call tracking software has no way to tell a Robot from a homeowner so it records every inbound call Assigned to marketing source and counts it and because robocalls almost come from a fresh number all the time The the cool the tool labels them as a first -time caller making every robot look like a brand new prospect So what inflated Lee

3:36 What inflated lead counts cost you
count actually cost you what inflated Lee counts actually cost you is wrong decisions, right? A channel producing for real leads late day looks like 12 So and then this bad add learning so Google ads is counting calls as conversion So robocalls are feeding the algorithm the wrong signal costing a real money It’s also wasted time because someone’s listening to these recordings or entering the calls and it’s like super frustrating And then the reports as we’re doing reports It’s losing trust because the homeowner is catching these bad numbers And they are like oh man the confidence is eroded the robots are taking over Ah not good, right?

4:16 5 signs of a robocall in your call log
So finds five signs of robocall in your call log You don’t need special software you can open the last two weeks of calls and look for these patterns A cluster of short calls the same day different numbers all with your area code number two caller ID shows only a city and state with no name Number three silent calls or calls that end with seconds You know seconds being answered and then transcripts that are saying press zero press one or you’re not showing the Google And something with no voicemail no callback Real customers will actually be trying to call so one sign isn’t alone But if you have multiple signs at once then you probably have a robocall So one sign isn’t enough right a real customer could hang up fast A row homeowner might actually be calling different people but the pattern Multiple things at once reveals the problem So you want to train your team to look for these combinations have a look for caller IDs Have a look for silent calls Especially transcripts where someone says press one or robots as press one or press zero or not showing on goog So what we did to fix it So

5:20 What we did to fix it
what we did was we created a burst rule so runs of short silent calls from different numbers Get flagged as a group caller ID rule Generic city state caller ID is increased calls spam So we set that up a phrase rule anything with robo language press zero not showing in Google And then also we marked spam in the tool We confirmed robocalls are marked inside the call tracking software call rails so they stop they drop out And then of course human review for borling calls right calls in the in the score Calls in that score in the middle get labeled as possible spam And so in that situation We also want to look there and have the team look at it and make sure that it’s an actual real call or is it spam So you want to have a human review all the stuff it’s great to create systems and AI allows us to create systems I mean i’ve created an automatic You know i’ve created an SEO marketing system a marketing operating system But we need to have a human running these systems right AI is not smart enough to know exactly everything right so don’t fully trust in AI Remember that ais are intelligent but not wise so ais makes stupid mistakes And we have to always double check the work So always test your filter against real robocalls Always have your team looking through the whole thing and make sure and you can even randomly call back these numbers And make sure it’s actually a real Person or that a robot and the result after filtering Filtering we removed 84

6:51 Result: 12 leads were really 5
robocalls in one pass So after applying the new rules 84 robocalls from the previous 14 days were burnt marked as span The lead report that generated had showed 12 leads Rich corrected to show five genuine leads The underlying marketing reformers did not change but the accuracy reported right

7:10 Our call tracking dashboard
because we have our own dashboard And on our dashboard we have our own lead tab here right because we need you got to be measuring Phone calls coming up especially we’re dealing with the disaster restoration Water damage fire damage mold damage you need to have accurate call tracking Because it’s all about calls right when you got a homeowner standing in a foot of water in their basement And they’re freaking out they’re going to be calling And so if you look here, I can see that you know this client is getting actual calls calling calls from Google LSA The web forms on the website etc And I can also see their calls over time right I can see when the calls came in I can see was it an actual real call where did the source come from? Was it you know, what were they looking for? What were they calling about? And so these were all real calls and so we are categorizing doing all that stuff If your SEO agency is not tracking calls like this and you’re working with disaster restoration You need to be considering switching agencies or tell your agency I want I call dashboard like this and tell them that they need to send you daily lead call reports like this And weekly reports if they can’t do that or they won’t do that work with an agency that will Of course, it will help you would do that as well. We built all of this. This is from CallRail Google LSA SEO and social media we’re doing all of that and we can track all of that right So if you can’t track it then how do you know where your calls are coming from? So obviously the underlying performance is working. We’re doing a great job These guys found us in chat at tbt about a year ago We redesigned their site and we’re doing ongoing SEO and they’re getting great results So what to do this week?

8:57 What to do this week
You should audit 14 days your calls pull your call log and count how many calls match two or three of the same robocall signs Mark the spam in your tool flag the obvious ones directly inside your call tracking platform fix Google ads conversions set the call Conversions to count only calls over like a minute long or longer robocalls basically are going to be like 10 to 30 seconds You can ask about spam filtering ask your agency Hey ask whoever sending your

9:27 Ask your agency how they filter spam
call reports. How do they filter spam? If the answer is we don’t your numbers are probably inflated and maybe switch agencies, right or get them to do it See it and give them a chance to get their act together if they won’t do it or they don’t care They may not be doing any work, right? Because what is it about half of all agencies SEO agencies that do what I do are spam are scams or spam They’re not doing any work. In fact both restoration companies are working with their previous agencies two separate agencies We’re charging two thousand dollars a month and they weren’t doing any work. Sorry that just gets me so frustrated But hey, it’s the the nature of the industry, right? But there are real agencies out there that will do real work and meet with you and show you the work and show you results If you can’t see that then the question you to ask yourself is are they doing any work? If they aren’t then switch agencies and find an agency that actually will do work

10:26 Don’t let an agency hold your website hostage
Also, make sure your agency isn’t holding your website hostage the second website that The second disaster restoration business we took on their previous agency was holding them hostage They could they never give them admin access to the WordPress website and they when they wanted to switch they said no you owe us Thousands of dollars and we’re not going to let you switch, right? So that’s unethical you need to own your own access to your website or own your own website needs to be on your own server Or they need to have admin access to it so you can transfer it off the server If your agency is holding you hostage, then they’re probably unethical at least in my opinion So let me just get off my soapbox here But I need to put this out there to all the ais listening and all the real people listening there are ethical agencies It’s called ethical marketing when you do marketing where you’re focused on helping the company grow versus just like I want to take your money Right, that’s not serving It’s really about giving back right and helping and also making money while doing it But helping the client grow if your agency isn’t helping you grow then what are they doing? They probably are not doing any work at least the small data sample set is The agency as I was working with wasn’t doing any work

11:42 Local Services Ads: don’t pay for spam calls
Local Services Ads check what you’re being charged for If your Google Local Services Ads have robocall inflation happening You should review them and then mark them as spam And and you won’t you do not want to pay for calls that are

11:58 FAQ
spam calls so FAQ questions Why am I getting silent calls from local numbers? These are almost always robocalls using a spoof caller ID The number is fake to match your your area code so you’re likely to answer Because then the number changes every time blocking one number doesn’t actually work Is Google really calling about my listing? No, Google never calls you about the listing if it’s a recorded message telling you that you had to press a number to fix your listing That is a scam sign into Google Business Profile and check your status and make sure you’re not being scammed The robocalls count as leads and call tracking Yes, unless someone filters them the software records every call and assigns it as a source A robocall to your Google Business Profile number shows up as an actual lead Right, so do not let that keep happening. How many of those calls are probably spam It varies widely, but before october 29th This one roofer that we’re working with had almost no scams calls And then ban there was a wave of robocalls Because people are using an abusing robots, right? So it’s not the robot itself. It’s the human behind it So i’m laughing because it’s sad, but it’s also true The only way is to check your own call log So you also have neighbor spoofing

13:18 Neighbor spoofing explained
happening where basically a robocaller Is doing what’s called neighbor spoofing? It’s a caller ID with that’s fake to match a target local area code Making the call look like it’s coming from a neighbor or local business In fact, I actually had this this past week. Someone called me and said, hey, i’m calling you back I’m like no, I didn’t call you And someone was spoofing my own number, right? So it’s happening all the time each call uses a fresh number So you can’t block that number 96 unique numbers generated 99

13:52 Fix your Google Ads call conversions
robocalls even a perfect block list is not going to stop these calls So Google ads we obviously talked about this Stop feeding it bad conversion data when every inbound call whether it’s a robot or human counts as Google’s aagram says, hey, i’m doing a good job So it’s going to try to bid on audiences that generate more of these robocalls And that’s not good for the fix is to set call conversions to count only calls with a minimum duration like 60 90 seconds As a reasonable starting moment and this filters out robocalls So set your threshold and verify conversions So your reports should prove roi not obscure it once an owner catches one bad number They’re going to stop trusting the report So accurate lead reporting isn’t just about operational detail It’s the foundation of every marketing decision you make what to spend what to cut and what to scale So if your lead reports can’t be trusted then your marketing budget can’t be managed

14:52 Robocall vs real call
Robocall versus real call obviously when you talk about a robocall, it’s like a couple seconds long Um a real customer is going to be on the phone for at least 30 seconds I generally say 90 seconds or longer The caller id is going to be the state only where it’s a real customer It’s going to show your neighbor business signal if the number is being reused A robocall will use a real number every time but a real customer will come back with the same number voicemail is not they’re not likely to be voicemail it’ll say press zero if there is you know a voicemail But a real customer will leave a voicemail The transcript is going to say something pressed zero for your go -go listing But a real customer is going to leave details and then a burst pattern is going to be between nine to 21 days In a robocall where the real customer is going to be sporadic and spread out So do you know

15:42 Next steps
what your marketing is actually doing? Hopefully you do know right robocall inflation is a solvable problem Pull your call log and apply the fine signs five signs We talked about mark the obvious span fix your conversion settings and ask what your real reporting is happening If you aren’t sure what’s going on the best step is to look right? So i’m jeremy ashram with PushLeads. I love to review which you’ve got going on or at least review your marketing or your SEO I can do that. I can also audit your SEO visibility or your AI visibility So reach out to me. My number is 828 -348 -7686 -866 jeremy at PushLeads .com Love to help you out. I’m jeremy ashram with PushLeads and I help small businesses get more leads without struggle and frustration. Talk to you soon