When shoppers want immediate communication with a company, they often (still!) pick up the phone and call. That's especially simple to do now as online and mobile click-to-call features become more popular.

However, nearly one in five calls driven by paid search ads goes unanswered, according to a recent study of nearly 400,000 inbound phone calls by call-tracking and analytics company DialogTech. And more than half (57%) of those voice messages indicated a high-purchase-intent consumer!

That means marketers are wasting money encouraging calls that are never answered, and it also means that valuable customers are having a negative brand experience.

DialogTech put together an infographic based on the results of its study, suggesting ways marketers can solve the voicemail problem, including the following:

• Don't run call-only ads when the business isn't open or staffed to answer calls.
• Understand how paid search drives qualified callers to each location.
• Optimize spend for the ads and keywords that drive the most good calls at the lowest costs.
• Route each caller to the best agent or location right away to convert them to customers.

See how you can improve paid search ROI by checking out the infographic. Just tap or click to see a larger version.