This article offers best practices for setting the Advanced predictive routing fields. Before you read this article, you should be familiar with the information in the Predictive Routing article. If you are using the Basic configuration tool instead, see Predictive Routing - Most Common Use Cases.
This article contains the following sections:
The values you set on your predictive routing configuration are very important for controlling which targets Ringba sends your calls to and maximizing your profits. This article describes how Ringba uses the values to calculate the estimated revenue per call (RPC).
Once you’ve named your predictive routing configuration, you have the choice to toggle on the User Revenue switch. If you toggle on that switch, Ringba does not calculate RPC. Most users should not toggle on this switch.
If you leave the Use Revenue switch toggled off, you have the option to toggle on the Advanced switch. If you leave that switch toggled off, you use the basic tools. See Predictive Routing - Most Common Use Cases for details on how Ringba uses those tools to calculate RPC.
This article explains how Ringba uses the tools you see when you toggle on the Advanced switch on this screen.
Tracking Settings section
First, you set some definitions in the Tracking Settings section:
- You define what counts as “a call” in the Count Attempts field. You can decide to count a call on dial or on connect.
- You define the entity for which you want to calculate the RPC in the Track Conversions by field. You can calculate RPC for each:
- Buyer
- Target
- Buyer, but only the conversions from the current campaign
- Target, but only the conversions from the current campaign
- Buyer, but only the conversions on calls from the same publisher and campaign as the call you’re calculating RPC for
- Target, but only the conversions on calls from the same publisher and campaign as the call you’re calculating RPC for
For simplicity, this article refers to the entity you choose here as a “target.”
Call Filter Settings
With those items defined, Ringba uses the fields in the Call Filter Settings for the majority of the calculation:
- Desired Number of Hours
- Minimum Number of Hours
- Desired Number of Calls
- Minimum Number of Calls
- Skip Latest Hours
If a target first accepted calls more recently than the beginning of the time period you specified in the Desired Number of Hours field, Ringba uses as many hours as the target has been accepting calls. For example, if you set your Desired Number of Hours field to 240 (10 days ago) but the target opened only 7 days ago. However, if the target first accepted calls more recently than the Minimum Number of Hours field, Ringba does not calculate the target's RPC. Instead, it uses the New Targets bonus (described later in this section).
Likewise, if the target received fewer calls than you indicated in the Desired Number of Calls field over the time period you entered in the Desired Number of Hours field (or the smaller time period, as described in the previous paragraph), Ringba uses as many calls as the target has during that time, unless that number is less than the value you entered in the Minimum Number of Calls field. If that happens, Ringba uses the New Targets bonus.
For example, consider the following field settings:
- Desired Number of Calls: 200
- Minimum Number of Calls: 100
- Desired Number of Hours: 24
- Minimum Number of Hours: 6
At 2 p.m. Tuesday, a call comes in. Ringba calculates the RPC for each target. Ringba searches since 2 p.m. Monday (the last 24 hours) for the most recent 200 calls.
- Target A received 250 calls over the last 24 hours, so Ringba uses the most recent 200 to calculate the RPC.
- Target B received 150 calls over the last 24 hours, so Ringba uses all 150 calls, since it is greater than the minimum of 100.
- Target C received 90 calls over the last 24 hours, which is less than the minimum of 100, so Ringba does not calculate RPC and instead applies the New Targets bonus.
- Target D is a brand-new target and only began accepting calls for the first time at 7 a.m. (7 hours ago) and has received 120 calls. Ringba uses all 120 calls to calculate RPC, since both the number of hours and number of calls are above the minimum thresholds.
- Target E is another brand-new target that only began accepting calls. It opened at 9 a.m. (5 hours ago) and has received 120 calls. Ringba does not calculate the RPC for this target because the number of hours is less than the minimum. Instead, Ringba applies the New Targets bonus.
The RPC calculation also uses the value in the Skip Latest Hours field. If you know your targets take a couple hours to return conversion data, you might enter 2 in this field. In that case, Ringba shifts the search windows back by 2 hours. In our example, that would mean:
- Ringba searches for calls between 12 noon Monday and 12 noon Tuesday to make its 24-hour window. If the targets had at least the minimum number of calls during that window, nothing changes for them.
- Target D, which had only been open for 5 hours at noon Tuesday, no longer meets the minimum hours threshold and instead receives the New Targets bonus.
Priority Settings and Legacy Settings
Depending on the calculations from the Call Filter Settings, Ringba may use the Priority Settings or Legacy Settings.
You should use either one of these sections or the other, but not both. In most cases, you should use the Priority Settings. The Legacy Settings remain on the screen to support predictive routing configurations that were made before the Priority Settings were introduced.
Priority Settings
In this section you can choose the priority advantage to give to targets that need some help to compete with successful, established targets.
The New Targets bonus adds to the priority of targets without enough data. If Ringba couldn’t calculate a target's RPC because its calls or hours did not satisfy the minimum threshold in the Call Filter Settings, the Target gets this bonus instead.
The New Targets bonus is not a dollar amount. It is just a number between 0 and 100. Enter a higher number to give new targets a bigger priority bump.
The Underperforming Target bonus helps targets that are going through an unlucky patch when a few calls in a row don’t convert. Without this bonus, a target could fall further behind than it deserves and you could miss out on the target’s usual productivity.
Like the New Targets bonus, the Underperforming Target bonus is a number between 0 and 100. Enter a higher number to give underperforming targets a bigger boost.
Legacy Settings
Important: The Legacy Settings section has been deprecated and replaced with the Priority Settings section. The Legacy Settings section appears on this screen only to support legacy configurations. You should leave all fields in this section blank. Contact Ringba Support if you have any questions.
Do not set the values in the Legacy Settings section unless you are maintaining an old predictive routing configuration. If you set any of the fields in this section, the predictive routing configuration uses this section instead of the values in the Priority Settings section.