Missed-Call Marketing

Missed-call marketing is the practice of inviting a customer to give a free missed call to a number as a low-friction way to opt in, request a callback, or trigger an automated response, without either side paying for the call.

It’s built on a quirk of Indian telecom pricing: an incoming call costs the receiving business a small connection fee, but nothing for the caller, which is why it became a common call-to-action on billboards and radio ads long before WhatsApp did the same job better. The call itself carries no information beyond “this number wants something” — what happens next (an SMS back, a callback queued, a lead logged) is entirely on the receiving side.

It’s a different thing from a missed call a business failed to answer, which is the far more common cost in this category — a customer who called in, got no answer, and moved to a competitor.

Work out what your own missed calls are worth with the missed-call calculator.