If you haven’t integrated call tracking into your company’s digital marketing yet you are missing out on a very important opportunity measure ROI, increase engagement, and track how calls are being handled internally. If you are spending money on generating leads through SEM & PPC it is a must.
What is call tracking? Basically different contact phone numbers for a business are presented to consumers based on different channels/incentives. The numbers can even be dynamically inserted with code to tack calls from PPC Ads.
While call tracking has always had its benefits, impact was limited in the past by a few factors. Brands could only realistically create so many versions of traditional content and marketing companies didn’t have tools sophisticated enough to measure the call actions.
The rise of digital tracking and analytics has solved both of these issues. Your campaigns can now have unlimited variations, (they can even be A/B tested) which in turn means many more phone numbers can be assigned to many more ads or content pieces. All of these actions can be integrated into a tracking platform, so every aspect of a call can be measured, including which source it originated from, how it was handled, and whether it resulted in a conversion (lead).
Here’s an example of modern call tracking in action: A visitor arrives on a page on your website and a unique local or toll free phone number is generated based on their location; the consumer dials the number and a cloud-based tracking software platform directs the call, records it, and measures key data points; the call is completed and the platform then shares relevant data with your online analytics/CRM software (Google Analytics, Salesforce, Hubspot, etc.).
This same approach can be taken with other digital marketing channels—such as forwarding numbers on Google AdWords and Facebook’s “Call Now” News Feed button—which means that call tracking can be applied to almost every aspect of your marketing spend.
So, how does all this help YOU? Here are five of the key benefits:
1. Enhanced effectiveness of a powerful channel
The rise of smartphones has led to an unexpected shift in consumer behavior: the integration of phone numbers into digital ads/sites has resulted in Americans making many more phone calls to businesses. It’s estimated that mobile search alone will drive 73 billion calls per year by 2018.
As consumers become increasingly mobile-first Web users, they’re also becoming more likely to call—which is why tracking becomes vital; it boosts the impact of an already well-liked, and growing, engagement channel.
2. Efficient call routing to the proper sales or customer service channels
One of the key benefits that’s sometimes overlooked with call tracking is how it can help companies optimize workflows and resources.
With a call tracking software solution and specific phone numbers attached to each of your offerings and or landing pages, you can efficiently direct each customer to the right in-house expert, sales person, or customer service rep. For example, you can route your inbound call based on originating channel (landing page or ad), geographic location, or even an individual product page on your website.
The data on call times and volume can give you valuable insights into when to schedule staff, boost ad spend or decrease it. Most software suites provide the option to record each call, which can then be used for evaluating and training of employees.
3. Ability to measure every marketing aspect of a phone call
Beyond allocating staff, call-tracking data provides countless additional valuable insights for your business. Phone calls were often the abyss of the customer funnel; brands could track every element up until the moment of dialing, then many lost the sense of where the person had originated from, what they were seeking, and what had initiated interaction form the get go.
Now it’s possible to understand every aspect of the process, from which prompt sparked engagement, to the length of wait time, call duration, and post-call behavior.
4. Improved SEO, SEM, and website performance
Of course, all this data is only valuable if you can use it. Luckily, a huge advance in recent years has been in how call insights are presented. Call tracking software suites have their own dashboards that sort information easil with platforms like Google Analytics and Salesforce or HubSpot. This allows you to link the call data insights to your company wide metrics.
Through monitoring and testing, call tracking data can help you optimize your product/services landing pages, click-to-call Google PPC and your social ads, and even your overall search presence.
5. Better ROI on your SEM/PPC spend
The biggest benefit call tracking gives are the insights it provides into the effectiveness of your overall SEM/PPC spend.
Because of the specificity of each number, you can clearly see which pages, ads, and content are driving leads and conversions. Over time, this data can be aggregated and analyzed to understand your channel-wide performance.
Tthese insights apply to both offline and online marketing channels. Because all interactions are routed through phone calls, you have a clear way to compare platforms such as print ads, search ads, web content, email newsletters, and even good ol’ direct mail.
Ultimately, call tracking is much more than a supplementary marketing metric. If implemented properly and monitored properly, call trakcing can be used as a tool to understand all of your marketing efforts, and to make them work better.
Integrate call tracking into your brand’s digital marketing efforts. Contact MYC today at 954-916-9800 or fill out the contact form on this page.
