What is call tracking?
Call tracking is a solution that aids marketers in attributing advertising, both online and offline. Call tracking provides the foundation for your marketing attribution data by capturing every call’s originating advertising source and the caller’s information, allowing you to make smarter marketing decisions.
How does call tracking work?
The process of implementing call tracking is quite simple. Depending on what kind of call tracking you are using, the way it works varies a bit. Static call tracking is used in offline advertising, as well as on some digital ads. Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI) is used on digital formats only; mainly on websites and landing pages, and requires installing code on your page.
CallSource has both regular call tracking and call tracking with dynamic numbers available.
Static Call Tracking
Call tracking requires using trackable phone lines to use in your business’s advertising. When the client dials the call tracking phone number that is displayed in an ad, they are then routed to the company’s main phone line. That caller’s call information, as well as the call recording and additional analytics (depending on the call tracking provider and how robust their call tracking solution is), are then captured and reported.
Dynamic Number Insertion
DNI is a call tracking solution used strictly for digital marketing that allows customers to more effectively track their web traffic by breaking down searches to the referral site and keyword level. It uses dynamic numbers, meaning that a unique call tracking number is assigned in each of your online paid search advertising to a specific keyword used in Google, Bing or another search engine by using a script on the site.
DNI allows the phone number on the potential customer’s webpage to change based on the keywords used in the web search, so you can track what keywords are driving the most phone calls from your paid search advertising.
Knowing this lets you optimize your online marketing budget by utilizing the best ads and disposing of wasteful, unproductive keywords.
Why is call tracking important?
Call tracking allows you to see which ads are the most effective at driving calls to your business, as well as capturing leads and booking appointments. It is the first step to understanding your customer’s journey and provides the marketing attribution you need to judge and adjust your advertising.
See why other marketing professionals recommend
you use call tracking.
How can call tracking help your business?
Call tracking is a necessity to make better-informed marketing decisions for your business. Check out some of the ways that call tracking will have a positive impact when implemented at your company.
Improve marketing spend
Instead of assuming that any specific advertisements are bringing in the number of calls promised, call tracking ensures that you know not only how many calls those ads are driving, but what types of calls are coming in from those advertisements.
Having call handlers ask callers where they heard about you isn’t as reliable – call tracking shows the exact advertising source that each person called from, leaving nothing to guesswork. Make sure that your ads are bringing you in true leads, and not junk calls, to allocate your marketing dollars wisely to the best-performing ads for your business.
Evaluate leads
CallSource’s human analysts, who have an over 95% accuracy rate, effectively label calls that come in through call tracking numbers as prospects or non-prospects depending on the type of caller dialing in.
Seeing only the volume of calls isn’t enough to evaluate true marketing performance – by knowing how many real leads call your business off of different ads, you know which advertisements are targeting the right type of customers for your business. Don’t make decisions based on calls alone; you want to see the types of calls that come into your business for more robust and granular reporting that will make a difference in your marketing.
Improve employee phone skills
By tracking and recording your phone calls, you can listen to calls and evaluate how well your employees are performing on the phone. Are they following call scripts or prompts, and booking appointments? Some call tracking companies, like CallSource, offer employee performance solutions that go beyond call tracking to help improve call performance. By listening to calls or looking at reporting with call tracking, you can determine which employees are under-performing or need additional training and coaching to book more leads.
Download our free Call Handler Audit to start scoring employee’s phone skills now.
Who should use call tracking?
Call tracking is beneficial for most businesses that use a phone number in their advertising and rely on the phone to make appointments and sales. Automotive dealerships, home service companies, healthcare practices, and marketing agencies are some of the industries that can benefit the most from call tracking solutions.
Any business that relies on marketing to gain new customers needs to improve its marketing tactics, and wants to grow their business will greatly benefit from call tracking.
The only type of business that probably isn’t a great fit for call tracking would be any small business that doesn’t do much marketing and relies strictly on word-of-mouth, or is at capacity and not wishing to expand their business. But if you are looking to grow and improve, then call tracking is a must.
Does call tracking have an impact on local SEO?
We’ve covered this topic in more detail, but to reiterate, thinking that call tracking affects local SEO is one of the many myths of call tracking.
NAP consistency is not affected by call tracking when done properly, and savvy marketers know that both marketing attribution with call tracking and SEO are important for a successful brand and marketing plan.
How can I start using call tracking?
Getting started with call tracking is simple. The process requires obtaining call tracking numbers to place on your advertising sources or porting your existing phone numbers to get them call-tracking-enabled.
Talk to a call tracking specialist to learn more about call tracking and how to get it set up ASAP for your business.
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