More and more interactions are shifting online, but for businesses with a longer sales cycle or have high dollar goods and services, phone calls are still an essential part of business. The source of these calls remained a huge blind spot for many marketers until the invention of call tracking. Read below for four reasons why you need call tracking to get a full view of the customer journey.
Get Granular Insights on Paid Media Efforts
Many people understand the benefits of using call tracking numbers on your website to understand how many people called from desktop, as opposed to click to call tracking, which as a general rule of thumb, will only capture mobile phone calls. But what you may not realize is that call tracking software can capture more than just the number of calls you get.
A call tracking software can capture your full URL, including UTM codes. Which means if you’ve put the name of your ad creative or copy in the utm_content field and the keyword in the utm_term field, you can now tell not only which campaigns drove the highest number of calls, but you can also drill down into which specific ads resonated most with your users. Feel free to get creative with your UTM fields for more granular insights on targeting options, ad placements, and ad size (remember that competitors can see your UTM codes, though). The best part a call tracking software that uses UTMs though? They’re platform agnostic, so even if you’re not using Google Analytics, you don’t have to miss out on insights.
Track All Calls from Your Google Listing (Google Business Profile)
Your website isn’t the only place online where people can find your phone number. If you have local businesses, you likely have local online listings, such as with Yelp, Facebook, and especially Google Business Profiles (FKA Google My Business). With its prominence on the search engine results page, your Google listing is the online listing likely to get the most traffic, but did you know their call reporting only reports on mobile calls? Enter your static call tracking number.
By accurately capturing the amount of calls you receive from your Google listings, you can help better understand the ROI of your online profiles. From there, you may decide it’s worth it to engage with a listing management partner to ensure your listing is always up to date and can take advantage of the latest feature releases. Or you may decide that you need to venture into paid search for your local listings.
Take Credit for Offline Conversions
Understanding how traditional mediums impact your bottom line is just as important as understanding how digital mediums impact your bottom line. If you’re running any form of direct mail, billboard advertising (OOH), or even partnering with another company for a sponsorship opportunity, I highly recommend you invest in call tracking.
Without call tracking, you are forced to rely on modeling and third-party attribution tools to help you understand what impact your offline advertising might have had. Instead, take a small part of that budget so you understand definitively what impact you had. Now, here I want to address an elephant in the room – this idea isn’t new, but not many people do it because they assume there is a high cost associated with call tracking. I’m personally partnered with Call Rail, which has plans starting at $45 for 250 minutes. With such a low cost to entry, this is a no-brainer on how to measure the effectiveness of your traditional mediums.
Understand the Full Impact of A/B Testing
Call tracking with A/B testing isn’t new, but most times it’s not used to its fullest extent. If you’re thinking that you should only use call tracking when you’re testing out the placement or color of a phone number, think again. I recommend you implement call tracking whenever you’re testing out any on page element and get the full story of user interactions on the page.
For example, when you changed the color of your button from red to blue, did you really lose any leads, or were people just more inclined to call? When they called, did they convert at a higher percentage? When you implement call tracking with all your A/B tests, you can answer these questions and so many more.
Summary
Getting a holistic view of the customer journey requires you to collect data points about online and offline behavior of potential customers. A call tracking software gives never before seen insight into the ROI of your traditional and digital advertising. By providing insights on how to better allocate your media spend and optimize your creative assets, call tracking software is the one tool in your toolbox that will pay for itself. I’ve used Call Rail for over five years now, and I’m happy to now be a Call Rail affiliate. To sign up for a trial, visit their website here. Please note, by clicking this link, I may get a small commission at no cost to you.