What Is Call Tracking Software?
Call tracking software provides businesses with a way to understand which online marketing channels are encouraging potential customers to ring up. Each marketing channel is assigned a unique phone number. If the customer rings up, the business can then determine which channel instigated the call.
Call tracking enables advertisers to work out exactly which media are making the phones ring, and more importantly, which media sends the buyers. You can track all your media partners and sources: Search, PPC, promotions, offline advertising, and use call tracking to track and improve organic SEO keywords. It removes the guesswork and stops advertisers relying on data provided by media owners.
Other forms of call tracking enable companies to record phone calls so they can be graded (for training purposes). More up-to-date systems provide operators with real-time information about the webpage (or advert) the caller is responding to.
The most recent developments identify fumbled or lost calls (including unanswered calls). All this makes the customer phone call far more productive and provides training and support for operators/sales teams.
Call tracking is valuable for business and customers, too. In some markets, only 1 in 4 calls are adequately answered and unanswered calls could contribute to even worse ratios.
How Does Call Tracking Work?
How can businesses track potential customers’ phone numbers with call tracking? Unique telephone numbers are provided to each touchpoint online, allowing the business to determine which marketing channel influenced the prospect to call. The business can then match their number with this source.
Calls to individual numbers are tracked using analytics tools (and often recorded). Each subsequent call from the same customer is tracked to show the route they took from your advertising to the website and to ultimately make a call.
The calls are tracked in real-time and data is added to Google Analytics with call tracking providers using their own dashboards, which brings all of the call data together. Call tracking systems typically record all phone calls, provide data by campaign or other sources, and track customer interactions to fully understand the user journey (tracking form fills or other events).
Why Use Call Tracking?
There are plenty of benefits to call tracking. It enables businesses to determine which online marketing channels are generating leads via the phone. Underperforming pages can then be detected and improved. By indicating high performing channels, ROI can be improved by investing in the right places.
Call tracking will effectively engage both parts of the sales journey – what makes the phone ring, and what happens in the business when the phone rings. This provides a clear picture of which media is generating the best sales leads (to accurately calculate ROI) and also align media investment.
It provides you with accurate comparison data. This can help you in negotiations with third-party media owners and improves organic keywords traffic. The data helps to identify and clear any ‘obstacles’ on a website and thereby improve conversion and reduce bounce rates.
The software provides a real customer view of what happens when they call a business. Call recording is an integral part of any service but smart new programmes from some call tracking providers can be added to find lost and fumbled calls before it’s too late (revive unanswered or dead leads).
Overall, call tracking enables a business to reduce marketing and sales wastage, helping you to focus on converting the most valuable leads. Squeezing more return out of the current investment is valuable for any business.
What Are Calling Tracking Metrics?
Call tracking metrics are the data that can be collected by call tracking software. This data includes the number of phone call leads generated by particular online marketing channels, phone call durations, callers’ locations, the time of day, and the qualified lead rating assigned to a caller.
The metrics are at a very granular level and enable the advertiser to monitor and manage their marketing effort with a great degree of accuracy and detail. Tracking goes down to keyword level attribution which means that it’s easy to see which media is generating the leads and sales
What Is Call Analytics?
Call analytics collect, analyse, and report phone call data. The term refers to a range of processes, from tracking which marketing channel resulted in a call to recording the calls themselves. Users can also rate which leads are qualified and view call duration, time of day, and location.
Outbound calls can be tracked to give a complete picture of the customer interactions and help identify any issues with the process or the operator. More recent systems provide the operator with real-time customer history and journey information to speed up the sales process. Calltracks provide the latest systems, which pinpoint what webpage the customer is viewing when they are on the call.
What Is Call Recording?
Call recording refers to the process of recording phone conversations between a representative of a business and a customer. This includes both inbound and outbound calls. Within the Calltracks system, a call recording is associated with the webpage or ad that the customer visited before ringing up.
Many organisations have hundreds of call recordings each day. As a result, it’s essential that these are managed effectively and that the urgent and most valuable calls are handled quickly. Call recordings can be used for training (to improve call handling and customer engagement) or marketing purposes.
Identifying and actioning lost enquiries helps increase sales conversion and reduce marketing investment. Calls need to be actioned within a few hours otherwise they become much more difficult to convert.
How to Add Call Extensions to Ads?
To create a call extension in Ads, navigate to the ‘Ad Extensions’ tab and select ‘Call Extensions’ in the drop-down menu. From here, click the ‘+Extension’ button and the ‘+New Phone Number’ button. Using a Google forwarding number enables calls to be tracked as goals in Google Analytics.
While conversion information is valuable there is a whole lot more that can be tracked, monitored, and improved to increase sales conversion. Find out more on Ads call tracking here or speak to Calltracks to consider the full range of options.
