As a marketer, you strive to make interactions and conversions as measurable as possible. A lot of valuable things are often measured on the website. From completed contact form to white paper download and from newsletter subscription to direct sales. But what if your ads, landing pages and email campaigns contain phone numbers? Then chances are that you are not able to find any leads that come in by phone. While telephone leads (depending on the sector) often carry a higher (purchasing) urgency compared to leads that choose to fill out a form or send an e-mail. You do not get any recognition for these contact moments and conversions, because no clear connections can be made.

Call tracking in the basics

In basic terms, call tracking is very simple to explain. Call tracking providers use different phone numbers to correlate incoming calls to specific sources. Marketers use this data to map out the telephone response to marketing campaigns, so they know how many interactions and conversions these campaigns have generated.

Modern call tracking has two forms. Both forms will be discussed in this blog. To give practical examples, the example below applies in more detail.

“Qasper is an entrepreneur who spends money on online marketing. He opts for Google Ads and print marketing in the form of brochures to generate more leads for his business. Qasper wants to know if his investment is profitable enough and decides to use call tracking.''

Dynamic call tracking

The most common and advanced form of call tracking is called dynamic call tracking. The technique is explained below:

First, a piece of code is installed on your website (can be done via Google Tag Manager) that is linked to your own pool of phone numbers.

When visitors land on your website, every visitor sees a different phone number (these numbers are automatically replaced by our intelligent script on every page of your website).

When a visitor decides to call, they are immediately redirected to your organisation's landline number.

Finally, we link session data from each visitor to the called telephone number and show this contact moment within Google Analytics, Google Ads and other systems. This enables you to find out the search, surf and call behaviour of your website visitors.

First, a piece of code is installed on your website (can be done via Google Tag Manager) that is linked to your own pool of phone numbers.

When visitors land on your website, every visitor sees a different phone number (these numbers are automatically replaced by our intelligent script on every page of your website).

When a visitor decides to call, they are immediately redirected to your organisation's landline number.

Finally, we link session data from each visitor to the called telephone number and show this contact moment within Google Analytics, Google Ads and other systems. This enables you to find out the search, surf and call behaviour of your website visitors.

Marketing and dynamic call tracking

Do you remember Qasper the entrepreneur? His marketer uses dynamic call tracking to measure the search, surf and call behaviour of (potential) customers. In addition to the fact that the call took place, he receives the following data:

• The source of the visitor (dynamically traced: Google organic, Direct, Google Ads, LinkedIn, etc)
• Paid keywords & campaigns (Integration Google Ads and Microsoft Advertisement - coming soon)
• The session data of the visitor -Referrer -Active page of calling -Day/time of calling (heatmap for budget optimization) -Device

offsite call tracking

The simplest way of call tracking is explained below:

First, a static/fixed tracking number is assigned to a campaign (e.g. brochure).

Once a potential customer decides to call this number, they are immediately redirected to your organisation's fixed number.

Finally, the call is registered as a conversion within our dashboard, Google Analytics, Google Ads and other systems.

First, a static/fixed tracking number is assigned to a campaign (e.g. brochure).

Once a potential customer decides to call this number, they are immediately redirected to your organisation's fixed number.

Finally, the call is registered as a conversion within our dashboard, Google Analytics, Google Ads and other systems.

Marketing and offsite call tracking

Qasper's marketer uses offsite call tracking to measure the telephone response to his Google Ads call extensions and brochures. As a user, you get insight into the following call data:

• Phone number
• Call source (Manually assigned by the marketer for example: Brochure 2020)
• Call status (Successful or Missed)
• Call recording
• Date/time
• Call duration

The above call data is included as standard in dynamic call tracking. Both techniques can be easily integrated within 10 minutes through our plug & play integration.

Summary

By applying both forms of call tracking, as a marketer you make a 'deep dive' into the telephone channel, as it were. You uncover previously hidden conversions and dive into the customer journey of a lead. You gain insight into essential touch points such as which advertisements, marketing channels, campaigns, mails, keywords and landing pages convert the best. This allows you to make targeted decisions when it comes to budget allocations and provides you with the tools to calculate a complete and reliable ROI.

Curious about the possibilities? Then give us a call! We are happy to think along with you.