Marketing professionals continually seek ways to bridge the online gap in customer behavior. One of the most effective solutions is call tracking. This powerful tool connects the dots between digital campaigns and real-world engagement, enabling marketers to understand how their efforts drive phone calls, leads, and, ultimately, revenue.
Consider how important the phone channel remains: 80% of consumers prefer it for immediate questions and support. Call tracking provides attribution analytics to optimize this critical interaction point.
If you’re curious about what call tracking is, how it works, and how you can use it to supercharge your marketing campaigns, this guide is for you. We’ll dive into the essentials of call tracking software and why it should be a cornerstone of any savvy marketer’s technology stack in the digital age. You’ll learn how call tracking can help you:
- Quantify the campaigns influencing valuable customer calls
- Uncover keyword opportunities driving phone conversions.
- Set up call-scoring rules to categorize promising leads.
- Integrate with CRM for personalized engagement.
- And continually optimize spending, driving quality interactions.
Let’s explore the capabilities that make call tracking one of the most potent weapons in a growth marketer’s analytics arsenal.
What is Call Tracking, and Why Does it Matter?
At its core, call tracking refers to specialized software enabling marketers to connect the dots between marketing campaigns and valuable phone calls. It works by assigning unique tracking numbers to different online and offline marketing efforts—also known as campaigns. When a prospect calls that number, sophisticated call-tracking tools attribute that call back to the corresponding campaign source.
But why do call attribution for call tracking work and phone conversions matter for marketers?
In an analytics-driven era, tracking offline call interactions prompted by digital marketing provides marketers with an invaluable complete picture of campaign performance. Call tracking software and analytics make it possible to answer pivotal questions like:
- Which specific campaign iterations prompted quality customer calls?
- How effective are your current digital marketing promotional efforts in generating inbound calls?
- What keywords, landing pages, geographies, ad versions, and more are truly driving phone call leads?
Armed with these insights from call tracking data, savvy marketers can continuously shift budgets towards tactics and assets influencing meaningful prospect calls. At the same time, poor-performing elements can be refined or removed altogether. This ends guesswork, and drives call quality in the most efficient manner possible.
Advanced call tracking platforms even distribute phone calls while simultaneously using whisper technology to access CRM data and screen pop caller info to agents in real-time during rings to instantly personalize conversations. This combination of attributing calls to media sources while enhancing customer experience through CRM alignment demonstrates the power of call-tracking solutions available today.
With the ability to finally connect call outcomes to multi-million dollar digital ad budgets, call tracking and analytics have become an essential technology for data-driven marketers to optimize spend and improve ROI across both online and traditional channels. The potent capabilities of call tracking unlock enable increased visibility into the entire customer journey.
The Benefits of Call Tracking
Call tracking and attribution provide definitive visibility, tying marketing efforts to quality phone calls. For growth-focused marketers, call analytics tracking is now an essential tool to fuel critical optimizations.
Here are 5 compelling reasons why call tracking capabilities are now considered “must-have” instead of “nice-to-have”:
- Confidently Attribute Inbound Calls to Campaign Sources
Sophisticated call tracking enables precise attribution by assigning unique phone numbers to each digital campaign, keyword, referral site, and traditional offline media like TV, radio, and billboards. Identifying which assets prompt inbound calls eliminates guesswork and drives efficiency. - Continuously Optimize and Improve Marketing Spend
By attributing phone calls to their originating sources, marketers gain clear evidence quantifying campaign influence on driving calls. This allows analysts to double down on the highest converting elements through improved landing pages, messaging personalized to caller needs, and shifts in paid search bids and budgets towards top-generating keywords. Underperformers can be paused or discarded altogether. - Enhance Omnichannel Customer Experiences
Integration with CRMs like Salesforce enables real-time screen pops for agents showing relevant campaign details, prompting inbound calls during rings. This omnichannel alignment personalizes conversations from the first “Hello” through relevant context.
- Connect Call Outcomes with Downstream Conversions
Call tracking numbers synchronized with platforms like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads Manager, and marketing automation tools illustrate customer journeys from media clicks to call requests to sales pipeline influence. This drives smarter optimization that is aligned with revenue generation.
- Continually Refine Marketing Campaigns Driving Calls
Technology innovations even provide automated call and speech analytics at scale. Machine learning uncovers contextual insights around topics driving calls, customer sentiment, common objections fielded, agent performance metrics, and competitive intel to guide digital marketing. This voice-of-the-customer intelligence fuels constant optimizations using phone conversions as the North Star metric.
For today’s modern and sophisticated marketing stack, call tracking and attribution are now the essential ingredients proving campaign influence on driving high-value prospect calls. ROI confidence and visibility provided through call analytics simply don’t exist within traditional web analytics platforms alone. It’s an unmatched catalyst now fueling data-driven marketing.
Call Tracking Metrics: 8 KPIs That Matter
To transform call tracking data into tangible business growth, marketers need clarity regarding the most vital KPIs that demonstrate campaign health, engagement trends, and revenue influence. Below are the key metrics to focus on:
1. Call Rate by Source/Campaign
This metric highlights the volume of calls driven by each marketing source or campaign, making it the most critical KPI for understanding the impact of your efforts. Analyzing call rates by source helps marketers:
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Identify the most effective channels.
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Refine budget allocation.
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Optimize underperforming campaigns.
2. Total Call Volume
Tracking total monthly inbound calls provides intuitive signals about campaign resonance and persona intent. Best practices for analyzing this metric include:
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Cross-channel comparisons.
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Identifying spikes aligned with specific campaigns, geos, or lead-gen ads.
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Expanding consistently high-converting elements through broader media placement, personalized creative, and complementary lead nurturing.
3. Average Call Duration
Call duration correlates with prospect engagement. Calls lasting 5-10+ minutes typically indicate qualified leads, while shorter calls may signal a messaging gap. To calculate:
Leveraging the advantages of call-tracking software platforms like CallRail and Invoca, marketers can filter reporting by duration thresholds to isolate warm segments primed for sales prompting. Short call scenarios point to a possible messaging gap needing refined copy approaches.
4. Percentage of New Callers
The percentage of first-time callers vs. repeat inquiries offers insights into campaign reach and audience freshness. A plateau may indicate channel saturation. To calculate:
5. Call-Specific Conversions
Optimizing for revenue requires tracking calls that lead to conversions. Integration with CRM and sales software enables comprehensive attribution. Benefits include:
6. Rate of Call Abandonment
Excessive dropped calls or long wait times frustrate potential customers. To calculate:
Tracking this metric helps identify inefficiencies in handling call traffic and allows teams to make necessary adjustments, ensuring a smoother customer experience and minimizing frustration.
7. Cost Per Call Conversion
This metric demonstrates ROI by analyzing the cost of generating call conversions. To calculate:
By examining CPCC trends across channels, marketers can optimize budget allocation between digital and traditional formats. Comparing conversion influence per dollar spent enables alignment of resources to the highest-performing media, maximizing profitability.
8. Keyword Attribution Rates
Keyword tracking ties specific search terms to downstream calls, enabling:
To maximize marketing ROI, modern call tracking solutions now provide comprehensive reporting, translating captured data points into insights within customized dashboards.
However, focusing analysis on the metrics detailed above provides the necessary North Star, allowing for continuous incremental optimization guided by the voice of the customer call signals. What used to be a siloed metric now steers omnichannel personalization excellence at scale.
How to Optimize Paid Search with Call Tracking
As paid search marketers pour increasing budgets into platforms like Google Ads, many still lack clear visibility into what happens after website clicks occur. Fortunately, integrating call tracking software now closes the online-to-offline intelligence gap – optimizing spend further by connecting phone calls back to exact keywords, match types, landing pages, ad creative, bids, and more.
Attributing Inbound Calls to Specific Ad Groups
Through dynamic call tracking number insertion, unique phone numbers are automatically shown with paid search ads followed through customer experience. Configuring tracking numbers by campaign, ad variation, keyword, and other attributes assigns clear attribution when engagement occurs via post-click phone calls. This quantification guides improved targeting.
For example, marketers may discover a specific metro campaign resonates better with professionals while another persona responds more to mobile search bids. Aligning call data with granular ad components highlights optimization pathways.
Increasing Bids on High Call-Converting Keywords
Certain search terms organically drive downstream calls better than other semantically similar keywords. Common examples include questions formed using “when to” phrasing or geotargeted modifiers. With call analytics integrated into paid search platforms, analysts confidently boost bids on proven call-prompting terms, which is evident through each additional data point captured from inbound phone calls by tracking number.
Concentrating budgets on substantiated converters increases overall program efficiency over guessing.
Refining Ad Copy & Landing Pages to Boost Call Rates
Like pay-per-click keywords, not all ads convert equally, even within the same account targeting identical terms. Through A/B testing content versions against call quality KPIs like duration and transfers, copywriters derive patterns pushing engagement. Maybe calls increase when listing physical locations first or including urgent deadline details?
Both theory and data now guide creation through call-tracking analytics. Going further, understanding which post-click landing pages influence call rates shapes what follows clicks across devices to maintain interest.
Combining call tracking and paid search unlocks observable decision-making often obscured in manual bid adjustments alone. This visibility accelerates learning for analysts to drive more of the caller actions that revenue teams covet through continually optimizing inputs using call signals. What was a guessing game has now become a data-backed science fueling efficiency.
How to Set Up Call Tracking
For businesses seeking enhanced visibility into phone call engagement prompted by their marketing, implementing dedicated call-tracking software unlocks game-changing visibility. By following this phased approach, brands can methodically activate capabilities.
Step 1: Select Reputable Call Tracking Provider
Like any martech platform, choosing call tracking technology aligned to use case complexity and scale requirements is imperative for extracting value long-term. Marketing teams assessing options should consider areas like:
- Analytics Quality: Prioritize platforms that provide holistic and actionable reporting, not just number provisioning.
- CRM Integrations: If centralizing customer data into Salesforce or HubSpot is the goal, ensure telephony connectors enable whisper screen pops and call logging sync.
- Use Case Expertise: Some call tracking providers specialize in legal marketers, localized SEO or other niche applications so identify the best fit.
- Innovation Roadmap: Continually advancing tools that apply conversational AI, custom dashboards, and enhanced integrations provide future-proofing.
Step 2: Set Up Dynamic Number Insertion
Foundational call-tracking capabilities involve configuring and embedding virtual phone numbers across digital assets. As visitors browse pages with unique numbers the platform can distinguish sourcing.
For paid search analysts, numbers automatically populate within ad extensions. Using call tracking software provides caller context.
Website integration inserts numbers dynamically on pages through Flags. Site analytics managers gain visibility, attributing engagement to specific on-site actions.
For marketers managing offline media like TV, connecting call data to broadcasts involves manually displaying platform-provided numbers in visual assets.
Step 3: Connect Platforms for Holistic Analysis
Marketers can multiply attribution insights by piping call indicators into existing databases like Google Analytics and Facebook Business Manager using integrations to combine records with broader site behavioral and CRM data.
Step 4: Continuously Optimize Campaigns
Ongoing review of call tracking dashboards filtering data by source, number, pages, ads and other attributes provides observable signals about channel health and iterations influencing customer actions.
Noting trends to identify high-performing elements compared to distractors for improvement or pausing becomes possible. Call tracking allows businesses to base decisions on call intelligence.
Follow this blueprint to launch call tracking capabilities methodically – gaining confidence before expanding use cases. Soon, call data accelerates omnichannel optimization and personalization excellence powered entirely by understanding the voice of the customer signals.
Top Call Tracking Software on the Market
With proven ROI gains realized from call intelligence, countless vendors now provide tracking and analytics – making selection difficult. Below is an overview of notable solutions fitting common modern marketer use cases:
1. CallRail
The most versatile option offers an ideal balance of accurate attribution combined with holistic analysis – going well beyond basic tracking. Robust integrations with marketing platforms like Google Ads and Salesforce satisfy data unification needs for closing attribution gaps.
Best for: Marketing agencies, small businesses
2. CallTrackingMetrics
Feature-rich analytics tailored specifically to paid search specialists parallel the workflows of platforms like Google Ads and Bing. Everything needed for optimizing call rates, quality, and downstream conversion funnel impact by granular PPC elements lives within CallTrackingMetrics.
Best for: Paid search optimization
3. WhatConverts
Specializes in campaign conversion tracking – quantifying both digital interactions alongside offline phone calls. Advanced multi-touch attribution modeling methodology exposes marketing influence on deals. This appeals to cross-channel leaders seeking channel value clarity.
Best for: Cross-channel analytics
4. Marchex
Pioneering speech analytics applied through AI now auto-transcribes calls at scale to extract insights around operational metrics, sentiment, churn indicators, agent performance trends, and other VOC data fields.
Best for: Enterprise contact center excellence
5. My Reports by Semrush: Reporting Data from Call Tracking Solutions
An automated customized reporting solution providing marketers templates to import campaign data from CallRail, WhatConverts, CallTrackingMetrics, Google Ads, Google Analytics, and 30+ platforms to showcase digital growth through easy-to-build visual dashboards delivered each month. This simplifies stakeholder reporting.
No matter the focused application – call tracking lifts marketing influence into executive visibility by connecting media investments to meaningful offline engagement signals through phone calls. Selecting tools aligned to the use case moves capabilities beyond novelty into indispensable analytics fueling observable optimization.
How to Report on Call Tracking
For modern marketing teams leveraging call-tracking software, synthesizing volumes of data across platforms into digestible reports can be daunting. Fortunately, solutions like My Reports from Semush exist to automate customizable reporting – saving analysts hours each period.
My Reports condenses call details from leading tracking tools like CallRail, CallTrackingMetrics, WhatConverts, and more, then combines performance indicators seamlessly with digital analytics from Google, and ad platforms, alongside CRM data. This unified visibility gets structured into automated, white-labeled reports configurable to unique business needs.
Key Capabilities Driving Efficiency
- Drag-and-Drop Report Builder. Flexible widgets let analysts visualize data just as needed, whether in charts, graphs, tables, or matrices, without dependencies on IT or developers. Reporting is instantly adaptable.
- Custom Report Automation. Once report layouts are set, users can schedule delivery via email to relevant stakeholders on daily, weekly, or monthly cadences based on the use case, replacing manual upkeep.
- AI-Generated Insights. Artificial intelligence analyzes changes between reporting periods to call out trends in key metrics, surface data-backed next-step recommendations, and identify areas for potential optimization or enhancement automatically.
100% White Labeled Reports
The dashboard canvas enables full content and design customization aligned to brand style guidelines – meaning clients viewing packaged results see an authentic extension rather than a third-party tool.
With My Reports, call tracking software usage now scales efficiently across departments, teams, and customer-facing use cases through automation, unification, and personalization, transforming call intelligence into readable reporting assets ready for immediate presentation. This simplifies adoption enterprise-wide.
Harness the Power of Call Tracking for Marketing Excellence
Call tracking represents so much more than just reporting software – it’s a pivotal analytics catalyst unlocking game-changing customer intelligence and campaign visibility once elusive for data-driven marketers.
Sophisticated call-tracking solutions transform once-siloed metrics around phone engagements into indispensable guidance, optimizing digital and traditional programs equally through connecting media spending to offline interactions.
By tracking every call back to prompt marketing assets and then combining comprehensive call quality indicators into existing data stacks – leaders now implement observable improvements informed entirely by voice-of-the-customer signals. This is the holy grail of closed-loop optimization.
So whether you are an agency consolidating channel influence reporting to demonstrate steadfast ROI or an enterprise contact center leveraging conversational AI at scale – call tracking fuels extreme personalization.
The technology leapfrogs marketing KPIs from superficial to meaningful by intersecting digital, offline, and voice data focal points. This advances metrics from vanity into actionable growth catalysts.
To realize the potential, track the influence of the marketing campaign on driving calls and then unify the intelligence into automated dashboards through My Reports by Semrush.
