Call tracking has become a more affordable and effective investment for every business venture. More and more consumers use their smartphones to search online. Hence, websites are now equipped with click to call links and targeted location or consumer based campaigns to improve their marketing strategy. 

Call tracking involves keeping track of phone calls in relation to your business venture to record information, such as phone numbers, location of the caller, digital marketing origin of the call, and even the actual phone conversation, and analyzing this information to help benefit your business. 

How call tracking works and its benefits for businesses

Call tracking is a great way to help any business improve its market strategy. Businesses usually employ platforms such as Google AdWords and Analytics, but these platforms fail to accurately measure real-time online conversions and goal completions. There are several interested buyers online that find filling forms tedious and would much rather speak to the company itself. Through call tracking, businesses can keep track of relevant information from phone calls in order to improve their marketing strategy and improve their online presence and success.

1. Dynamic number insertion

Organizing phone numbers and being able to group numbers with the same source is one of the benefits of call tracking. Dynamic number insertion is a feature that determines the source of your caller and automatically assigns a specific phone number based on that source. This allows any business owner to organize calls and attribute calls from one source to another.

Through this feature, visitors are assigned the same phone number regardless if they search through PPC ad or organic search, and their calls are assigned so you will be able to attribute the call with a specific source.

2. Recording calls

Recording calls deliver several useful information to any business. Any business owner can obtain the following information:

• Attracted market – Through recording calls, businesses discover which group of people are more likely to become interested in their products. This way, business owners can focus on the consumer market already interested in their business. Moreover, this helps business owners improve on the market area that they attract less in order to expand their business scope.
• Feedback – Recording information can help give feedback about your products, services, or about your whole company in general. Both interested and regular consumers are likely to voice their comments and suggestions through phone calls. Moreover, some might even ask questions relating to things that may confuse them about your product. Businesses can use this information to improve their products and possibly work on suggestions that may be brought up by regular customers. In addition, information obtained through recording calls can be used to optimize business marketing projects and induce training ideas to improve employee output and customer service. 

3. Determining marketing ROI

With the availability of several platforms, apart from online advertisements, to market your business, it would be practical for any business to determine the best platform that delivers the highest return of investment. Fortunately, through call tracking, businesses can determine which marketing platform is the best investment.

Businesses can place their contact numbers in several marketing platforms such as television and radio commercials, billboards, posters and print ads, flyers, or other traditional advertising outlets. Thereafter, based on the calls from each corresponding marketing strategy, businesses can choose which advertisement platforms to invest in and which ones to forego.

By measuring this information, businesses are able to save money and invest in projects that help improve their presence not only online but through other effective platforms.

4. Keyword level call tracking

Knowing the reason behind every call regarding your business is crucial to have a full understanding on which areas to focus to improve market reach. Call tracking includes the feature called keyword level call tracking. This feature allows a business to track which keywords are commonly used by visitors to reach your business and create traffic on your website. When a visitor calls your business, their information is delivered to and processed by Google Analytics and Google Adwords, allowing any business to easily track phone calls as conversions. The combination of keyword level call tracking and Google Analytics and Adwords allow businesses to determine which keywords are most advantageous to their cause and help them focus on creating and implementing marketing strategies based from their collected data. 

5. Multichannel attribution

Call tracking may include Multichannel attribution, which is a feature that records your customer’s online behavior. Before Multichannel attribution, businesses relied only on keyword level call tracking by analyzing the keywords that attract or lead customers to their businesses. However, due to the improvement of call tracking software programs, several programs now provide businesses the option to track their customer’s entire online behavior. Information such as every relevant touchpoint that led to the phone call to your company can be obtained.

Through this information, businesses can understand their consumers better. In addition, analyzing their customer’s behavior helps them not only to improve their marketing strategy but also generate new ideas to help improve their products.

What to consider when investing in call tracking

After learning the benefits of call tracking, it is now time for your business to start investing in this new form of technology. One thing to consider in call tracking is to invest in a software program or online service that can help manage your calls for you. There are several call tracking software programs online for any business to choose from. Here are some few tips to consider in choosing a call tracking software.

Call management

An effective call tracking software allows a business owner to effectively manage calls without having to stress about incoming phone calls throughout the day. It is best to look for software programs that can provide an effective and easy to use call management system.

There are several things to consider in understanding your call management system.

• Find a call management system that is able to schedule calls. You can consider scheduling calls to your own phone or to the phones of your employees or co-workers during designated hours of the day.
• Craft a menu for every call for callers to easily reach the services that they need. An interactive menu in every phone call can direct the caller to a specific person in your company who can address the caller’s concern.
• Find a management system that allows calls to be forwarded to several phone numbers simultaneously. This is to make sure that every call gets answered and no customer is missed.
• There are certain call tracking software programs that feature custom call flows. This feature organizes each call making sure that they are answered by the right agent.

Data organization and integration

A good call tracking software program allows your business’ data records to be integrated with several marketing, sales, and analytics software programs. Information obtained and recorded from your business’ phone calls can be encoded with programs such as Adwords, Google Analytics, Hubspot, and other consumer insight and feedback reporting outlets.  This way you will find it easier to analyze information without having to jump from one existing account to another.  

Information access and use

A good call tracking software is one that allows its user to easily access information or data recorded. There are several software programs online that allows its user to obtain information of calls in real time. This means that when a customer calls any of your company’s phone numbers, the software program will immediately input the source of the call as well as other information about the caller. Some software programs provide for information such as caller ID information, call and text history, and even web activity from the moment the call is made.

Moreover, remember that software programs are created to make managing and analyzing information obtained easier. Hence, it is important to consider software programs that help the user to easily sort and analyze data reports, and easily export and save reports for future reference.

Tracking outbound calls

A great feature to consider in choosing a call tracking software program to invest on is outbound call tracking. Outbound call tracking allows any business to easily follow up on calls made by customers or to call back missed calls. This feature allows your business to improve its responsiveness to customers and allows for a faster lead response time to customer calls thereby improving overall interaction with your customers.

Conclusion

In general, call tracking technology records relevant information or data to help improve your business’ marketing strategy and overall service. However, one thing to consider in investing in call tracking technology is to choose the right kind of call tracking software program, and in choosing one there are several features to keep in mind. Indeed, more and more consumers are using their mobile phones to contact businesses online, hence investing in call tracking technology is truly the first step to enhancing any business venture. 

John Taylor is a long-time professional with over two decades of experience in analytics and communications technology. He works as the Senior Data Analyst at Fone Dynamics, a leader in call tracking, voice, and SMS communication. When John steps out of the office, he loves to spend time with his family and bike riding.

eletter-04-12-2018

eletter-04-13-2018