Call tracking is a way to measure the effectiveness of advertising channels based on incoming calls to your company.

The definition I gave above is, to put it mildly, “incomplete.” According to it, you only know the number of calls, not the number of purchases. But in the online format, this affiliate marketing tool reveals its full functionality, and the substitution of a mobile or other phone number occurs automatically.

That is, in addition to knowing which advertising medium (banners or flyers) the customer came from, you will know how much they purchased. And that means you can calculate the ROI of each advertising channel. Based on this data, you can either disable the ineffective channel or invest a larger budget in the effective one.

Therefore, in its full form, a call tracking system is an assessment of the effectiveness of advertising channels using analytics of incoming calls. From this, we can conclude what tasks it is most necessary for:

• Assessing the effectiveness of advertising channels;
• Assessing the effectiveness of operators/managers or call centers;
• Studying the costs of attracting customers within each channel;
• Evaluating the ROI of each advertising channel;
• Changing/redistributing advertising budgets across effective advertising channels.

And yes, you can come up with other tasks for it, such as call distribution — it’s all up to you. But initially, its main task is to determine the effectiveness of advertising and sales managers.

How call tracking works?

There are special systems that allow you to track visitor conversion not only offline, but also online. More precisely, that’s how it was. Initially, they were created for offline use.

But over time, with the development of the Internet, these programs have evolved into full-fledged web analytics, tracking a huge number of indicators for each call from customers coming through the Internet. So now let’s look at how both formats work.

– Offline

Each channel is manually assigned a number, and all calls coming to it are also manually tracked.

By implementing call tracking on your landing page, you can track a call and find out which phone the customer used to make the call, which number they called, obtain a recording of the conversation, its duration, the caller’s data, and understand which advertising path they came from.

Of course, this is not interesting if you have few callers. But I there are many, then special reports are configured based on this data:

• The exact number of calls (including answered and missed calls);
• The exact number of calls for each advertising channel;
• Initial and repeat calls (even for each caller);
• Successful calls that can be tracked down to the keyword.

– Online

Let’s imagine a situation. A person finds your company’s ad in contextual advertising. They go to your website. The moment they enter the resource, a specific phone number is generated for them, which is assigned to a group of ads in an advertising campaign (contextual advertising).

If the customer makes a call, then with a configure end-to-end analytics and/or CRM system, the data is processed and entered into the customer’s file, where you can

see their entire journey: which advertising channel they came from, which keyword they used, which page they landed on, how long they talked to them, how hot they are, etc. In short, everything you need to know about them and more.

Types of call tracking

I think I have convinced you that call tracking is an excellent tool for analytics. Now, I should give you an overview of how to implement it. However, first, I will tell you about the different types so that before you get involved, you know exactly which call tracking to choose for yourself.

1. Static call tracking.

It is mainly used to analyze offline advertising, rarely for analyzing it on the Internet. You are allocated a certain number of numbers, which you manually distribute among your advertising channels as you wish.

The main problem with this approach is that it is only designed to track the traffic channel. And to track its source (keyword, specific banner, etc.), you have to buy too large a pool of numbers, which makes it extremely unprofitable.

Therefore, analytics based on this method of call tracking is not in-depth and is suitable for small companies that only need to see which channels are working in their favor and which are not, without going into detail.

2. Dynamic call tracking.

This is used for online advertising. It differs from static call tracking in that it allows you to track the effectiveness of each ad, not just the channel as a whole.

Depending on the traffic to the site, you are allocated a certain number of numbers. And now, pay attention, here’s the main difference! They are automatically distributed among visitors. And the number cannot be given to another visitor until it is displayed (and reads data) from the first one.

That is, everything happens completely automatically. All data is read while the visitor is on the site (during the user session) and transmitted to the analytics system (such as Google Analytics). There, thanks to detailed reports, the marketer can optimize advertising campaigns and the site itself.

The main drawback is that the accuracy of this data is 70-80%, since the number redistribution system operates non-stop. It is necessary to take into account both new visitors and visitors who have already been on the site and seen a specific number. This is where the complexity lies.

3. Promo code method.

This approach does not use phone numbers. Rather, only one is used, your personal number. Visitors who come to the page are assigned a specific code/promo code, which can be used to track their path to the site.

And here everything depends on your operators/call center. If a visitor decides to call or request a callback, they will need to ask about the promo code and enter it into the CRM (and I think you know that they constantly forget to do this).

This method is considered the most accurate (it is much easier to generate a code than to assign a specific phone number). But the need for constant staff supervision greatly reduces its effectiveness.

Important. If you think you will need to buy 5-10-15… or more phone numbers and put such a huge number of handsets in front of the operator, then I will reassure you. All calls are forwarded to one phone—yours—or to your multi-channel PBX according to special rules.

How to implement call tracking?

In the case of low traffic flow and evaluation of offline advertising only, it is enough to use 2 SIM cards and a phone with the ability to use two numbers simultaneously.

But with a comprehensive and large-scale approach, you cannot do without special software. I will not give you step-by-step instructions for setting up the tool. Not because I don’t want to or am too lazy, but simply because there is no point. In all the programs I mentioned at the beginning of the article, you will find ready-made and visually appealing instructions for implementing call tracking.

In addition to the instructions, the customer service department will contact you and, if necessary, do everything for you. In general, the implementation process can be divided into four stages:

1. Decide on the appropriate type of call tracking.

2. Find a service.

3. Install the counter code received in your personal account on your website.

4. Use the software and successfully optimize your advertising campaigns.

Tips for working

In fact, they are always available on the platform of the system you decide to use. I will leave a few tips that may not be obvious at first glance, but will help you increase the effectiveness of using the tool.

• Number verification

When choosing software, always ask who they purchase numbers from and how clean they are. And, of course, check them yourself manually to make sure they are dialable. This is important because it can cost your company money. After all, if 30% of your phone’s working time is taken up by callers from the spam database, normal customers will not be able to reach you and will go to your competitors.

Just for a moment, remember how much it costs to call one customer to your office/store? The same thing can happen if call tracking rents numbers from a telecom provider. Everything seems fine and dandy. But if the provider has an accident, it will take a long time to resolve the issue.

• Different call purposes

Don’t forget to configure them, as by default the system transmits only one purpose – all calls, and this is not enough to understand the effectiveness of advertising. For example, four calls from one customer can be mistakenly counted as coming from different customers.

• Listening to conversations

For a contextual specialist, listening to conversations is a chance to hear the audience and understand how they perceive the advertising they have set up. Of course, you don’t need to listen to everything. You can filter out only those that come from contextual advertising, for example, recently launched companies.

• Core expansion

Use call recordings and their sources to improve various components of the site, such as the semantic core. By analyzing them, you can draw conclusions about keywords that bring untargeted traffic.

• Savings

If you see from the statistics that there are few calls (people write more in the chat or leave forms). But at the same time, you have more than 5,000 sessions per day, you want to track the sources of calls, but buying additional numbers is unprofitable. In this case, implement an inexpensive but effective method: simply hide the number on the website and replace it with a feedback module. Of course, you will still have to pay, but you will definitely save money.

• Appearance

As a rule, companies try to use attractive numbers that are easy for users to remember. Calltracking suggests that you forget about this. No more general attractive numbers. Either attractiveness or analytics.

BRIEF SUMMARY

The eternal question: to use call tracking or not? After all, there are many marketing tools, and trying to understand each one can be overwhelming. Setting them up yourself is even more challenging. And you need a budget for each channel.

Maybe it’s not worth it? For example, if I have an online store, why do I need call tracking? With properly configured contextual advertising, I will see that the person who made the purchase came in through a specific keyword. And with a configured CRM system, I will know everything about this customer in the future.

That’s true! But if you are not an online store, but a regular B2C or B2B business, then call monitoring, even in its most basic form, is a must-have. After all, research shows that 73% of customers prefer to call a company directly before making a purchase, which means you need to track advertising channels, whether online or offline.