Phone Call Tracking: A Brief Introduction


V12 Marketing Concord NH CallRail Phone Tracking

Many businesses rely on phone calls as one of their main sources of leads. But are they doing everything they can to track the source and quality of the calls?

When tracking phone calls, the extent of necessary analytics is dependent on the size and industry of the business.

Obviously, websites strictly dealing in e-commerce will have much less of an incentive to track and segment every single one of their incoming phone calls. On the other hand, a local home contractor, especially one that has a longer customer lead life, and a complex purchase process, may benefit greatly from tracking their calls.

As a CallRail Certified Partner, V12 Marketing is well-equipped to consult clients on phone call tracking best practices.

Phone call tracking can also be thought of as a form of conversion tracking. The related data can also be imported and tracked alongside traffic metrics in Google Analytics. And just like tracking form fills and webchats, these inbound phone calls to a business can be tracked and attributed by marketing channel.

The Many Marketing Channels

Channels such as Google Organic Search, Social Media, Paid Advertising, tell a different story for the user getting in contact.

Other lead sources should also drive phone calls, such as direct mail pieces, signage, and tradeshows. Using a phone call tracking tool like CallRail allows for the creation of multiple tracking phone numbers that forward to a single business line. We can then attribute the source of the lead by the number dialed to the marketing collateral. It also grants the option to record calls, and then we can later review the audio for quality assurance.

For example, if a business is running a local billboard, creating a phone number for that individual placement tells us which calls rang directly from it. Then, we can calculate a more accurate return-on-investment as time progresses.

And, with CallRail’s JavaScript snippet or WordPress plugin, businesses can have a phone number dynamically swap on their website depending on the referring source.

If a user visits from a Google Organic search, they’ll see one number, but if another user clicks on a display ad, they will see an alternative number. This can be further expanded on and combined with marketing automation tools, such as search advertising keyword-specific phone numbers. Or, if integrated with a CRM, phone numbers can be displayed depending on the user’s lead score.

Next Steps

If it sounds like a lot of work, you are right, it can be, but it’s fairly simple to get started. CallRail (and other similar call tracking tools) are easy to get set up, and then instantly generate valuable data.

We usually recommend starting with one phone number to get the process down, and then expand from there. V12 Marketing will also integrate these real-time notifications and reports with Slack, so not only are leads getting instantly verified, but both teams are kept in the loop, and can respond accordingly.

Do you want to get set up with CallRail? Give us a call or send us a message, and get a free project consultation, AND a free 30-day trial of CallRail!