It’s 2023. The internet has reduced barriers in sales processes and a customer’s journey is simplified today with the ability to make a few quick clicks online. Despite the accessibility of information across the world today, however, phone calls still play a vital role in converting a lead into a sale, especially for expensive and complex products and services. Connecting the dots to understand the customer journey during these longer, more involved purchase cycles is crucial in order to identify what’s working (and what’s not) at any point in the purchase cycle. That’s where call tracking comes in. Keep reading to understand why call tracking is essential and what we recommend using!
Utilize Call Tracking in Paid Search For Maximum Insights
Paid Search campaigns (especially those using smart bidding) are quite literally dependent upon conversion data to succeed. If inbound phone calls are an essential part of lead generation for your business it’s quite possible that by not having call tracking in place you are leaving a lot of business “on the table”. If you are not tracking and attributing phone leads to the sources that drove them, marketing teams may opt to reduce ad spend in areas that have driven those strong phone calls since the data is not available to make those strategic decisions. It’s essential to consider every touch point along the customer journey in order to have the whole picture and allocate budgets appropriately.
At a minimum, advertisers can use Google Ads numbers to track calls from ads paired with call assets (fka call extensions). Google Ads call tracking is a free solution that uses Google forwarding numbers paired with conversion tracking to record how effectively Google ads with call or location assets lead to phone calls. A conversion is recorded when a call lasts a predetermined amount of time, which you set. A call asset appends a phone number to Google text ads and can significantly increase clickthrough rates. The extension is clickable on a mobile device and is charged the same as an ad click.
However, let’s talk about how to track beyond the call to understand what happened after a prospect picked up the phone. Enter: a full-service call-tracking provider. A 3rd party call-tracking service, like Invoca, combined with your CRM and Google Ads call reporting will give you the ultimate understanding of what kind of leads campaigns are driving for your business. Invoca is an AI-powered Call Tracking Software that requires the user to add a small line of code to their website and uses dynamic number insertion to track calls from all sources instead of just Google Ads. This type of call-tracking solution comes at a cost but provides a much fuller picture of how marketing campaigns influence the sales pipeline.
At Seer, we’ve worked with clients to build dashboards using data from all 3 sources that illustrate exactly how many phone calls from our Google Ads campaigns actually resulted in a lead. This has been incredibly valuable, as when we initially launched call extensions, it was nearly impossible to prove if users clicking on our call extensions were resulting in business.
Call length is another key metric that can provide a lot of insight into search intent across your active keywords. Take a look at call length in relation to user location and/or campaign themes to identify segments of traffic that never convert. Don’t waste your sale team’s time with these misguided callers- you can evaluate the relevance of the traffic segment driving junk calls and either remove the call extension from the campaign or pause the campaign altogether. Although I’m a fan of trusting your gut, I trust data more. Let the hard numbers tell you what’s working and what’s not, and listen to them.
[TIP] Upload offline call data to create the entire picture
Choose the Right Call Tracking Provider for Your Company
There are several questions to ask your marketing team when you’re deciding on a call-tracking solution, especially when it costs money.
- “What percentage of revenue comes from phone calls?”
- “Can our call center field calls from Google and Bing search volume?”
- “What are we willing to / have the budget to spend on a tool like this?”
Seer Can Help
When considering what call tracking solution is right for your business, be sure to consider the whole picture. The actions of a customer, and especially of a lost lead, may seem insignificant, but it may just be the puzzle piece you’ve been missing.
Unsure which solution is right for you? Want to learn more about optimizing your Paid Search strategy? Speak with a Seer team member today and ask about our call tracking vendor matrix!
Want more posts like this? Subscribe to the Seer Newsletter:
