Why Call Tracking is one of the Most Important Marketing Metrics

Imagine that someone asked you this question: Are you making the most out of your marketing efforts? How would you answer?

For many small businesses, the answer would be the same. You have your tactics and your marketing methods in place. The online net has been cast far and wide, and you’re waiting to catch those new customers. And you’re pretty successful, too! The customers have started rolling in, thanks to a solid online marketing plan.

This is great and it means you’re on the right track. However, how do you know which of your marketing efforts were the most effective hook for your customers? By tracking important marketing metrics, you can discover which methods are generating the most leads for your business.

One of the key marketing metrics that you’d be crazy to overlook is Phone Call Tracking.

What is Phone Call Tracking?

Phone call tracking is the simple solution that helps you make sense of your marketing campaigns. The technique uses a tracking mechanism that can be seamlessly embedded into your website. As soon as it’s installed, it gets straight to work to bring you the key marketing metrics you need to know.

Follow the trail of your inbound calls and know where they’re coming from. Using straight-forward methods, you’ll be informed of where a call originates from and which campaign is driving those calls. You can also give your SEO a boost by developing your understanding of Google Analytics key metrics. Which keywords are visitors using to find your website? With the right information, you’ll be equipped to add even more depth to your marketing efforts.

By tracking metrics that matter, you’ll be able to hone in on specific campaigns. You can save time and energy on the less effective campaigns, and focus on the ones that work for your business. Every company is different, and something that pushes results for you, may be useless for the local business next door.

The primary purpose of a marketing metric is to measure the quantitative results of your marketing drive. Phone call tracking gives you the means to identify the source of your callers, call volume over time, call span and repeat callers. With this information, you can make informed decisions about the most effective marketing strategies.

Why Call Tracking is one of the Best Marketing Tracking Tools

If you’re thinking of taking your marketing tracking to the next level, you could be well on your way to maximising your campaigns! Here are some reasons that call tracking is one of the most important marketing metrics in today’s complicated world of business.

Measure a Precious Form of Communication

Many PPC campaigns measure conversions by online form submissions, instead of by calls. Lots of marketers run off the assumption that most customers prefer to contact a company digitally, but this isn’t always the case. Phone calls are important to your customers because it gives them a chance to communicate immediately with an actual human, to find out answers to their questions about availability, price and service. Then maybe – just maybe! – that call will convert into an actual customer.

Many businesses find that calls are worth much more than form-fill leads. In fact, 65% of businesses find that phone calls are their number 1 most valuable source of leads. For that reason, you should count inbound phone calls as a key marketing metric.

Test and Tweak your Campaigns

You can’t set up a new marketing campaign and then abandon it. Leaving a campaign to run its course without close supervision can cause it to fall flat. You need to keep a close eye on it, and you do that by tracking conversions. By tracking conversions, you stay on the right road to making informed decisions.

Important decisions like allocating costs and choosing keywords, as well as A/B testing will only be successful with the proper tracking of key metrics. Of course, you can make these decisions without taking marketing tracking into account, but you’ll be going in blind. Ensure you always have the full picture, by monitoring ALL conversions.

Find Out Where your Customers Come From

It’s so helpful to gain quick, valuable insight to the ways in which your customers can find you. Measure the effectiveness of your landing page, banner ads, website design and PPC ads. By monitoring which aspect of your campaign is bringing in the most leads, you know where to focus your money and efforts.

This is also an ideal way to get to know your customers a little more. Are they a social bunch, and mostly find you via Facebook? What sorts of things are they searching for, and what information are they hoping to find by looking for you? Call tracking can also provide details like the time of call and the geolocation of that particular caller.

Consumer knowledge is a major component of any business. You can’t put a price on knowing what your customer wants and being able to tailor your services to exactly that.

Keep up with Current Trends

The iPhone is celebrating its 10th birthday this year. Since it hit the stores and its popularity soared, it has changed the way consumers behave. Smartphones give people the means to search for everything on-the-go and instantly find information. Lots of websites also have a click-to-call option. This has caused the number of inbound calls to companies to dramatically increase.

Make sure you’re not letting these calls slip through the net without gaining some solid tracking metrics. A huge portion of your marketing results will come through inbound phone calls, so don’t let the times run away from your business. Your competitors are already doing it, so why aren’t you?

Save Money

There isn’t a company out there that wouldn’t jump at the chance to save some dollars. If you’re spending money on paid search campaigns, you expect to get something back from them. You’re paying to generate leads, but you’re also paying to generate information. By tracking conversions via phone calls, you know where to focus those resources. You won’t be able to gauge how much revenue your paid campaigns are generating without tracking calls.

Looking towards keywords, you’ll be at a huge advantage if you know which keywords successfully convert for your business. When you have that information, you know where to direct a bigger chunk of your budget. Spending money wisely will save you money in the long-run.

Improve Customer Service

A high number of your customers would rather talk to a representative on the phone, instead of filling out a form and having to wait for a response. Tracking calls and keywords can give you an unmatched understanding of your customer’s behaviours and desires. You’ll know where they’re coming from and exactly what they’re looking for. You might find new information you can use to make progressive changes.

It’s also a good idea to record those calls. Listening to how your team interacts with customers can show you where there’s room for improvement. Referrals are the most cost-effective way of generating new leads, so customer service is key.

Back up your Campaign

It’s easy for campaigns to flop if marketers are only focusing on how well a website generates online leads. You need the full picture to make informed, data-based decisions. If you only monitor online metrics, it may seem as though a campaign is performing poorly. In fact, this campaign could be pulling in the most leads for your business. You just don’t know it, because most of these leads come from inbound calls.

Measure the true performance of a campaign for added confidence in what works.

Which Industries Should Consider Call Tracking?

We understand that every business is unique. The industry you’re in is often a determining factor to decide which types of marketing metrics to go for. You, and your customers, probably use the phone to make purchases more often than you realise. There’s a massive chance that your business would benefit from monitoring conversions from calls.

If you’re in any of the following industries, you should definitely consider call tracking as a useful marketing tracking device:

• Home Services –It’s more likely that your customers will use a phone to fulfil their needs, rather than a computer. In the last 6 months, 62% of smartphone users completed a purchase using their mobile. Make sure you’re putting the right keywords and ads out there to beat your competitor, and don’t forget to add a phone number to encourage calls.

• Dental and Medical Services – People often only visit a dental or medical surgery during emergencies. Potential patients rely on their smartphone search and a click-to-call action to get their problems sorted in double time.

• Law – You may not notice your ROI if you don’t track phone calls. In the legal industry, each and every phone call is important as it could generate a heap of profit for the business.

• Real Estate – Choosing where you live isn’t a straight-forward decision. Your customers are likely to prefer to have a conversation on the phone, instead of filling out a form and receiving a delayed reply. Track where these calls are coming from to focus your business plan.

• Hotels and Travel – Phone calls are critical to the travel and hotel industries. Conversions are less valuable if you can’t track them, and you may lose customers if you don’t strive to understand their habits.

• Education – A child’s education is one of the most important decisions for every parent. It’s going to impact their future, so they’re going to want to do their research. Educators should be tracking calls from concerned parents to make an impact with their paid search and get ahead of their competitors.

• Automotive – Whether your customers are looking to buy or fix a car, make sure they come to you. Cars are expensive, so people usually prefer to speak to an expert over the phone. Track these calls to see how your customers managed to find you.

• Many other industries … –This list is by no means exhaustive. If your industry isn’t on the list, that does not mean you shouldn’t see phone tracking as an important marketing metric. Contact us to find out how call tracking could make an impact on your business.

Get a Key Tracking Programme for your Business

The importance of call tracking for local businesses should never be underestimated. You wouldn’t bake a cake with only half of the ingredients, so why embark on a marketing campaign with only half of the information?

One Stop Media can make sure you’re keeping account of the most important marketing metrics. We offer simple marketing tracking tools to embed into your website so we can give your campaigns the insight they need for an added boost. Adopt useful scientific techniques in your analyses, because guesswork never got anyone anywhere.

When you let One Stop Media take care of your full range of marketing campaigns, we can devise the right strategy for you. We know what works and we have a comprehensive knowledge of the most up-to-date marketing metrics list.

Our approach to phone call tracking is simple, and you’ll see results straight away. We’ll take care of the installation and we don’t charge for setting up the tracking number. We use a two-pronged policy that ensures that nothing is missed:

• Call tracking at source – We set up a phone number for your online and offline marketing campaigns. This number gives you all the information you need, including the source of that phone call. With your new knowledge, you’ll understand which campaigns are driving the results you want, and which campaigns need tweaking.

• Call tracking by keywords – This tracking tool gives you insight into which keywords you should focus on. Keyword tracking shows you which searches your visitors are using to find your website. These keywords can then be used as part of your SEO, to rake in even more relevant visitors.

While we recommend adding call tracking to your digital marketing, don’t forget about other types of marketing metrics! We have the experts on-hand to optimise your marketing campaigns, so you get the most out of it every single day.

From email analytics, to web analytics, to sales tracking and more, we can advise you of the most important marketing metrics for your particular business. Get in touch for a chat with one of our technical specialists and let us help to power up your business with the right key tracking programme.