When you’re asked about the progress of your marketing efforts, your mind might initially jump to metrics such as impressions, clicks, CTRs, and conversions. However, when compelled to consider the true efficacy of your endeavors in marketing, you start to delve into the realm of revenue metrics. This reveals a nuanced picture: connecting revenue to marketing goes far beyond basic understanding. It’s a deep dive into your leads’ actions, considerations, and behaviors, extracted from a multitude of channels, both paid and organic, and spanning both online and offline interactions.
So, in 2024 when all the businesses are trying to adapt to a multi-channel approach while cookies and privacy regulation can create huge data gaps, Marketer’s life has become way more difficult and complex. That’s why understanding the true ROI has become a complex puzzle.
In this article, we will explore how call tracking can significantly improve your ROI and provide actionable steps to implement this valuable tool. This guide will provide you with the necessary knowledge and tips to increase your ROI using call tracking. By leveraging the insights gained from tracking phone calls, you can make informed decisions, optimize your marketing efforts, and ultimately drive more conversions. So, let’s dive in and discover how call tracking can take your marketing strategy to new heights.
What is Call Tracking?
Call tracking is a system that records information about incoming phone calls. It goes beyond the basic caller ID to provide deeper data such as the source of the call, the caller’s journey on your website, call duration, and conversion outcomes. For marketers, this means you can attribute phone calls back to specific marketing efforts, whether that’s a pay-per-click ad, a billboard, or an online campaign. By attributing calls to the correct marketing channel, you gain clarity on what’s working and what’s not. This actionable intelligence allows for refined marketing strategies and improved allocation of advertising budgets. In essence, call tracking bridges the gap between online and offline marketing, ensuring that every customer interaction counts toward understanding phone call ROI.
Key Metrics: Decoding the Real Impact of Phone Calls
Understanding key metrics is crucial in assessing the true impact of phone calls on ROI. One vital indicator is call volume, which shows the raw number of calls generated by each marketing channel. However, quantity doesn’t always equate to quality. The conversion rate from calls is a more telling metric, as it reveals how many calls actually lead to sales or desired outcomes.
Average call duration can also offer insight into customer engagement and interest level. Longer calls often suggest a higher likelihood of conversion. Additionally, tracking first-time callers versus repeat callers can help you understand how well your marketing attracts new leads versus retaining existing customers. By analyzing these and other metrics, such as caller demographics and peak call times, marketers can fine-tune their strategies to enhance phone call ROI and contribute positively to the overall success of their campaigns.
Calculating Call Tracking ROI
To calculate call tracking ROI accurately, you need a clear process. Start by determining the total cost of your call tracking system and any associated marketing campaigns. Next, track the number of leads generated from phone calls and note how many of these leads turned into paying customers. Assign a value to each conversion by considering the average customer lifetime value or the average sale amount.
With these figures, calculate the total revenue generated from the calls and subtract the total cost of the call tracking system and marketing efforts. The result is your net profit from call tracking. Finally, divide this net profit by the total cost and multiply by 100 to get your ROI percentage. This process will give you a concrete understanding of the financial benefits call tracking brings to your marketing efforts, justifying its use in terms of phone call ROI.
A Step-by-step Process to boost ROI with Call Tracking
Step 1: Activate Dynamic Number Insertion
Dynamic Number Insertion (DNI) is a concise piece of code integrated into your website, responsible for dynamically swapping phone numbers to allocate unique ones to visitors. It gathers essential data to monitor a caller’s interactions and journey before, during, and after a phone call.
Upon a visitor’s arrival on your website, a tracking number is assigned from a pool of available numbers. Consequently, each individual browsing your site perceives a unique phone number throughout their visit. Once they depart, the phone number is released, becoming available for assignment to the next visitor.
DNI ensures that each visitor encounters a specific phone number associated with their session, facilitating the accurate attribution of incoming calls to respective marketing sources, campaigns, ads, keywords, and so forth. Question that you can effortless answer with DNI include:
- Which Marketing Channels are Driving Calls?
Marketers can determine which specific marketing channels, such as online ads, SEO, social media, or email campaigns, are driving the most phone calls. This insight helps allocate resources effectively to the most impactful channels. - What Keywords or Ad Variations Trigger Calls?
Call tracking allows marketers to identify which keywords or ad variations are prompting phone calls. This helps refine keyword targeting and optimize ad campaigns for better results. - Are Calls Resulting from Mobile or Desktop Visitors?
Marketers can distinguish whether the majority of calls are coming from mobile or desktop visitors. This information aids in tailoring mobile and desktop experiences to better serve user needs. - When Do Calls Occur Most Frequently?
Call tracking reveals the time of day, day of the week, and specific periods when calls are most common. This data assists in scheduling ad campaigns, optimizing staffing for call centers, and delivering timely customer support. - Which Pages and Content Lead to Calls?
Marketers can identify the pages and specific content that users engage with before making a call. This helps optimize website content and user journeys to encourage more conversions. - How Effective are Different Click-to-call CTA Placements?
Call tracking allow you to add custom parameters so that you can track every minor detail of your phone calls. In this case you can add parameters to your different click-to-call ctas to see what works better for you (e.g. cta on header, in the middle of the page or footer) This knowledge guides cta placement decisions for maximum impact. - Are Calls Converting into Sales?
Call tracking can reveal whether calls generated from specific marketing efforts are translating into valuable outcomes such as sales, appointments, or other conversions. - What is the Quality of Phone Leads?
Advanced call tracking tools can analyze call recordings to determine call quality, helping marketers understand if calls are leading to meaningful interactions and conversions. - Which Marketing Touchpoints Influence Callers?
Marketers can assess which combination of touchpoints across different channels lead to the most calls. This holistic understanding informs multi-channel marketing strategies. - What’s the ROI of Marketing Campaigns?
By correlating call data with sales data, marketers can calculate the return on investment (ROI) of various marketing campaigns and efforts. - How Can Call Handling be Improved?
Call tracking data provides insights into call duration, call routing, and the quality of conversations. Marketers can identify areas for improvement in call handling and training. - Are Callers New or Returning Customers?
Call tracking enables marketers to distinguish between new callers and those who have interacted with the business before. This insight helps tailor marketing strategies to cater to both types of customers. - How Many Calls Does it Take to Close a Sale?
Call tracking data can reveal the average number of calls it takes for a lead to convert into a sale. This information assists in understanding the typical customer journey and refining strategies to shorten the sales cycle. - How Many Touchpoints Lead to a Sale?
Marketers can determine the number of touchpoints across different channels (such as website visits, emails, and ads) that a potential customer interacts with before making a purchase. This insight guides the design of effective multi-touchpoint campaigns. - Which Actions/Campaigns Generate the Highest-Value Leads?
Call tracking enables marketers to discern not only which actions or campaigns are generating the most leads, but also which ones are yielding the highest-value leads. This distinction is crucial in prioritizing efforts towards strategies that result in leads more likely to convert into valuable outcomes, such as sales or long-term customer relationships.
Step 2: Set up Call Recording to better classify your leads
Call recording is another powerful feature that allows for the qualitative analysis of calls. It can provide insights into customer sentiment, common questions or objections, and overall call handling by staff. Integrating call tracking with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can also create a more comprehensive view of customer interactions and sales funnels.
Listening to call recordings, in the first place you can easily identify how agents handle your calls and whether further training is required to meet your standards. Secondly, call recordings can reveal very significant lead insights to help your business better understand their needs which can further help you in lead management & classification.
Step 3: Right Reporting for true ROI
To truly optimize ROI with Call Tracking, it’s essential to delve deeper than just counting calls. You should be evaluating the quality of interactions by tracking metrics like call duration and caller intent. Longer calls often indicate a higher level of customer interest or a more in-depth inquiry, which could lead to increased conversion rates.
Analyzing the time of day and the day of the week when calls are made can help in staffing decisions and campaign timing, ensuring you’re reaching your audience when they’re most responsive. Call outcome tracking is also crucial; not all calls result in sales, so understanding the conversion rate is vital for measuring true ROI.
Additionally, recording and reviewing calls can provide insights into customer needs and sales team performance, allowing for targeted training and process improvements. Ultimately, focusing on these detailed metrics provides a more nuanced view of campaign effectiveness and helps refine strategies to maximize phone call ROI.
Step 4: Google Sheets integration
Real-time analytics is one of the best things in the Marketing world. The same applies to Google products! Call Tracking brings those two together with its Google Sheets integration.
The integration with Google Sheets enables you to push your caller data to your online spreadsheets in real-time to create custom reports, but also keep your partners and team members informed on the campaign progress. Last but not least, you can use your spreadsheet to automate your Google Ads offline conversion tracking, by seamlessly sending sales value to your Ad account.
Yet, its functionality doesn’t end here. In case you are using Google Data Studio for your reporting, Google Sheets will do the dirty job sending in one place all your call data.
Step 5: Place & Format your numbers
Strategic Numbers Placement: A Game Changer
The strategic placement of tracking numbers can be a game changer in optimizing call tracking for higher ROI. It’s crucial to place your numbers where they are most visible and likely to be used by potential customers. On your website, consider the header, footer, and contact page as prime real estate for your tracking numbers. In digital advertisements, ensure the numbers are prominent and clickable for mobile users.
For offline marketing materials, such as print ads or billboards, place tracking numbers where they catch the eye and are easy to remember or write down. Additionally, use different tracking numbers for various campaigns to gain clear insights into which placements are driving the most calls.
By analyzing the performance of each placement, you can refine your strategy to focus on the most effective locations, thus increasing call volume and improving your phone call ROI. This targeted approach ensures your marketing efforts are not only seen but also acted upon.
Format your tracking Numbers
It’s the details that make the difference… Even the way your tracking numbers show up on your website. What does this mean?
By default, tracking numbers are displayed on your web page with no formatting (e.g. 19172849439). Wouldn’t be easier for your visitors to dial something like this: +1 917 284 9439
It’s a really tiny detail, but in fact, adds to the overall user experience. Besides, it can be implemented in no time following these simple steps.
Step 6: Integrate Call Tracking with Google Ads
Linking Google Ads with your call tracking system presents a powerful opportunity to understand how your online advertisements lead to offline conversions. By using Google Ads’ call extensions, you can add trackable phone numbers to your ads, which enables you to collect data on calls generated directly from search results.
When a prospect clicks on the call extension, the call tracking system attributes the call to the specific ad and keyword, allowing for precise measurement of which elements in your campaigns are most effective. Integrating Google Ads with call tracking also enables you to track conversions from calls as you would with online actions, providing a complete picture of your advertising ROI.
This integration allows for more informed bidding strategies and campaign optimizations based on the phone call ROI, contributing to a more efficient allocation of your marketing budget and an overall increase in campaign effectiveness.
Optimizing Google Ads with call tracking unlocks the potential to drastically increase campaign performance. By monitoring which ads generate calls, you can focus your efforts and budget on the ads and keywords that deliver results. This not only improves your phone call ROI but also enhances the effectiveness of your overall ad spend.
Use call tracking data to refine your ad copy and targeting options. For instance, if certain keywords are driving high-value calls, you can increase bids for those keywords or use them in ad copy to strengthen relevance. You can also schedule your ads to run during times you receive the most calls, ensuring maximum visibility when your audience is most likely to engage.
Furthermore, call tracking can help identify trends and caller intent, which can be leveraged to create more personalized ad experiences. When you optimize your Google Ads campaigns with call tracking insights, you’re not just guessing—you’re making data-driven decisions that lead to tangible improvements in campaign ROI.
Final Thoughts
Ignoring call tracking in today’s data-driven marketing landscape can be a costly mistake. Without it, you’re essentially flying blind, missing out on crucial insights that could drive your marketing decisions. Call tracking allows you to understand which aspects of your campaigns are working and which aren’t, enabling you to allocate your budget more effectively for better ROI.
Without the visibility that call tracking provides, you risk wasting money on ineffective campaigns, missing opportunities to connect with your audience, and losing valuable leads. In a competitive market, the ability to quickly adapt and optimize marketing strategies is vital, and call tracking provides the data needed to do so.
In conclusion, the cost of not implementing call tracking is not just the loss of potential insights—it’s the loss of business growth opportunities. As the marketing world continues to evolve, embracing call tracking is not just recommended; it’s necessary for success.
Remember, call tracking is a journey of ongoing improvement and optimization, and your commitment to this journey will play a crucial role in enhancing your maximing ROI efforts.
Nimbata offers a Free 2-Week Premium Trial in order to test out our product and see if it fits your needs – no CC required. If you want to see it by yourself start your free trial here. Otherwise, feel free to contact us and we will help you maximize your ROI with Call Tracking!
